Peyton Manning does not want to play for the Washington Redskins. At least, that's what Chris Russell of ESPN Radio 980 believes. He says that sources inside the Redskins organization told him that Manning's camp has already reached out to the team to inform them. Here's Russell's quotes from his appearance on SportsCenter, via Pro Football Talk.
"A couple of different sources inside the organization have told me that Manning's camp made it pretty clear to Redskins officials he doesn't want to come here ... There's lots of reasons for that. His brother Eli, the colder weather, the whole situation down in Miami and so on and so forth. But unless that changes - and I'm taking my sources at their word - I don't think Manning's coming here to D.C."
Regardless of what you think of Russell, this makes plenty of sense. Manning owns real estate in Miami and it seems reasonable that he wouldn't want to compete against his brother as a division rival.
UPDATE: Well, not so fast. This from Pro Football Talk Thursday evening:
A source with knowledge of the situation disputes [Russell's] account, telling PFT that Manning has not told the Redskins to take his name off their wish list.
Yet.
So Manning hasn’t told the Redskins he’s out, but that doesn’t mean he’ll eventually pick the Redskins. It also doesn’t mean he’s genuinely interested.
PFT's Mike Florio believes that Manning is not, in fact, interested in the Redskins, and will formally confirm his lack of interest with the organization sooner or later. We tend to agree with this. In the end, though this is all just playing semantics, and we're essentially back where we started.
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