A pair of tweets from Vic Lombardi of CBS4 in Denver raised plenty of eyebrows on Sunday night, when Lombardi said: (1) that the Broncos are “95% confident” that they’ll land Peyton Manning; and (2) that the Broncos have that confidence because they heard from Manning on Sunday night.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen responded with a tweet that seemed to be more of an exercise in word-parsing, pointing out that “Manning didn’t call team today or tonight & inform they’re 95% fave.” This potentially means that Manning did indeed call, but that Manning didn’t tell the Broncos they are 95 percent likely to land him.
We can now make this a little more clear, at least as it relates to the Broncos’ position. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Broncos contend that they didn’t hear from Peyton at all on Sunday.
Whether he actually did or didn’t call, and whether the Broncos are concealing that he called as part of their broader respect for the process, aren’t known. But, per the source, the Broncos’ story is that Manning didn’t call.
Of course, the Broncos nevertheless may be “95% confident” that they’ll get Manning.