NFL Free Agent Rumors: Peyton Manning Should Choose Arizona over Denver

Rumor has it that Peyton Manning's decision on where to spend the 2012 season is down to two teams—the Arizona Cardinals and the Denver Broncos. By all indications, the Cardinals need him a lot more than Denver does.

Sports Illustrated reports that Manning is done visiting teams and it's between those two. He is expected to announce his final decision this week.

Though both teams already have quarterbacks, there's one difference: Denver's Tim Tebow is developing into a promising prospect after parts of two seasons as a starter; Kolb, who will be 28 by the time the 2012 season starts, has yet to establish himself as a viable starter in the league.

Would the Broncos be better off with Manning than Tebow? Maybe, but the region has united around Tebow in a way it hasn't since John Elway was on the field.

Sure, it would unite around Manning, too, but until very recently, it seemed as though Denver was committed to making Tebow the quarterback of the future.

Not to mention the fact that the Broncos revised their entire playbook and scheme to fit Tebow's strengths, which do not include throwing the football. He's the polar opposite of Manning, and if the Broncos decided to go with Manning over Tebow, they'd have to change up the whole game plan yet again. 

If John Elway's unwillingness to commit to Tebow for the foreseeable future wasn't obvious before, it is now—but the Cardinals need Manning more. What if things didn't work out for Manning in Denver? Fans would always question what would've happened if the team had stuck with Tebow.

Arizona, on the other hand, has nowhere to go but up.

This is not to say that Kolb can't work out in the long run for Arizona, but in 2011—his most productive year to date—he went 3-6 in nine starts after coming over from Philadelphia and threw for nine touchdowns.

In other words, the Cardinals are in no way committed to him and it would be totally understandable if they decided they wanted to go in a different direction.

Playing in Arizona would also give Manning the opportunity to play with Demaryius Thomas and Larry Fitzgerald. Though injuries have prevented him from developing into a full-time starter, Thomas showed flashes of brilliance last year, starting in five games and garnering 32 receptions for 551 yards and four touchdowns. Giving him a quarterback like Manning is the smartest thing the Cardinals could do.

And then there's Fitzgerald, who has long been one of the top receivers in the league. A career Cardinal, Fitzgerald has had five straight seasons of 1,000 yards or more but hasn't hit 100 receptions or double-digit touchdowns since 2007.

Putting him and Manning on the field together would spell doom for the rest of the league.

Above all, though, if Manning picks Denver, the media blitz about the Tebow Sweepstakes is going to be unbearable to listen to for the next two months.

So please, for the love of God, pick Arizona, Peyton.