Report: Manning Offered Deal To Become NFL's Highest Paid Player
(CBSSPORTS.COM/Will Brinson) -- Lost in all the NFL's offseason concerns is a problem looming for the Colts -- Peyton Manning is a free agent. There's good news on that front, as Indianapolis has reportedly extended the first offer to Manning.
The deal that the Colts slid across the table to agent Tom Condon and Manning, according to ESPN, would make him the highest-paid player in NFL history. It also, reportedly, is "more lucrative" than Tom Brady's recent four-year, $72 million deal and has a bigger signing bonus than Brady's $48.5 million.
However, time's pretty limited for Indy and Peyton -- at 11:59 PM on March 3rd, the league year will end and teams will not be able to sign players to new contracts until the labor negotiations are resolved. Both sides (Manning and the Colts, that is) apparently believe a deal will be reached within the next month, but the Colts are reportedly willing to place the franchise tag on Manning, even though doing so would mean paying him more than $23 million in 2011.
Additionally, the franchise tag isn't guaranteed to survive a new labor deal, but the Colts value Manning enough that they're willing to take the chance rather than allow him to hit the open market after the 2010 season.
Part of the Colts' proposal, according to the report, involves giving Manning less money (but still making him the highest-paid player in NFL history) in order to maintain financial flexibility to bring in more outside talent and beef up the team's chances of winning another Super Bowl in the Manning era.
That seems like a pretty good angle to take with Manning -- although he's obviously one of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks, there's no question that he's aware how much his legacy would be improved with multiple titles. Given how much money he has in his bank account already (hint: a lot), it stands to reason that if he could become the highest-paid player in the NFL and beef up Indy's shot at winning, he'd be interested.
And of course, there's the matter of whether or not the Colts are wise to cough up so much money for one player. The quick answer: Yes. The longer answer: there's a very good reason why Manning has so many MVP awards -- he's really valuable. Without him, Indy could have won some games the past few years, but there's no question that he's the primary reason why they've established an AFC South dynasty over the last few years.
