Why? If Manning has proven he can take any team to the playoffs, aren't you always one or two impact players away? If he is cleared to play, he will play for least three more years.
Do you really think Peyton Manning would have taken the Colts far in the playoffs? If at all? And saying he will play 3 years is a bold assertion.. just because he's healthy in 2012 doesn't mean he will be in 2013, 2014, etc. He's 36 with a significant neck injury, not 25. He's got 1 or 2 seasons tops IMO. Which is enough for a team that is on the brink of a championship, but not the Colts.. they are far removed from that. That window slammed shut the moment Manning was done for the year.. this was their last hurrah.. now they find themselves in salary cap hell, unable to keep their marquee FA's.. If QB was the only position of dire need for the Colts then .. absolutely I agree with you 100% - the Colts should sell off this pick and load up for a couple runs with Manning as his career winds down.. but they're not in this situation.. not even close.
NAHSTE said:
The Colts suck at drafting though. Keeping Manning prevents them from having to rebuild through the draft. He stays, free agents might want to sign, and you buy yourself time to wait for your draft picks (which you'd have a metric fuckton of if you traded the top pick, mind you) to develop. Assuming of course they don't keep making Donald Brown and Jerry Hughes type picks. But the more picks you have the lower the margin of error. Teams with poor draft records need that lower margin of error.
1.) Bill Polian sucked at drafting. He's gone.
2.) They can't sign FA's if Peyton Manning is still on the roster. At least the ones that would put the team over the top.
3.) The "more picks you have the lower the margin of error" thing isn't necessarily true if you swing and miss at drafting.. but back to point 1, maybe Grigson is going to be a hell of a GM come draft day - who knows?
NAHSTE said:
Oh yeah I forgot that they are discontinuing the quarterback model after Luck comes off the shelves. There will never be another quarterback worth drafting and developing, ever. It has been written.
There won't be another Andrew Luck type prospect to come out for awhile.. and if Manning works the magic you anticipate him working by staying, the Colts are not going to be in any position to select that player. Why prolong the fact you absolutely NEED a future at that position, just because Manning has been great for years? They 'lucked' out (pun not intended) by picking this year to completely bottom out - they have to take Andrew Luck. No doubt about it.
NAHSTE said:
Luck is good, yes, and there's a high probability he pans out ... but if Manning is healthy he will still be better for the next two years. He's the best QB in the NFL as long as he's breathing. Dumping that and going with a rookie is a downgrade. Trading the #1 pick allows you to make multiple upgrades. Selecting Luck with the #1 pick allows you to make no upgrades as well as an intentional downgrade. Why make your team worse if you don't have to?
I don't get this.. earlier you knock the Colts for sucking at drafting, now you want them to keep Manning, pass on the best QB prospect to enter the draft in at least a decade - and then get more picks? Not to mention - we have no idea what Andrew Luck will look like come 2012.. many wrote off Cam Newton, he did great. Many wrote off Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Andy Dalton - they did great. Sure Luck probably won't be Peyton Manning before his neck injuries, but that doesn't lessen their need for a young franchise QB to take the reins from 2012 to whenever he's done.
NAHSTE said:
Every team in the NFL fits that criteria. Being a team in the NFL, the Colts would do well to keep the QB that can take them to contender status, rather than the guy who miiiight be able to win 5-6 games and have a "feel good" rookie season.
The Seahawks, Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Texans, etc are all MUCH closer to the Super Bowl with Peyton Manning than the Colts would be. A 5-6 win season with hope for the future is better than 9-7, done in the first round of the playoffs, and having that Peyton Manning hourglass just about done.
NAHSTE said:
Yeah, but none of your reasoning makes sense. It's just something that people are accepting, throwing up their hands and saying "meh, it has to be done," when in actuality it doesn't. Typical groupthink based on media generated Luck hype, as well as a culture of fake GMs living on the internet.
My reasoning makes plenty of sense. It's why so many GM's do this very thing year after year. Teams that wait too long to sell off their aging players are usually the teams that hit rock bottom and have a hell of a time rebuilding (see St. Louis Rams, Oakland Raiders, Seattle Seahawks).. as opposed to the ones who do it at EXACTLY the right time and continue right where they left off (Green Bay, Philadelphia, New England).
It's not "groupthink" .. it's the fact Andrew Luck is a future superstar QB who is 21 and 100% healthy and the fact Peyton Manning is a current superstar QB who is racing towards the end of the finish line.