Is Peyton Manning a Fool for Signing with the Broncos Instead of the 49ers?

You may remember that just this past off season, Peyton Manning was released by the Indianapolis Colts in order to make room for #1 overall draft pick Andrew Luck. During the offseason, Manning was courted by various teams who more or less openly admitted that as much as they liked their quarterbacks, they'd rather have Peyton. The 3 teams that were most linked to Manning were the San Francisco 49ers, the Tennessee Titans, the Miami Dolphins, and the Denver Broncos. The Titans and Dolphins were almost immediately out of the picture, but the 49ers remained a potential contender despite head coach Jim Harbaugh had repeatedly talked about his confidence in Alex Smith the past season. All that was for naught however, as Peyton decided to sign with the Denver Broncos, presumably to avoid playing his brother, Eli, on a regular basis.

Two weeks into the regular season, Peyton Manning looks like an idiot for signing with the Broncos over the 49ers as the Niners have absolutely demolished the Packers and Lions while the Broncos struggled to beat the Steelers and lost to the Falcons when Manning threw 3 interceptions in 1 quarter. Some of the more big-mouthed pundits are saying that picking Denver over San Francisco might be the biggest mistake of Manning's career.

They're wrong.

The 49ers are so good because the core of the team has been together for several years now, Michael Crabtree being the newest addition to the core, and that was more than 2 years ago. The 49ers have grown together and because of that, are one unit. Bringing in Manning would disrupt that, no matter how legendary a QB he is. The reason the Broncos aren't off to the hottest start is because the majority of the team has yet to build real chemistry, even though many players came from the Colts and are familiar with Peyton.

So while I ponder what things would be like if Manning were in 49er red instead of Bronco orange, I just remember that sometimes it's nice to have a bunch of losers who become winners. I'm sure Manning will do fine in Denver, but I'd rather have a group with pre-established team chemistry.