Peyton Manning Is Bad for Your Favorite NFL Team. Is That Even Possible?

Could acquiring Peyton Manning be a bad move for your team?

That is an impossible-sounding question. Peyton Manning one of the best QBs to ever play in the NFL. If healthy he could.....

Let's stop the train right there. We just named the Million Dollar Question. Can Peyton Manning successfully play an entire NFL season in good health? We won't even worry about multiple seasons. Just the 2012 season. What do we know already?

Peyton Manning will be 36 years old on March 24th.

Peyton Manning has had three neck surgeries, that we can confirm. He might have had a fourth neck surgery as well.

We are assuming that Peyton Manning is back to full strength based on a YouTube video and words from the man himself. (Because when has the Internet or an athlete lied to us?)

You cannot underestimate the risks here. If you commit a serious portion of your salary cap to acquire Manning, that's a risk. If you change your offense to better fit Manning and his preferences, that's a risk. If you acquire players specifically to play with/for Manning, that's a risk. If you choose to allocate your resources towards Manning and then you lose him to injury, you're in a world of trouble.

But injuries are a tricky business. Chris Weinke successfully returned from similar surgeries. Garrison Hearst returned after being sidelined for two seasons. Rob Gronkowski tumbled in the draft because of a spinal condition. Players can return from serious injuries. Players can play with higher-risk medical conditions and succeed at the highest levels.

So the best-case scenario happens and Peyton Manning looks to be healthy and back to his old self. Now the fun begins. It's all about pressure. Manning's agent will look to exert pressure on teams by leveraging them against one another. Manning himself will most likely apply his own pressure by staging a workout and watching the footage "accidentally" leak out onto the Internet.

Then there is the pressure on the individual NFL franchises. And on their fanbases. The promise of Peyton Manning should appeal to the fans of almost every NFL team. But much like The Highlander, "there can be only one." Many fans are going to feel scorned by Manning when he doesn't choose their team. Or the fans will look to shift blame to the front office and ownership of their team.

We haven't even gotten into what could happen in NFL locker rooms. How will Mark Sanchez feel if the Jets bring Manning in for a workout, but fail to sign him?

How many NFL veterans will be scared for their jobs at the expense of Manning? They might be cut to create cap room to sign Manning. Or they could be released because they will not fit into the new offensive scheme. Not to mention Manning will most likely want a couple of "his guys" on the offensive coaching staff.

For struggling teams with no options—hello, Redskins—there's not really downside to chasing Manning as a short-term fix at QB if the rest of your roster is ready to win right now. Why not? Assume such a team signs Manning. Now what?

The billboards will go up. All available tickets will sell out almost instantly. The team will see itself on TV in prime time more than originally. The futures odds on the team will change significantly. You know what the end game of all this hoopla is? Expectations. Great Expectations, Pip. There's that pressure again.

It will be time to win. To win often and to win early. Anything less will be met by a 24/7 cycle of criticism on both The Worldwide Leader and Twitter. Don't believe me? Just look at what happened to the Philadelphia Eagles last season. That same fanbase that rabidly bought up those tickets and new jerseys can turn the other way almost as quickly.

If your team elects to be the guinea pig for The Peyton Manning Experiment, you have to know what it really is. In the absolute, super-optimistic, the world is rainbows, best-case scenario, you're looking at a three-season fix for your team. That's it. So after 2012, it's already time to start looking for a successor to Manning.

Any team that signs Manning will obviously want to be as successful as possible as quickly as possible. Looking to Manning's success with the Colts, that means molding the offense around him.

When Manning gets things the way he prefers, he's as good as it gets. But that's a big commitment to structure your offense around one player to such a high degree. Because as good as that Peyton Manning-led offense in Indianapolis was, we all saw what happened when Manning wasn't leading that offense.

That more or less concludes the "sky is falling" portion of our program. My point was to illustrate that the pursuit of Manning by itself could be costly, even if unsuccessful. My point was that even if your team gets Manning, success is not guaranteed, and your window for it is short.

Peyton Manning is easily one of the top-five QBs in NFL history. I fully believe that there is a situation out there where Manning can continue to play at that level for several years. He should make any offense better. But there are very few fits that will allow Manning to elevate an offense to an elite level. It will take a very specific combination of players, coaches and money.

No team is immediately set up to sign Manning and be 100 percent ready to go. There will be many personnel and schematic changes. That's why there is no clear-cut favorite to sign Manning right now. But that is also why Manning will make a decision very soon. He will want his new team to be able to sign certain free agents, so it's highly probable that Manning will sign before NFL free agency opens on March 13.

I hate to even make a guess about where Manning will land at that point. But this is the Internet after all. It's not polite to not have an opinion. My money is on the Miami Dolphins. Who knows if that's the smart money?

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