Colts not sure when Manning will be given new contract
There have been no questions surrounding the Indianapolis Colts on the field. Everyone knows how good they are. The questions are directed at Colts management, who have the responsibility to sign Peyton Manning to a new long-term contract. Manning is set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and would likely be the most sought after free agent in history.
The Colts obviously don’t want that and have made their intentions clear. Colts owner Jim Irsay has gone on record saying that the team wants to give Manning the highest salary in the NFL. The team still has not discussed though when they will sign Manning to the lucrative contract. Colts president Bill Polian has said that it is still unknown when Manning will be signed.
"There is no deadline, there is no timeline, Jim [Irsay] never said there was, I never said there was, [agent] Tom Condon has never said that there was," Polian said. "I talk to Tom all the time, sometimes about Peyton. There have been conversations and there will be."
Polian was asked if he thought Manning was the best player in the league. In what was possibly an effort to not give Condon any more leverage than he already has in negotiating power, Condon replied: "He's certainly among the top four or five. I don't get into those [ratings], that's a parallel universe question. I can't tell you who the greatest players of all-time are. I can take a guess on the top 100, I'm probably old enough to have seen 75 of them and have an opinion, but I don't get into who's the best. That's in the eye of the beholder."
That may not matter though if the team’s owner already promised that Manning would be the highest paid player in the league. The new deal will be all about the structure of the contract as well as the compensation. The Colts have always done a tremendous job of keeping the team’s core intact throughout the decade. Manning has helped as he’s constantly restructured his contract to make it easier for management to sign Manning’s teammates.
The problem this offseason has been the uncertainty of the league’s labour situation. A new CBA must be agreed to between the league and the players’ union or there’ll be a risk of a lockout. Reggie Wayne and Robert Mathis both wanted new long-term deals, but Polian said the team could not do it in the uncertainty of the labour agreement. That may be the reason why Peyton Manning is not signed to a new deal yet either.
Manning has never been one to discuss his contract situation and will likely not reveal what he’s after. Money will never be an issue because any team would be willing to give him a huge contract f he fell into their laps. It’s not a question of if Manning will be signed, it’s when.
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