NFL Rumors: Peyton Manning, Roddy White, Andre Johnson, & Free Agency

Peyton Manning

• Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk writes that there has been no indications of any team having genuine over even remote interest in signing QB Peyton Manning up to this point.
• However, if a team were to show interest, Florio believes the Rams would make the most sense for him.
• Florio tosses out the Jets as speculative idea, but admits that if this was actually an option, someone would have reported as much by now.
• In the end, Manning’s best opportunity could be sign on with a team who sustains an injury at the quarterback position later in the year, according to Florio.

Roddy White

Roddy White tells Vaughn McClure of ESPN that he got the impression that the Falcons were going to release him

“No, I ain’t frustrated at all; it is what it is,” White said. “That’s just the NFL. Eventually, it’s going to be your time. It’s just according to when it happens.

“They showed no indication that I was going to be there, so I kind of expected it already. Like last year going through the whole situation, I knew I was going to be on the team because they said I was going to be on the team. But this year, they didn’t say that. They never gave any clear indication I was going to be there. When there’s no clarity early on about decisions like that, that means you already have a 50/50 chance, so I was just thinking to myself that it can only get worse.”

White added that his expectation and that of OC Kyle Shanahan clearly weren’t aligned in regards to his role in the team’s offense.

“What [Shanahan] expected from me and what I expected from him was totally different,” White said. “I expected to play a bigger role in the offense, and that’s what I wanted to do. But he didn’t have that in his desires. He had other people that he wanted to play my role, so he wanted me to be out of the [offense]. That was the whole thing. And it is what it is. I can’t do nothing about it. I can’t change his way of thinking or anything like that. I can just do what I did, which was just handle my business and get myself prepared for this moment.”

White said that he wants to play another two or three years.

“I know I can still play, without a doubt,” White said. “Two or three years, I feel like I can play. I feel like I can be productive. Whoever brings me in will give me the opportunity to catch passes.”

Andre Johnson

Veteran WR Andre Johnson tells NFL Media that he’s playing next year no matter what.

“I am playing, there’s no question about that,” Johnson said. “I know I can still play this game…people read into the stories too much. I’m not discouraged about what happened this past season, I’m just waiting for an opportunity.”

Recent reports have said that the Colts will move on from Johnson at some point in the near future.

Free Agency

• Albert Breer mentions that teams in need of a receiver may elect to spend “foolishly” in order to get someone, considering that this year’s draft class is considered to be “mediocre” at the position.