Indianapolis Colts were suggested to trade star QB by GM Bill Polian, two years before he led them to Superbowl win.
After winning four league MVP’s with the team and taking them to two Superbowls, winning one of them, Peyton Manning will go down as the greatest Colt of all time.
That legend may have never happened though, as owner Jim Irsay says that in 2004 then-GM Bill Polian wanted to trade Manning for draft picks, something Irsay couldn’t believe he was hearing.
According to Yahoo sports, Polian was becoming tired of contract talks with Manning, which was rumoured to be worth around $98m. It was then that the GM said to Irsay that they should trade the QB and build a defence that would dominate the league through the draft.
“We need to trade Peyton; we can get a bunch of defensive players and become like Tampa Bay or Baltimore.” Polian is alleged to have said.
Irsay replied no. “Understand something, Bill, we are not trading Peyton Manning, period,’’ Irsay recalled telling the former GM.
Had this trade been done, who knows what we will be talking about right now. So many questions to answer. Who would have gone too? Who would have stepped in for Indy? Would they have sill won the Superbowl?
All these questions are no simply hypothetical, as of course the history books will show Manning as a Colt and making the team one of the most successful of the decade.
Strange stories appear like this now and again, and leave fans thinking, what if?
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