Perhaps the truest statement made in Broncos Country over the past 36 hours came from Ian Rapoport. The NFL Network reporter ignited a minor firestorm in Denver on Sunday morning when he reported that Peyton Manning “does not sound like he is inclined to be Brock Osweiler‘s backup,” an idea Rapoport was told Manning “is pretty serious about.” But that’s not the truism that’s echoing in Denver the Monday following the Broncos 34-27 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“…everyone does want the same thing,” Rapoport told Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro on Mile High Sports AM 1340 on Monday afternoon, “because everyone wants the Broncos to win.”
Wherever Broncos fans fall in the Manning vs. Osweiler debate, that’s the one fact they can agree on. In the end, fans just want to see their team emerge each week with a victory. But Rapoport’s aphorism was in reply to a question from Shapiro about the current nature of the relationship between Manning and the Broncos, not a general statement about fans of the orange and blue.
To that matter, Rapoport says the relationship is exactly what you would expect in a business relationship when it’s not clear that everyone wants the same thing. And that’s where the waters have been muddy for a while between the Broncos and Manning. Rapoport referenced the reported $10 million pay cut Manning was asked to take this past offseason as evidence that the Broncos and Manning may have a different perception of his value at this point in his career.
“In his mind,” Rapoport said about Manning earlier in the interview, “when he’s healthy, he’s the starter.”
Goodman reinforced that any professional athlete would be inclined to think along those lines – it’s part of what makes elite athletes like NFL players successful at such a high level – so it should come as no surprise that Manning envisions himself the starter when healthy.
The difficulty, Rapoport points out, is that Manning and the Broncos may not ever face that choice this season. The bottom line, he says, is that we don’t know when Manning will be healthy. He did not practice much this week (in fact his planned practice regimen was cut short when he suffered a setback), which isn’t good.
In all reality, there’s very little chance that Manning and the Broncos will be faced with a situation in which Manning is 100 percent healthy and the Broncos would ask him serve as backup to Brock Osweiler. Rapoport told Goodman and Shapiro he doesn’t know how Manning would react to that scenario.
Fortunately for both sides in the relationship, that likelihood seems rather far off at this point in the season.
Rather than worrying about how Manning feels about hypothetical situations, perhaps we’d all be best served to focus on those critical two wins the Broncos still need to secure a playoff berth and a first-round bye.
Listen to the full interview with Rapoport in the podcast below…
Catch Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro every weekday afternoon from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of what’s new and what’s next in Colorado sports.
