Spano: Peyton Manning has too much pride to be a backup, should retire

Peyton Manning has controlled everything in his career, from the type of offense that his teams ran to the type of players that make the team, to the plays that are called in the game. Last year, Julius Thomas’ father even said that “John Fox didn’t have the power to bench Peyton Manning.”

As Mark Kiszla once said, “He is the master of control in the NFL.” But this control has actually hurt Peyton Manning as of late, literally and figuratively. It is more proof as to why players may not know what is best for themselves sometimes.

Two weeks ago, week 10 of his 14th year in the NFL, at 39 years of age, Peyton Manning was playing with busted up ribs and a partially torn plantar fascia in his foot. It was even reported that he didn’t have feeling in his fingers going into the season. But he went out there anyway and threw pick after pick after fumble after blunder before his head coach forced him to leave the game. His quarterback rating over his last 16 starts is barely over 75 and his rating that day was 0.0.

I certainly give him kudos’s for playing through excruciating injuries, but enough is enough.

It was the worst game in the history of Peyton Manning’s career and if you sit back and look at it realistically and objectively, you know that the legend has succumbed to age.

It’s okay, it happens to everybody, but this is the part where it gets ugly. The part where Peyton Manning refuses to take a back seat and hold a clipboard, the part where he would rather go on IR and fly out of Denver than sit behind Brock Osweiler and I think that this is exactly what’s going to happen.

It’s just my raw opinion. I have no inside source on this.

As a matter of fact, no reporter in this market really has inside sources on Manning. His own teammates don’t even know whats going on with him most of the time. He’s an extension of the coaching staff and as far as his teammates are concerned, he really isn’t ‘one of the guys.’

That doesn’t mean that he’s a bad guy, it just means that he’s almost 40 years old so he’s not very relatable. He’s looked at as a more of a coach than a player. I’ve been told that he’s even had closed door meetings and sat players down before to discuss serious matters which is very rare from a player-to-player standpoint in the NFL.

Manning is hidden by his organization as well as any player in professional sports. Whether it was playing with a torn quad last year or a partially torn plantar fascia this year, it was never reported until the game was lost and the play was dreadful.

It seems like every time this happens the team and the fans wait for Manning to come back healthy and look like his old self again, but there is no more old self again. The “old” heavily outweighs the “self again.”

All there is left is an unrecognizable, broken down legend, who’s just a shadow of what he used to be. The mind is still sharp, but the body has whittled away like an old carpenter. He should be praised for his glories and remembered for his accomplishments, but he should never be put onto the gridiron again.

He cannot agree with this. His pride is too strong and his will is too firm. We’re talking about a guy who ran back onto the field during a blowout because Brock Osweiler didn’t get his helmet on fast enough. He refuses to leave the game and now he will refuse to become a bystander.

Manning is currently in Charlotte seeing the famed Dr. Robert Anderson, who operated on linebacker Brandon Marshall over the summer.  I believe that we will soon hear that Peyton Manning’s results are in and that he’s done for the year.

I don’t think the Hall of Famer wants anything to do with a veteran backup role in the NFL and I don’t think his pride would allow him to even if he tried. But whether it’s now or later, Manning will end the season when he says so because, as Kiszla says, “He is the master of control in the NFL.”