Peyton Manning is lining up more visits, and the Dolphins will get their wish of at least getting an opportunity to make a sales pitch to the NFL’s most coveted free agent.
Manning will meet with Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports. Mort also confirmed that Manning will meet with Titans head coach Mike Munchak.
However, Manning’s meeting with the two coaches will apparently not take place in the teams’ facilities, and instead will be one-on-one meetings with the coaches elsewhere. That may suggest that Manning isn’t quite as sold on the Dolphins and Titans as he was on the Broncos and Cardinals, or it may just mean that Manning is getting worn down and wants to keep things low-key.
But in any event, Philbin will now be the man who has to sell Manning on the Dolphins’ offense and try to convince him that Miami is the place for him. There’s no question that Philbin’s boss, Stephen Ross, wants to see this deal get done and will spend whatever it takes to get Manning in the fold, but for Manning it will likely be more important to hear Philbin explain why he believes his system is the right fit for Manning.
Complicating matters is that free agency starts in earnest on Tuesday, and that’s when Matt Flynn becomes a free agent. As the Packers’ backup while Philbin was the Packers’ offensive coordinator, Flynn knows the offense the Dolphins will run and would seem to be a natural target for the Dolphins if they can’t get Manning. But there’s no doubt that Manning is the Dolphins’ No. 1 priority, and if Flynn wants to go to Miami, he’s going to have to wait for Manning to have the right of first refusal.