Peyton Manning Retirement Is Postponed

The Peyton Manning retirement has been postponed, as the Denver Broncos quarterback is planning on playing in the NFL for at least another season, according to a report from Sports Illustrated.

As a professional athlete, once you reach a certain age, people are naturally going to make assumptions about your retirement plans. A 39-year-old Manning knows that fairly well. People have been discussing his departure from the NFL for at least five years now. In fact, the media may have put more thought into his retirement than Manning has himself.

Those rumblings about retirement become even louder when you struggle on the field. As many have seen, Manning has struggled this year. His quarterback rating in November has been an embarrassing 53.9. For the season, Manning has a 67.6 quarterback rating, which is paltry compared to his career quarterback rating of 96.5.

Manning recently suffered the humiliation of being benched. Brock Osweiler has replaced him as the starting quarterback for the Broncos. He had a pretty good win against the Chicago Bears, throwing for 250 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. That has led many to believe that Osweiler is the better option at the position for Denver.

While Broncos head Gary Kubiak might never publicly say it, he might prefer Osweiler over Manning. The former seems to be a better fit for his offensive scheme than the latter. Manning is the type of quarterback that can put up legendary performances if he is in a system that is built for him. Kubiak prefers his quarterbacks to fit his scheme as opposed to the other way around.

One example of Manning being a poor fit for the Kubiak offensive scheme is the fact that he prefers to operate out of the shotgun, where he can quickly scan the field and find his open receivers. Kubiak is not a big fan of the shotgun formation, as he has said that limits the offense’s ability to disguise the direction of the running plays.

Another example is the fact that Kubiak prefers that the Broncos are more of a ground based team to prevent mistakes from happening on offense and being able to control the game clock. Manning is just an accessory in that type of scheme. Peyton has long preferred to be the quarterback that wins games for teams, which he was great at doing for so many years before Denver hired Kubiak.

If Manning decides to leave the Broncos, then he will definitely have some options around the NFL. CBS Sports has already reported that two teams are interested in hiring Peyton as a lead executive, so they might be able to entice the former Tennessee University star to play a season as quarterback before transitioning into the front office.

The Tennesssee Titans are rumored to be heavily interested in bringing Manning on board. He was a star collegiate athlete in the state, so the region is rather fond of Manning. The franchise invested heavily in Marcus Mariota, and he has shown sparks of being a great quarterback some day, but it might behoove him to learn behind Manning for a season.

Another team interested in Manning is the Cleveland Browns. Owner Jimmy Haslem has long been a fan of Manning and would love to have someone of that caliber attached to his franchise. With Josh McCown injured, Johnny Manziel has been given an opportunity to start at quarterback. Manning could easily win the position, and Manziel could benefit by learning as much as he could from a future Hall of Fame inductee.

NFL fans should be happy that the Peyton Manning retirement has been postponed.

[Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images ]