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Indianapolis Colts Rumors: Owner Jim Irsay Wants To Hire Peyton Manning As Head Of Football Operations

By Jason Fletcher
Published on: 15:26 PST, Jan 15, 2017

The Indianapolis Colts are coming off back-to-back disappointing 8-8 seasons in 2015 and 2016. Despite the struggles, owner Jim Irsay has so far decided to stick with Chuck Pagano as the team’s head coach and Ryan Grigson as the team’s general manager. Those situations could change in the near future, though, if Irsay has his way.

According to FOX Sports, Irsay wants to hire former Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning to come in and serve as President of Football Operations. Manning just retired following the 2015 NFL Season and has never served in a front office role, but the move would surely generate a lot of buzz in the city of Indianapolis.

Manning was the No. 1 overall pick of the Indianapolis Colts in the 1998 NFL Draft out of the University of Tennessee. He ended up playing 13 seasons for the Colts and led the team to a victory in Super Bowl XLI. Peyton also won four NFL MVP Awards, five All-Pro First-Teams, and 11 Pro Bowls while playing in Indianapolis.

Prior to retiring last offseason, NFL Network‘s Albert Breer reported that Manning had an interest in becoming a front office executive. It’s not a well-kept secret that Peyton has dreams of moving into a front office role, but FOX Sports’ Jay Glazer reports that it may not happen this offseason with the Colts.

Glazer also tweeted on Saturday that Irsay really wanted to make a big splash this offseason by hiring Jon Gruden as the team’s head coach and bringing Peyton Manning on as the President of Football Operations.

The Colts’ biggest problems in 2016 came on the defensive side of the football as Ted Monachino’s unit finished as the No. 30 defense in the NFL. Indianapolis allowed 262.5 yards passing, 120.4 yards rushing, and 24.5 points per game this season which negated a pretty good performance from Andrew Luck and the offense.

Luck helped lead the Colts to the No. 10 ranking in the league in total offense. Indianapolis averaged 364.4 total yards — 262.6 passing and 101.8 rushing — and 25.7 points per game in 2016. Those numbers should be good enough to win at least 10 games, but the offense wasn’t able to make up for the shortcomings on defense.

Ideally, the Colts would target defense early-and-often in the 2017 NFL Draft as well as adding some pieces in free agency. The front-seven needs major upgrades so that the defense can get pressure on the quarterback to help the secondary while also stopping the run. If the defense can even be average in 2017, the Colts should be favorites to win the AFC South.

Now the question for the Indianapolis Colts will be whether or not Jim Irsay can convince Peyton Manning to come in and be a part of fixing those issues on defense. As of right now, it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case, but stranger things have happened in the NFL and the city would certainly be ready to welcome him back with open arms.

Do you think Peyton Manning rejoining the Indianapolis Colts in a front office role is a good idea?

[Featured Image by Tom Pennington/Getty Images]

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