A source confirms that the Broncos and Texans talked Manning trade

Late last night Benjamin Allbright tweeted out that the Broncos and Texans talked about trading Peyton Manning. Outrage and denials came quickly, but today we have confirmation that these did, in fact, happen.

According to CBS Houston, the Denver Broncos and the Houston Texans did have "very preliminary" trade talks about Peyton Manning.

Here's what they had to say.

The talks between the two teams occurred before Peyton Manning signed his restructured deal with the Broncos and before the Texans signed free-agent quarterback Brian Hoyer.  If the Texans were to acquire Manning they would have had to restructure Manning’s deal and SportsRadio 610’s source says the money in Houston would not have been as high as the $15 million Manning got from the Broncos.  That $15 MIL was a $4 million paycut for the quarterback.

The keyword here is "very preliminary" trade talks. They probably did discuss it, but nothing ever came of it.

The report from Allbright stated that "certain elements of the organization wanted the Osweiler era to begin" and I believe that. The Broncos were entering a transition period after they fired John Fox and the rest of the coaching staff. They had a soon to be 39-year-old, expensive quarterback on the roster and a young guy who they know very little about. It makes sense that some would want to blow the offense up and start fresh.

Lots of fans, local media believed only problem w/ Manning at end of 2014 was injury. Kinda hard now to think Elway believed the same.

— Mark Kiszla (@markkiszla) June 24, 2015

It appears that General Manager John Elway at least explored this idea before talking about a pay cut with Manning.

Allbright has a pretty good track record on these things, so I lean towards believing him. However, at the end of the day the trade didn't go down and Manning is still on the Broncos.