Within hours after Peyton Manning was released from the Colts and officially became a free agent word got out that he was not interested in playing for the Redskins. That may not have been true. At least it appears that John Elway believes that Manning had initial interest in playing in Washington.
Manning was visiting the Broncos on the Friday after he was released. According to an account by Peter King of SI.com, Elway received a text telling him that the Redskins had traded up for the second pick in the draft.
Elway told Manning, "Whoa—Washington just traded for the second pick. Looks like they'll get RG3."
"What!?" Manning said, stunned.
From that reaction, Elway knew that the Redskins had been on Manning's list.
We have learned that the trade actually took place on Thursday when the Rams asked any interested teams for their best offers. The Redskins’ offer bested that of the Browns and the deal as agreed to.
The bottom line was that the Redskins couldn’t afford to wait on Manning even though it appears that he would have liked to have had them as an option.
Mike and Kyle Shanahan did come to a scheduled meeting in Denver on Saturday anyway and they just talked football with Manning for the allotted three hours.
(h/t to @John_Keim)
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