Report: Peyton Manning not interested in broadcasting

This past week, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo announced his retirement from the NFL and is heading to CBS, where he will be paired with Jim Nantz on the network’s number one NFL announcing crew.

It has been long thought that another former NFL quarterback would have been a perfect fit for that role, should Peyton Manning ever want it. But it doesn’t sound like he’s particularly interested in joining the media.

This week, the Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand joined NFL Network and was asked whether the Romo move to CBS closed the window on Manning getting involved with broadcasting, and Ourand emphasized that the feeling is that Manning is interested in working with a team, not a broadcasting network.

“I haven't actually talked to Peyton about this,” Ourand said, according to Colts.com, “but people that are close to him say that he has no interest in being a sports broadcaster. What he’s looking at is more of what John Elway did, and try to get back in the game on the other side — the business side. But he has little interest in traveling every Sunday; he has little interest in going into work every Sunday maybe to do a studio show.”

Basically, what Ourand is saying is something that has been widely expected for quite some time: that Manning is interested in working for a team much more than for a network. Of course, this is relevant to the Colts in more ways than it just being about their franchise’s greatest player - because it’s entirely possible that Manning will wind up taking a John Elway-type role with the Colts at some point down the road. As the regular season drew to a close there was a ton of talk about the possibility of Manning joining the Colts in a president-type role, with two very well-respected and knowledgeable Indy media members discussing it, as well as a former Colts player who played with Manning. And then it was reported more concretely by both Jay Glazer and Bob Kravitz: The Colts made a “strong push” to get Manning. Ultimately, JMV reported that while there was “a great deal of interest” in bringing Manning back and likely will still be moving forward, Manning didn’t feel ready yet for that kind of role.

I know it’s popular in our country to doubt the media right now, but where there’s smoke there’s usually fire: these guys are well-respected and know what they’re talking about, so there almost certainly was some level of discussion and interest about a reunion between Manning and the Colts. And if I had to guess, at some point down the road, it will probably happen too. It sounds like Manning is interested in joining a team in an Elway-like capacity, and if Manning is interested, you can be sure that Jim Irsay will have interest as well.