Editorial: Peyton was the prize, but who won?

It’s official. Peyton Manning has found a new team. On March 20, the Denver Broncos announced the quarterback as their newest member, signing him to a five-year, $96 million contract.

As Denver’s former Hall-of-Fame quarterback John Elway, the team’s Vice President Football Operations, held up the orange and white jersey to signal Manning’s entrance, it was still hard for people to believe his exit from Indianapolis. Two years ago, if you had suggested Manning would be wearing any color other than Colts blue and white, you would’ve been met with an unanimous chorus.

“Yeah right, that’ll never happen.”

But now, it has. In the off-season courting of Manning that has resembled the drama of a soap opera, you can’t help but wonder who the winner of the whole situation is.

Let’s start with the obvious — the Broncos.

Yes, the team just signed a Hall-of-Fame quarterback whose reputation will accompany those of the greats such as Joe Montana and Roger Staubach. Manning has been a consistently dominant force at the quarterback position, winning a Super Bowl, throwing for over 50,000 yards and, most importantly, leading the Colts to nine consecutive 10-win seasons.

But, Peyton is 36-years old and coming off four neck surgeries in a year and a half.

Most quarterbacks are on the decline after they hit the age of 33, and while Manning is not your average quarterback, he’s not Superman. Add in the fact that he’s gone from a receiving corp of Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark, players who could catch his passes in their sleep, two unproven receivers Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker, and it becomes evident that the adjustment will take some time.

While last year it was said the Broncos couldn’t keep winning with the wishbone-oriented offense that Tim Tebow played, it still was more affective than when they ran a conventional offensive system behind their poor offensive line during their 1-4 for the season.

In Indianapolis, Manning was spoiled with the best offensive line in the business every year, but not anymore. As Manning even said in his introductory press conference, “There is work to be done.”

So the Broncos didn’t win completely. How about the Jets, the team who made the trade for Tebow after Manning’s signing? The Jets now get a proven winner at quarterback to compete with Mark Sanchez for the starting job. Surely they are the winners, right?

Wrong. The move serves as more of an alienation from Sanchez. It isn’t easy to find a team with less team chemistry right now, and this move certainly doesn’t bolster that chemistry.

Head coach Rex Ryan has tried numerous tactics to elevate Sanchez to another level of performance, such as signing Mark Brunell last year and occasionally giving him the first-team reps, but to no avail. It’s also hard to imagine Tebow fitting in with a coach who curses as much as he breathes and the numerous other outspoken players that parade in the Jets locker room.

Tebow very well may be able to bring the team together, but he just as easily may divide them apart when fans demand him to start after Sanchez throws a pass more than three inches off-target.

What about the Indianapolis Colts? Sure, they traded away their franchise’s most prolific player of all-time, but they also hold the top pick in next month’s draft. The Colts have made it clear they plan to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, who has had NFL scouts raving for years and has been called, among other things, “better than Peyton Manning” by NFL draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.

While Luck very well may turn into the dominating force most are predicting, current times in Indianapolis look bleak.

The team won two games last year, had a defense ranked 25th in the league, and the players who formed the foundation of their decade long dynasty are skipping town.

Receivers Anthony Gonzalez and Pierre Garcon have already left, center Jeff Saturday has signed to the Green Bay Packers, and tight end Dallas Clark and running back Joseph Addai have entered the world of free agency. The Colts may be winners 10 years down the road, but almost certainly not for a few years.

So did anyone win out on this whole deal? Yes, and the answer is pretty simple.

It’s the headline creators at the New York Post by a landslide. One minute, Lin-sanity ended, and the next minute an entirely new oasis of puns to tap into appeared. The league’s most discussed quarterback, Tim Tebow, has entered the most media-hungry city on the planet with his every move recorded, his every press conference meticulously dissected, and dare I say it, his every win exalted.

I can already see it now in the headlines of the New York Post. “Tebow leads Rex-urrection of the Jets.” Sounds crazy, but be careful this time to not say “Yeah right, that’ll never happen.”