With Colts owner Jim Irsay previously vowing to make Peyton Manning very, very rich (or, as the case may be, very, very richer) and with the Patriots reportedly closing in on a new contract with franchise quarterback Tom Brady, the Colts are adopting a new approach.
They won’t be talking about Manning’s status.
“The ‘cone of silence’ is going to come down, at least for us,” Irsay said Wednesday, per Mike Chappell of the Indianapolis Star. “That’s how you get something done. I’m not even sure what the Brady thing is.”
Irsay also said that Manning’s contract issue “has been talked about enough.”
Chappell points out that, even though Manning prefers not to be distracted once the season starts, the deal could get done at some point between now and January. “Everyone can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Irsay said. “You have to multitask at this level.”
Right, but if doing so keeps the guy who makes the team go from being as focused as he should be, the effort to walk and chew gum at the same time could end up looking like an old SNL Chevy-Chase-as-Gerald-Ford skit.
All that said, there’s no reason to think a deal will get done this season, if Colts president Bill Polian continues to believe that the time for finalizing a contract won’t come until a new labor deal is in place. But with more and more teams starting to inch away from that potentially collusive mindset, it could be that the Colts decide to get their guy signed sooner rather than later.
With the widely-ignored possibility of the franchise tag going away in the new CBA, sooner makes even more sense.
And with Brady soon to be setting the floor for Manning’s deal, the Colts soon will have a good idea as to the cost of keeping Peyton around.