This has been covered 10,000 times. If they paid Manning the bonus they owed him, they wouldn’t have been able to field a decent team. Those last Manning years were a shell of a team held together by a few stars. Now take it that they had to pay that bonus at a point where they still didn’t know if Peyton’s injury would ever heal enough to even play again. Massive risk and one not worth taking when you have the first pick in the draft with a stud QB coming out. Made zero sense to pay that bonus and keep Peyton. Zero.
This has been covered 10,000 times. If they paid Manning the bonus they owed him, they wouldn’t have been able to field a decent team. Those last Manning years were a shell of a team held together by a few stars. Now take it that they had to pay that bonus at a point where they still didn’t know if Peyton’s injury would ever heal enough to even play again. Massive risk and one not worth taking when you have the first pick in the draft with a stud QB coming out. Made zero sense to pay that bonus and keep Peyton. Zero.