Welcome to football nuclear winter. A place where rule of law has crumbled and the cities have exploded. Two mighty warrior tribes have gone to war with each other, and life is naught but a whirlwind of looting and a firestorm of fear, in which men begin to feed on men.
Out of this world, comes one man, who could bring hope to this dystopian world … his name is Peyton Manning.
Get us beyond the thunderdome, Gary Myers.
NFLPA outside counsel Jim Quinn […] said the franchise tags will be challenged. If the players win, Manning would be an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. What do you think he would be worth on the open market? Let the bidding start at $25 million per year.
The Jets are a win-now team, and inserting Manning for the next couple of years could finally end their Super Bowl drought.
"If I’m the Jets, why wouldn’t you go after Peyton Manning?" one prominent agent said yesterday. "You have all those PSLs you have to sell. Isn’t (GM) Mike Tannenbaum’s job to make the team better? If you are a Jets fan, you talk about Christmas coming early. They could still keep Sanchez. If you can get Peyton Manning, can you say no?"
The agent said if he had a player who was tagged, "I wouldn’t acknowledge the franchise tag. Show me where, in any contract, in any court of law, that you can have a franchise tag. It’s team fiction."
The Jets love Sanchez. He is scheduled to make $14.75 million in 2011. A bit much for a backup? But in the Jets’ world of collecting stars, none would be bigger than Manning. He could do PSL commercials. One other thought: Do you think the Giants would sign Peyton Manning and trade his brother?
I get that this is more mental exercise playing out the absurdities of the current CBA mess than an actual scenario that will happen, but its still dumb to write this. The Jets are cash-strapped enough as it is that they’re furloughing employees, how would they afford a 25 million dollar per year QB on top of their current needs? There’s no way the Jets would spend near $40 million this year on their Quarterbacks. Peyton Manning knows his legacy is in Indy, and his GM wants to give him the biggest contract a QB has ever received, so he’s not going anywhere.
If Sanchez is kicked to the bench, I’m sorry, but there’s no recovering from that in New York. Whether intended or not, the message about their first round QB is that he’s not the answer now or later, and they’d pretty much have to start all over again once Peyton leaves. For good or ill, the Jets have rolled the dice with Sanchez, and no CBA post-apocalyptic messiah will save the Jets.
Sing it, Tina.
