The Real Winners In The Manning Sweepstakes

The Denver Bronco’s may have been the team that ended up signing Peyton Manning this offseason, but they weren’t the real winners of this free agency period. The Broncos got a sure fire hall of famer at quarterback, who just may be enough to push them from a team on the borderline of contention, to a possible super bowl champion team.

Now before Tebow fans get mad at me, I would like to point out that I am a huge Tebow fan and think he will be an eventual hall of famer, but come on, it’s Peyton Manning. Peyton is one of the top six or seven quarterbacks of all time, and is an upgrade over any quarterback in the league that is not named Tom Brady. The Broncos almost certainly made themselves better with the Manning signing but like I said earlier, they weren’t the real winners in the Peyton Manning deal. No the real winners were every team in the NFL that doesn’t play in the AFC west but most specifically the Seattle Seahawks.

Any team that doesn’t have to play against Peyton Manning twice a year is in a much better position to win their division than a team that has to play against Peyton multiple times. How many times did Peyton lead the Colts to 10 wins and an AFC South championship in his career? Even more importantly how many times would the Colts have won the AFC South without Peyton? The answer to the first question is pretty high, the answer to the second question? Not so much. That tells me that Peyton by himself can take a team to the playoffs. If you are in a division that doesn’t have a guy like that, you probably have a chance at winning your division.

So now that you see how nice it is to not have Peyton in your division you may be asking how I can say that the Seahawks have benefited from the Broncos signing more than any other team. Well I will tell you. The Seahawks are a mediocre team at this point but a mediocre team with a lot of potential. Having Peyton manning sign within their division would have seriously retarded their potential for growth. It’s hard to get better as a team when there is a team in your division that constantly beats down on you.

If you want proof of this, look at the three teams that are in the AFC East division that are not the New England Patriots. Each of the other three teams in the division has flared up and been good for a while, but then was beaten back down by the Patriots. Peyton had two teams looking to bring him to the NFC West and either of those teams would have benefited greatly from signing Peyton Manning.

If he had chosen to sign with the Arizona Cardinals, he would have been playing with the best receiver he ever played with, and they would have been good for 11 wins a season. If he had chosen to sign with the San Francisco Forty-Niners, he probably would have won another championship. If he had signed with either of these NFC West teams, the Seahawks would have been stuck at right around seven wins a year until Peyton ultimately retired, so they won the Manning sweepstakes even though he never really considered them as a possible landing spot.