Are the Colts Merely Rushing Manning Back so They Can Boost His Trade Value?

With the recent announcement that Peyton Manning's neck is healing and that he can begin throwing the football, speculation about his future in Indianapolis has only increased.

While Colts executive vice chairman Bill Polian intimated that Manning and potential first pick in the draft Andrew Luck could coexist on the roster in 2012, there is good reason to believe that the team really wouldn't want both Manning and Luck together next season. 

I'm not going to argue that the Colts are just trying to boost his trade value (Polian can have puppet-master tendencies, but I don't think he's that nefarious). But I do think that the Colts have good reason to show the rest of the NFL that Manning is capable of playing at a high level.

Here are the key reasons why the Colts may be thinking that trading Manning will be the best option:

- Manning will be owed a $28 million roster bonus in March if he's with the Colts. That is a huge financial hit to take on a quarterback who has had two neck surgeries in the past year. The risk seems too large to swallow, even for a quarterback who has done more for the franchise than any other player.

- Luck is the type of talent who can become a franchise quarterback in short order. Having two quality quarterbacks who both take up a large amount of cap room doesn't make too much sense.

The most analogous situation where a situation like this actually worked was in Green Bay when the team drafted Aaron Rodgers at No. 24 when they already had a Pro Bowl-quality QB in Brett Favre.

The difference in Indianapolis will be that Luck is a No. 1 pick who should be expected to play early in his career. Rodgers, as a later first-rounder, had the luxury of having fewer expectations on him in the early stages of his career.

- The Colts have too many holes elsewhere on their roster to spend lots of money on two quarterbacks. Their "oh-fer" season has exposed the paltry depth on this team.

Their defense is sorely lacking in talent and their bench isn't deep enough to have anyone good on special teams. Their offensive line is patchwork and make too many mental errors.

Manning's excellence covered a multitude of flaws the past couple of seasons. The Colts desperately need to turn their attention to other aspects of the team, and it would be much more difficult to do that if they have two highly-paid quarterbacks on the roster.

- As columnist Bob Kravitz at the Indianapolis Star recently pointed out, Manning may not even want to play for a team that is in the shambles that the Colts find themselves right now. Their head coach is ineffective, their executive team has missed on too many high draft picks recently and it will take more than a year to get this team back to contention with the amount of problems that they have on defense.

If this is true, why keep on guy on the roster who doesn't want to be on the team? Instead, the Colts should be thinking about getting as much value as they can for Manning. It's not so far-fetched after all that they would want to show that he can still play at a high level.