We finally have some video of Jim Irsay's comments made earlier today about Peyton Manning.
To be clear, I don't think WISH-TV did anything wrong when they reported that Irsay said Manning was 'out' for 2011, because that is pretty much exactly what Irsay said.
Another local Indianapolis news station, WTHR, had the only camera at today's donor breakfast for Super Bowl XLVI, and the camera caught Irsay's exact words regarding the health of Peyton Manning [emphasis mine]:
[Peyton] can probably come back in 2012. I don't see him coming back this year. It's possible he could practice in December. We'll see. But, I really think that he can come back and finish off a great career here.
Now, when a team owner says that he doesn't think his franchise quarterback will play in 2011, that's this thing we call 'big friggin news.' Thus, it makes perfect sense for WISH-TV to post a headline 'Peyton Manning out for season' after seeing Jim Irsay convey to a bunch of rich donors that he thinks Peyton will not play in 2011.
Later, when Jim Irsay got on Twitter and tried to backtrack from his comments at the breakfast event, that type of thing is what we call 'holy crap, I let the cat out of the bag.' Local sports radio personality Mike Grady wonders if Bill Polian called Irsay and, after a likely explosion of F bombs, kindly asked his owner to go on Twitter and make up a silly, B.S. statement that seems replete with Polian word play.
So, yeah. Irsay thinks Peyton is done for 2011, and it's clear the front office (or someone at West 56th Street) didn't like Irsay making that thought public, despite it being, you know, logical for the team owner to voice his (we assume) informed opinion on the matter.
UPDATE: Special thanks to WTHR for emailing us about the video.
Video after the jump...
Video: