The Broncos announced this morning that five-time MVP winner Peyton Manning "is retiring," with a news conference scheduled tomorrow to "discuss his stepping away from the game after 18 seasons." Manning called the Broncos last night to "inform them he would be retiring." The news conference "had been previously scheduled, but the Broncos didn't know what Manning's decision would be until he made the call." ESPN's Chris Mortensen first reported the news (ESPN.com, 3/6). Manning's $19M salary for '16 "would have become guaranteed Tuesday." His departure before the fifth season of his deal "costs the Broncos" $2.5M as applied to the salary cap (DENVERPOST.com, 3/6).
The INDIANAPOLIS STAR's Zak Keefer writes in Super Bowl 50, the "Football Gods finally got it right" by sending Manning out a winner. Keefer: "No player deserved it more" (INDYSTAR.com, 3/6). However, Manning will "walk away with uncharacteristically ugly questions hovering over him." There was the "Al Jazeera report of HGH use," as well as a "decades-old incident that allegedly involved him" that surfaced in a lawsuit against his alma mater, the Univ. of Tennessee (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 3/6).
