Denver Broncos Willing to Pay to Protect Peyton Manning and His Neck

When you have one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game in your backfield you want to do what you can to protect him. When he also happens to be 37 and has had more neck surgeries than I can count it is no longer 'do what you can' it becomes 'by any means necessary.'

Keith Allison/Flickr

The Broncos have been in talks with offensive tackle Ryan Clady for sometime, and it finally appears to have paid off. Sunday evening the news broke that Denver signed Clady to a five-year, $57.5 million deal.

Denver had placed the franchise tag on Clady guaranteeing him just under $10 million this coming season, but than he would be a free agent next season. The team has been slowly improving their offer to him; as of Saturday the word was that they had upped it half a million a season to $52.5 over 5-years with over half of it guaranteed ($33 million).

Apparently the notion of losing him and the protection he could provide Peyton Manning next season was too much so they jacked up their offer and a deal was made.

If you are wondering if he's worth the money, last season as Peyton's blindside protector he played through the pain of a shoulder injury (bad enough to require surgery in the off-season) and still only allowed one sack.

When it comes to a QB that you don't want hit at all I'd say yes, it was money well spent.