Manning Up: Don’t Hesitate to Draft Peyton Manning this Season

Throughout the last several years Peyton Manning has not only been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, but he has been a highly productive fantasy quarterback as well. Usually worth a first or second round pick, Manning has been highly drafted in fantasy leagues during his career, but this year things are different. Manning is coming off an unprecedented four neck surgeries. Some say he’s physically ready for football, others disagree. How good can Peyton Manning be this year and where should you draft him? Here’s the breakdown:

The Good

A lot is falling in Peyton Manning’s favor for him to play at a high level this season. The number one thing that needs to happen to help Manning play well and stay healthy is for him to stay upright. Despite having one of the worst offensive lines in the league in his last year as a starter (2010-2011), the Colts were tied for fewest sacks in the league with 16. While a change in offensive scheme may force Peyton to take a little longer to release the ball, Ryan Clady and Orland Franklin make up one of the best pairs of tackles in the league, and Manning should again be near the bottom of the league in sacks taken.

Quarterbacks’ skills are supposed to decline with age, but Peyton entering his 14^th year as a starter and 15^th year in the league, he has not shown many signs of decline. In the 2010-2011 season, Peyton threw for more yards (4700) than he did in 2009-2010 (4500). Similarly, Peyton sustained a touchdown output of 33 TD passes in both seasons (a tie for the second most touchdowns he has thrown in a season for his career).

Although Peyton’s injury seems scary, the only comparable injury, Drew Brees’s shoulder in 2005, makes Peyton’s outlook seem very positive. Although, like Peyton, Brees was forecasted to never again be the player he was in San Diego, and again, like Peyton, he had to come in and learn a totally different offense, Brees’s first season in New Orleans was his first time as an All-Pro, and even with his shoulder injury, he still threw for over 4000 yards.

Even if his health, among other things, worries people around the league that we may not see the same Peyton Manning, Peyton should still be in position to have a good season because. Assuming his shoulder is close to what it once was, Peyton’s numbers haven’t been going down, and he could play to a level close to how he performed in Indianapolis. Denver presents him with a situation where he can have a lot of success. However, his situation isn’t perfect, which brings me to -

The Bad

Over the course of his career, Peyton hasn’t just been a player on the Colts; he has been the team. The offense was totally built around him, he knew every play, audible, where receivers should be, and where he thought the defense would be aligned like the back of his hand. In Denver not only will he be running a totally different offense, but the offensive philosophy will be totally different.

First of all, the focus on a “ground and pound” offense in Denver will not go away. No matter how good his quarterbacks have been John Fox has always been a conservative football coach and structured his offense around the running game. Having Peyton Manning will open up the running game even more than last season because teams will no longer be able to stack the box, but that does not mean that the ratio of run to pass will change significantly. This is especially true in Peyton’s first year in Denver because there is still a risk that he could re-injure that shoulder, and they want to run to protect him from taking unnecessary hits. As a result, a lot of his red zone touchdowns and yards between the 20s will go to Willis McGahee and maybe even Knowshon Moreno.

Although Denver’s outstanding defense will help him win games, it won’t be doing him any favors in fantasy. While the philosophy in Indianapolis was to use a pass rush to force turnovers so Peyton could win the game, the defense has been and will continue to play a much more prominent role in Denver. The Broncos will rarely need Peyton to lead them to score more than 24 points, and accordingly they will not throw as much as the Colts have in the past. But that’s not the worst of it for Peyton.

The Ugly

Sometimes a fantasy killer, Peyton’s interception numbers have been steadily higher later in his career (especially 2010-2011) than earlier. Part of that comes from other teams getting more pressure on Peyton because of a weaker offensive line, but the other contributing factor is much scarier: he slightly overestimates what he is still physically capable of doing. If Peyton is conscious of how the neck injury affects him and he adapts his game accordingly, he should have an efficient season. However, if he plays more like Brett Favre late in his career and thinks he can make all of the throws that he used to then he could go from being a potential top 8 QB to somewhere from 10-12.

Denver’s schedule (especially a key matchup during fantasy playoff time in week 15) is NOT favorable. They have to play several top defenses:

Pittsburg (#1 in total defense last year) in week 1

Houston (#4) in week 3

New England (#15 but much improved especially in the passing game) in week 5

New Orleans (#13 but on the decline) in week 8

Cincinnati (#9) in week 9

Baltimore (#3) in week 15

The Baltimore matchup at the end of the season is enough to scare me off from making Peyton a high draft pick in the end because even if he has a solid season and stays healthy that matchup hugely reduces your chances at a championship. He has a 2:1 TD to INT ratio against the Ravens in his career (his 7^th worst against any team), and the defense is much better at forcing turnovers now than when he was putting up big numbers against them in the middle of his career.

Prediction

Peyton should have a good bounce back season in 2012-13, but the Broncos philosophy more so than medical concerns will hold him back from being as dominate as he was in Indianapolis. I would use a fourth or fifth round pick on him. Expect comparable production to Tony Romo.