Day after Manning

March Madness is in full swing, but it is getting squeezed a little bit this year with all the other things happening this march. Because of the off-season lockout, the NBA trade deadline slipped into mid-March and the tiring Dwight Howard saga dragged on and on. Finally, there were a few interesting trades, but nothing earth-shattering happened. But the Peyton Manning courting really is the news of the season and it made the NFL free-agency infinitely more intriguing than usual. Not only was he the big name on the market, but he was also blocking many other QB signings since every team that needed a QB and some that didn't went after him with gusto. Finally, he has made the decision. He has decided to suit-up for Denver. The Niners were a late entrant - at least officially, as they clandestinely worked Manning out and now are caught up in a drama involving Alex Smith. Denver is the winner here as they get Manning despite having a phenomenon named Tebow on their roster. Manning is going to cost way more than what I would have originally guessed for a 36 year-old guy coming off of a neck injury. But he is still going to excite the Denver fan-base and the other suitors can only wonder what might have been if he had picked them.

The Niner situation is interesting. Denver had a good, choir boy QB under contract and if Manning had flaked out on them, they just had to kiss and make up with Tebow. He is the type who would have said all the right things and played his rear-end off as always. The problem with the Niners is, they didn't have a starting QB under contract. Alex Smith was a free-agent himself. So they were going after both Manning and Smith after a season of love affair between coach Harbaugh and Smith. Hence the secret workout with Manning that eventually leaked. It did stay a secret rather long for this day and age. The fact that they did it in secrecy tells you they wanted to hide it from someone and Smith is the only possible target of this secrecy. Ordinarily, going after Manning is a great PR move for the team and thats something the team would want on the front pages. So the assumption here across the bay is that the Niners wanted to hide it from Smith. The only reason I am not entirely sure about that is that Manning and Smith also have the same agent - another nice twist to the story. I can't imagine Smith's agent helping the Niners double-cross him like that. Either Tom Condon is the worst agent ever or the Niners kept Condon out of their courtship of Manning as well by dealing with Manning directly and asking him to keep his own agent in the dark so that Smith is in the dark too.

We may never know what happened behind closed doors and how much Alex Smith knew or if he was upset about the whole drama. But it is providing an interesting sideshow to Manning's free agency. Now, the focus is on what happens to Alex Smith and the Niners. There is a 3-year, 24 million contract on the table and he may have to settle for it eventually. The leverage has been shifting every 6 hours in this story and right now, since the Dolphins signed David Garrard, the Niners seem to have the upper hand again. This should be resolved in a day or two. I almost want Alex Smith to sign with another team and stick it to the Niners. He can also fire Condon while he is at it. But I don't think any of that will happen. Also, I like both Alex Smith and coach Harbaugh and want them to continue their marriage by the bay for at least one more year. It will be interesting to see what they do next season with that defense back in full strength and with Randy Moss and Mario Manningham added to the receiving core. The Niner fans are in a funny situation here too as they desperately wanted their team to go after Manning. I guess they were not careful what they wished for. The Niners did chase Manning and lost. Now the fans are reduced to sweating the Alex Smith signing and understandably so. Hope all ends well for them. As for Manning, the next steps are about figuring out the number of zeroes in his contract. There will be many, but the details will be interesting. Then the Tebow trade drama can begin in earnest.

In the NCAA tournament, we have the sweet 16 all setup. For all the talk of madness, all four 1 seeds, two 2-seeds, two 3-seeds and three 4-seeds are still dancing. There is a 6 and 7 seed in the mix, but the interesting ones are 10-Th seed Xavier, 11-Th seed NC State and 13-Th seed Ohio. There are also 4 teams from the state of Ohio - the first time any one state pulled that off. There is also the remote possibility that Xavier and Cincinnati - the two teams that had an ugly fight earlier in the season, may end up meeting in the championship game. There are enough 1 seeds that will prevent that from happening, but keep an eye on that. The best day so far in the tournament was the Friday when Lehigh and Norfolk State took care of two 2-seed including the hated Duke. Unfortunately, both those 15-Th seeds got blown out on Sunday in the round of 32. Thats how the tournament rolls. You never know who's going to win and when. Thats why you watch it and watch it closely. As for my bracket, Missouri shredded it when they lost to one of the aforementioned 15-Th seeds, but I can take solace in the fact that even President Barack had Missouri going pretty deep.