If Peyton Manning's Neck Injury Is Career-Ending, Where Do Colts Go from Here?

The news just continues to get worse for fans of the Indianapolis Colts.

Thursday afternoon reports started hitting the Internet that star quarterback Peyton Manning had undergone cervical fusion surgery on his neck. Manning's timetable for return is two to three months at a minimum, but the injury could potentially spell the end of the four-time MVP's career.

Manning made the decision to undergo the procedure after consulting with a half-dozen doctors and determining it was the right course of action.

If this injury is career-ending where can the Colts possibly go from here?

Clearly Indianapolis had planned on keeping Manning around for a long time. They recently inked him to a five-year, $90 million contract and haven't invested money in a backup quarterback at any point during Manning's career. He was set in stone there. I mean heck, at the time the Colts signed him a few weeks ago, they were certainly thinking, "he's Peyton Manning, he's the NFL's current iron man, he'll never miss a significant chunk of time."

Whoops.

As of now, Kerry Collins will step in and quarterback the team, at least in the short-term. After this season if it becomes clear that Manning will not be around, the Colts will certainly make every effort to get to the top of the 2012 NFL Draft in order to select Stanford's Andrew Luck. I doubt their record this year will be bad enough to have the top pick, so they'd likely have to work a trade in order to move up. It would be costly, but Luck might just be worth it.

If Luck isn't an option, then the Colts will either have to hope there is another quarterback in the draft they believe in (Oklahoma's Landry Jones and USC's Matt Barkley are possibilities) or that they can swing a trade or free agent deal with someone worthy of being a starter.

The Colts aren't a particularly young team. They are built to win now as long as they have a competent signal-caller. If Manning is indeed done and won't ever be back, Indianapolis will have to consider blowing things up and starting over by building up a solid base of young talent. That would be a hard pill for Colts fans to swallow, given the fact that the team has made the playoffs in eight straight seasons.

But without Manning, the Colts simply won't be the Colts and a re-inventing of the franchise would need to begin. That was going to happen eventually, but I don't think anyone expected it to come this soon.

If Manning's current neck injury is career-ending, things could look very different in Indianapolis next season.

Here's hoping this isn't as bad as some are suggesting and he can get back to playing football soon. The NFL and the Colts just wouldn't be the same without Manning under center on Sundays.