The news came on Monday afternoon in a press conference, as Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak said that the quarterback will be unavailable for the game in Chicago.
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A few Broncos players told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that Manning had difficulty walking last week.
Before the Broncos’ decision to go to backup Brock Osweiler was announced, Manning’s brother, Giants quarterback Eli Manning, said he had not talked with his brother, but that he expects him to be okay. The former disadvantage is something the Broncos offensive line has been dealing with since Manning came to town, but the latter will be a new challenge.
There was a question of whether Osweiler would supplant Manning for good.
“He’ll be fine. He’ll bounce back and hopefully get healthy. I’d take 7-2 with one four-interception game at this point”. And let’s not pretend it was Manning winning games for the Broncos this year.
Still, Manning refused to use the injuries as an excuse. “I mean, no, he’s up there today and he wants to go, he wants to do everything he can for his football team and I knew that and I expected that”.
“He’ll be fine”, Eli said. Maybe looking back that was a wrong indication by me. “And I know that, and I respect that, but I feel like I need to make this decision and I know through my conversations with him and everything, I have no doubt that it’s the best decision as we move forward this week”.
“All the attention is toward getting (Manning) getting healthy”, Kubiak said.
“It was painful”, he said. I couldn’t really tell you… what might be different or what might be the same, but like I said, we’ve got one offense here. “He went in there and played with a lot of confidence the other night”. He was benched for the first time in his career Sunday after throwing four interceptions in Denver’s 29-13 loss to Kansas City. “We’re focused this week, and then we’ll reevaluate everything next week, but I stand by Peyton and support him 100 percent”.
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Manning lined up under center nine times against the Green Bay Packers earlier this month, but only lined up under center once against the Oakland Raiders and once against the Indianapolis Colts. So why shouldn’t he play the twin roles of advertising symbol and father by providing a pizza party to Osweiler and company after victories to celebrate, courtesy of Papa John’s? “He had the opportunity to learn under one of the best”. The team knew of both injuries heading into the game, and if Kubiak had to do it over, he would have held the future Hall of Famer out of the lineup to allow his nagging injuries to heal in time for a playoff run. “Incredible”, quarterback Tom Brady said on his radio show on Monday.
