The Denver Broncos claim they didn't try to ship Peyton Manning off to Houston this past offseason, despite a report on Tuesday night that suggested otherwise.
Two sources told Benjamin Allbright of 94.1 FM in Denver that the Broncos tried to trade Manning sometime before the Denver quarterback signed his restructured deal with the team on March 4.
A Broncos spokesman was quick to deny the rumor on Twitter, "The speculation is false, and [the] report is inaccurate," the team spokesman wrote.
Here's one for the record - The speculation is false, and your report is inaccurate. https://t.co/Epge4WkOrX
— Patrick Smyth (@psmyth12) June 24, 2015
Allbright was one of the first to speculate that Nick Foles would be traded to the Rams back in March.
Although the Broncos are denying that they tried to dump Manning, the Texans haven't denied anything yet.
When reach by ProFootballTalk, Houston didn't deny the story, but the team did offer a "no comment."
Also, the Texans told PFT they have no comment on the report of the Broncos trying to trade Peyton Manning to Houston.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) June 24, 2015
It's interesting that the Texans went the "no comment" route because they probably could have ended any and all speculation if they would have denied the report.
Instead, the situation seems almost like the one from February 2014 when the 49ers and Browns released conflicting statements about Jim Harbaugh.
The 49ers denied there were any trade talks involving Harbaugh, but the Browns said otherwise.
It's not inconceivable that the Broncos did try to trade Manning. For one, Manning made sure to add a no-trade clause to his contract, something that wasn't there from 2012-14.
The clause was added in March, when Manning took a $4 milion pay cut to stay in Denver. That $4 million pay cut could have conceivably made it easier to trade Manning.
The other common thread here is Gary Kubiak.
Back in 2012, Manning actually wanted to play for the Texans, but Houston didn't want him. Kubiak was the coach of that 2012 team and decided that Matt Schaub -- who was coming off a 2011 playoff season -- was a better fit than Manning, who was a complete question mark as he was coming off his fourth neck surgery.
Kubiak was hired as the Broncos new coach in January and at the time of the hiring, there was some speculation that Manning wouldn't fit in his offense, which requires a mobile quarterback for the many bootleg passes Kubiak loves to call.
If Kubiak wasn't sure about Manning before, he does sound sure now.
In early June, Kubiak told NFL.com that working with Manning has been "good."
"I'm amazed at his conditioning level, the shape he's in, how he moves around, the feet that he has. He's responded very good," Kubiak said on June 10. "We try to dedicate a lot of our time under center, because that's something he hasn't done much of, so we're probably 3-to-1 under center-to-gun. But we're also continuing to do all the things he's done throughout his career. It's been good.
If the trade rumor is true, it could put Kubiak in an awkward spot when Manning reports for camp. It's also interesting to think about what the Broncos would have received in return for Manning. A 2016 first-round pick?
If the rumor is false though, as the Broncos claim, then it's going to be business as usual in Denver and Manning will be looking to earn the $4 million in bonus money he'll get if the Broncos win Super Bowl 50.
