Peyton Manning Rumors: Washington Redskins Would Make Mistake by Signing Manning

With so much of the sports media's collective attention focused on Jeremy Lin, it seems somewhat foolish to write about anything not directly or tangentially related to professional basketball.

But last week, one story that merits further discussion slipped somewhat under the radar. That story is about an athlete who, for the majority of his career, has been even more of a household name than Lin has become over the past three weeks. It is about Peyton Manning and reports that the Washington Redskins are interested in signing him, according to Mike Jones of the Washington Post.

Manning is going to be remembered as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, but whether or not he will ever again play at an All-Pro level is highly questionable. He will turn 36 in March, an advanced age for any professional athlete. In less than two years, he has undergone at least three surgical procedures to repair a bulging disc in his neck—according to some reports, Manning has had four surgeries on his neck and may need another to remove bone spurs.

He has not played in an NFL game, preseason or regular, since January 2011.

Recovering from invasive surgical procedures is a challenge for an athlete of any age, and retaining the form one had prior to surgery is never a foregone conclusion. Some athletes claim that surgical procedures irrevocably change the body.

During a recent interview with ESPN’s Bill Simmons, former professional basketball player Larry Bird, whose Hall of Fame career was curtailed by injuries to his back and feet that required surgery, said “When you have surgery, you’re never the same.”

Simmons, who was conducting the interview in Indianapolis the week prior to the Super Bowl, astutely replied “That’s not a good sign for Peyton Manning then.”

Even if Manning is able to return and play at a high level, the contention that his presence alone can transform a team into a Super Bowl contender is somewhat dubious.

During his first 13 seasons in the NFL, Manning was blessed with many advantages. He played under a single offensive coordinator, meaning he never faced the challenge of having to learn a new playbook during an offseason. He also played under a single general manager, Bill Polian, who is considered one of the best evaluators of talent in the NFL and consistently surrounded Manning with players such as Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark that complemented his abilities as a quarterback.

In spite of these advantages, Manning only managed to lead his team to a single Super Bowl win in 2007, and the Indianapolis Colts’ Super Bowl run that year was largely due to the surprising play of the team’s defense, which held opponents to an average of 16 points per game during the postseason. Manning’s numbers that year were less than impressive; he threw two touchdowns, six interceptions and posted a sub-par quarterback rating of 66.8.

That’s not to say Manning is not a great quarterback or that he has never played well in the postseason—in 2009, he came within one mistimed interception of leading the Colts to a second Super Bowl title—but signing him in his current condition is somewhat akin to signing a talented college quarterback who has never seen a down of NFL action: It’s impossible to predict how well he will be able to play.

And yet, the collective wisdom seems to be that Manning would be a welcome addition to any of the teams that are purportedly interested in signing him.

The one thing a team can be certain that it will receive by trading for or signing Manning this offseason is a ton of publicity. Manning is still the most recognizable professional football player and one of the most marketable professional athletes today. If he is in fact able to come back, whether it is with the Colts or a new team, you can be sure it will command a significant amount of attention and almost certainly catalyze an increase in ticket and merchandise sales. It may be risky to sign an aging quarterback with an injured neck, but the payoff in media attention, revenue generation and general hype may be worth it for some franchises.

This is where the Redskins come into play. Under owner Dan Snyder, who has presided over the franchise since purchasing it from the family of previous owner Jack Kent Cooke in 1999, the Redskins have made a habit of signing recognizable free agents who are clearly past their prime. The phrase that is often used to describe the Redskins' approach to football is that they always “win the offseason,” meaning their free-agent signings tend to garner the most significant offseason attention even though the team’s in-season performance is consistently horrendous no matter what players end up sporting the burgundy and gold.

Despite Snyder’s willingness to spend big bucks on ex-stars from Deion Sanders to Donovan McNabb and recognizable coaches from Steve Spurrier to the previously retired Joe Gibbs, the Redskins have had only three winning seasons during Snyder’s tenure and been reduced from a perennial contender to a bad punch line.

To understand how far the Redskins have fallen you have to go back to a quote from a 1994 Washington Post article by Richard Justice discussing the then-upcoming Redskins season. In that article, Justice wrote “For the first time in more than a decade, no one thinks the Redskins have a chance to go to the Super Bowl.”

Under current head coach Mike Shanahan and general manager Bruce Allen, the Redskins have, with the exception of the McNabb signing, broken with tradition by opting not to pursue high-profile free agents and by remaining committed to building the team through the draft.

The results of this approach have been less than staggering. Under Shanahan, the Redskins have finished 6-10 and 5-11. Since Snyder is known for being somewhat impatient—he fired Marty Schottenheimer after one season in which the team finished 8-8 and showed marked improvement down the stretch—it should come as no surprise to Redskins fans that their team is once again considered a contender to nab the highest-profile free agent of this offseason.

What Redskins ownership and management should realize is that trading for Manning would be a colossally foolish move and that the risk of failure far outweighs the possible rewards. To get Manning, Washington would probably be forced to give away several draft picks and/or talented young players. In return, they would get a player who is way past his prime.

The Redskins are at somewhat of a crossroads. Their fervent and loyal fanbase has grown tired of Snyder’s penchant for signing big players and the popular sentiment with the Washington metropolitan area is that signing Manning would be a mistake.

In Miami, another city that is rumored to be a potential Manning destination, fans and sponsors paid for a billboard urging the Dolphins to sign the aging quarterback.

In Washington, DC, fans have taken to Internet message boards to protest the idea. Even Mayor Vincent Gray dismissed the idea while speaking to a local television station.

Rather than trade for an aging, injury-saddled superstar and hope for the best, current Redskins management would be wiser to follow the template set by former Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, the only coach in NFL history to win three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, none of whom have made the Hall of Fame.

Gibbs achieved a high level of success without ever having a franchise quarterback because he and general manager Charley Casserly understood the importance of non-skill position players. They built a dominant offensive line that wreaked so much havoc on opposing defenses that it seemed like Gibbs could plug almost any quarterback or running back into his system and still have success.

Long-time inhabitants of the Washington metropolitan area know that even before the NFL became America’s most popular professional sports league, the Redskins were always the region’s most popular team. Fans remain loyal, but if the team continues to stink it up year after year, it may only be a matter of time before that loyalty wanes. Washington is a fickle town that embraces change every few years, and fans need something to cheer about after almost two decades of awful football.

The idea of signing Manning and giving this Hall of Fame-bound quarterback the opportunity to reinvigorate one of football’s historic franchises may sound tempting, even somewhat romantic, but it simply is too risky of a personnel move. Shanahan and Allen would be better off sticking with the plan they have established of accumulating young talent through the draft.

If they keep it up, they might even end up repeating another Washington tradition: winning the Super Bowl without a Hall of Fame quarterback.