Jim Irsay’s suspension is basically over and the Colts owner has returned to the NFL with a story to tell.
According to Mike Silver of NFL.com, sources familiar with the situation and Irsay himself confirmed that the relationship between the Colts and Peyton Manning ended badly.
Although Peyton Manning’s exit from Indianapolis never reached those levels of acrimony in the public eye, NFL Media columnist Michael Silver reported this week, via sources familiar with the situation, a string of internal power struggles left fissures in the organization by the time owner Jim Irsay declined to pick up the quarterback’s $28 option bonus.
Sidelined by ongoing neck troubles in a lost season, per Silver, a noodle-armed Manning pushed for a return to the field solely as a red-zone specialist for a seemingly meaningless Week 16 game versus the Texans.
Team president Bill Polian put the decision in the hands of Irsay, who recently revealed to Silver that “things had gotten really, really bad” by the time he put the kibosh on Manning’s return.
Once Irsay took control, cleaning out a front office built by Polian, Manning complained that he was “stunned … surprised … saddened … and disappointed.”
Irsay himself admitted that moving on from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck was “extremely painful.”