Who will be our next QB after Peyton Manning?

Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf (via kooncerAZ)

Watching this clip makes me love Peyton even more.  His personality and his confidence are two of the things that makes him such a unique person, and is a key cog to his success in the NFL.  

But if you really start thinking about that statement, you may be slightly concerned.  15 years?  Is this a hint on how long he wants to play?  Obviously we know he is too classy to cling to a career of controversy (ahem...Favre).  We know he loves the Colts, and the Colts love him, and they are going to get a deal done at the end of this season that will likely be his last contract.  But how long will it be?  2 years, 3 years, 5 years (hopefully)?

I'm not saying he's on the decline by any means.  In fact, quite the contrary.  Last season was arguably one of his best seasons of his career.  But Peyton is 34 years old, and this is his 13th season.  And he explicitly said he was going to kick someone's butt for 15 years.  Does this mean he only wants to play two more seasons?  

And what does this mean for the future of Colts?  Curtis Painter is obviously not the answer.  We know this for sure.  It would be wise to start looking at some possibilities.  After the jump, we'll examine some possible scenarios.

Colts fans have been spoiled, to some extent, following a storied history of great quarterbacks.   Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning are, without question, two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play this game.  Jim Harbaugh had some good seasons and led our team to numerous nail biting wins, and was one heartbreaking hail-mary away from Super Bowl 30. And lest we forget about the success that Bert Jones had with the Colts in the 70s.

This is not to say that we have not been without our challenges.  We certainly have.  But when you think about the Colts now, people tend to think of greatness at the quarterback position.  As we begin to brace for the fact that Peyton Manning may be our God-like quarterback forever, we need to start thinking about solutions to keep the transition as smooth as possible. 

1. Wait until Peyton retires to take action.

- This is a bad idea.  We all know that quarterback is one of the hardest positions to learn in the NFL.  Like everything else, this takes time.  Taking into account the fact that the salary cap will force our team to continue to be built upon inexperienced, young draft picks, we can't afford to have our offense learning slowly too, otherwise our team will be a train wreck.  Not to mention the additional pressure that is put on the quarterback's shoulders to win games quickly.   If you look at the quarterbacks on our roster now, you should probably be concerned if the Colts decide they only want to continue to search for a suitable backup.  Curtis Painter has had his chances and stunk it up.  Unless he takes a huge step forward very quickly, his time with the team is coming to an end sooner than later. This likely will not be the scenario taken by the Colts, because there has been too much media coverage on who would start if Peyton were to get injured. 

2. Draft a high-round quarterback in the 2010 or 2011 draft to eventually take the reigns.

- This is a risky decision, but could pay off two-fold.  Just like Green Bay did when they drafted Aaron Rodgers, they were expecting to groom him for a year or two until Favre retired.  Unfortunately for Rodgers, life has an odd sense of humor and he had to sit until they couldn't sit him anymore.   The cost of drafting a high-round quarterback is enormous, and if you miss on it, your team can suffer for years (see Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russell).  However, Bill Polian has a oddly low number of quarterback draft picks in his career. He didn't draft Jim Kelly, but he was able to convince him to sign with the bills after he drafted Frank Reich in the third round for the Bills in 1985.  After that, he didn't draft another first day quarterback until he took Kerry Collins with the Carolina Panthers in 1995.  We all know that he hit the jackpot with Peyton.   It has to make us feel good that we know he's not afraid to take a quaterback high if he thinks he is available, but we don't really know what his philosophy is when it comes to do so. 

3. Draft a quarterback late and hope we get lucky.

- Obviously everyone wants to do this, so there are a lot of attempts at this.  If you can take a potshot at a guy with a big arm for a couple peanuts, why WOULDN'T you do this?  Unfortunately, most of these are wasted picks that never pan out for longer than a couple years.  Jim Sorgi was a consistent backup for a while, but never really had the ability to take control of a season if Peyton had gone down.  We all know how Curtis Painter (AKA Hermey from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) has fared.   We can keep trying this and hope to get lucky, but the chances of this actually working out is pretty slim.  I say keep these picks for guys in the trenches and skill positions from small schools.  I can't say this is always the case, but the next Tom Brady doesn't come along very often. 

4. Trade for a young quarterback as soon as possible.

- As was the case with Aaron Rodgers, Kevin Kolb was drafted to eventually take the reigns in Philadelphia when McNabb retired/quit/released/traded.  Michael Vick has grabbed onto the starting job solidly, and it doesn't look like he is going anywhere.  These types of situations happen all the time in the NOT-FOR-LONG (NFL).  There is less risk with these types of players because of several reasons.  First of all, you've seen them play usually, so you know their game.  They may have downsides, but at least you know what you're getting.  Secondly, the cost to trade for a quarterback is usually WAY less than when you draft them in the first round, because you have a bargaining chip knowing that the team that is trading him is doing this for a reason.  I personally, would LOVE to see this happen, and of course Peyton being the high character guy he is, would be a great person to learn from for a few seasons.  Obviously the trade deadline has passed for this season, so this is kind of out of the question, but its never too late to be watching for quaterback controversies.  

5. Something else

- Anything can happen in the NFL at any time.  Players get put in the doghouse, released, traded, etc for a variety of reasons.  I'm sure there are situations that could happen that I haven't predicted. If so, let me know.  I'd love to hear if there is another scenario that I'm not thinking of.

Which do you think will be the right solution? Obviously there is no right answer, as no one can see the future.  Ultimately I believe that if I know Polian, we will continue to try to nab late round gems and keep wasting draft picks where we could be using them on linemen.   Hopefully one of these will pan out, but if it doesn't, Colts fans may have to ride out a few rocky seasons before we grab another high-round quarterback that works out to our benefit. 

Either way, let's hope that the fountain of youth keeps Peyton around as long as possible.