With quarterback Peyton Manning officially becoming, for the first time in years, simply Peyton Manning, the question becomes which title will apply to him next?
He’s one of the very rare people who would be highly successful at anything he chooses to do, in football or anything else -- including medicine, law, business, or politics. One of his head coaches believes Manning won’t choose two specific avenues within the NFL: coaching or a midseason comeback as a player.
“I really don’t think he’ll do that, that’s not his game,” Tony Dungy said on PFT Live regarding the possibility of a Roger Clemens-style return, after for example a quarterback for a contending team is lost for the year. “His game is preparation, getting to know my teammates. You know, if he was going to play this year he’d be at Duke with all his receivers and throwing and kind of just getting to know them. I just don’t think he’s going to approach it any other way so I think he’s made the decision that this is the time to step away.”
So what will he do, in Dungy’s opinion?
“He could go in a lot of different directions,” Dungy said. “I know it won’t be coaching because he’ll be too much of a perfectionist and expect too much from the guys so I don’t think it’s that direction. But whether it’s a General Manager as John Elway did running the team putting something together, people have mentioned possibly a college athletic director, something where you’re running the whole program. He’d be phenomenal on television, his recall and his understanding of the game. I just don’t know what challenges he’s looking for. I do know that his twins are very very important to him and have taken a great position in his life. So it’ll be something where he can be part of that family life and them growing up and also continue to do what he loves which is the game of football.”
A guy who knows a thing or two about TV agrees that Peyton Manning would be great on TV.
“The traits the great ones have are a love of the game, a visceral affection for the game, talking to football people in their language,” former NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “I am confident Peyton can do that -- and he should definitely do games, not the studio. I will never forget early on with the Sunday night games, when John Madden brought his old coaching friend John Robinson on the road one week; he wanted Robinson to hear Manning in the production meeting. And Peyton, as always, was terrific, so insightful with such great stories. When he left the room, John Robinson said, ‘If that guy ever has a speaking engagement anywhere near me, and there’s an admission charge to hear him, I’ll pay whatever it costs just to listen to him talk football.”
We all may get to hear Manning talk football for free. Or at least no cost beyond our current cable bill.
