Question:

San Francisco 49ers did not pursue Peyton Manning, says head coach Jim Harbaugh – NFL News

by  |  earlier

0 LIKES UnLike


San Francisco 49ers did not pursue Peyton Manning, says head coach Jim Harbaugh – NFL News
San Francisco 49ers’ head coach, Jim Harbaugh, has said that the team did not pursue veteran quarterback, Peyton Manning, after he was released by the Indianapolis Colts earlier this offseason.
Harbaugh also said that he always considered Alex Smith to be the team’s quarterback after his career-best National Football League (NFL) season in 2011.
When Manning, who missed the entire last season owing to a neck injury, was released by the Colts a number of teams showed interest in hiring him.
Some of them publicly expressed desire of adding the star quarterback to the squad and others kept their wishes hidden.
49ers were also said to be one of the interested parties, but Manning ultimately ended up joining the Denver Broncos.
Later, 49ers also gave a contract extension to Smith, guaranteeing that he would be their starter in the 2012 season.
It is not clear what prompted Harbaugh to come up with this clarification at this time, but the head coach is apparently hearing the story of 49ers interested in Manning again and again and he wants to end it once and for all.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Harbaugh said:
"It's an erroneous perception that we were flirting with Peyton Manning. I keep hearing that over and over again. It's silly, and it's untrue. It's phony.”
Although Harbaugh did admit that the team management evaluated Manning, he maintained that it did not mean that the team was interested in letting Smith go and signing Manning.
Harbaugh said:
“Even the perception that we were pursuing him ... we were evaluating him. I've said all along, Alex Smith has been our quarterback. There's been no scenario, other than Alex choosing to sign with another team, that we would have considered him not as our
quarterback."
Harbaugh further said that the 49ers would only have considered adding another quarterback to the roster if Smith had left to join any other team.
This, however, was not the case and Smith also wanted to return to the 49ers after leading them to winning the National Football Conference (NFC) West division title last year.
Smith is also actively participating in the team’s workouts and hopes to lead the team to a successful season again.

 Tags:

   Report
SIMILAR QUESTIONS

Question Stats

Latest activity: earlier.
This question has 0 answers.

BECOME A GUIDE

Share your knowledge and help people by answering questions.