Peyton Manning woke up Seahawks’ Pete Carroll when he was a free agent
By Mike Dyce
When the Indianapolis Colts released quarterback Peyton Manning and he hit free agency, he was one of the most sought after players in free agency history. He entertained the thought of joining the Seattle Seahawks and even called head coach Pete Carroll, waking him up one morning, to talk about it.
“It was brief,” Carroll said, via NFL.com. “We have ventured into every opportunity. John and I have looked into what is available, what could we possibly get out of the players that are out there. In this free-agency opportunity, you know, here’s Peyton Manning.”
“Word got out and, really, he called me. He called me first. He knew that we were interested and he gave me a call and woke me up one morning and — jumped out of bed. ‘OK, let’s go. What’s up, Peyton?
“And so we started talking. We talked about just the basics of what it might mean for him coming to us and so the process was underway. It was very early. He had said he didn’t know what he was going to do, he didn’t know where he was going to visit, he didn’t know what was going to come up and he wanted at least to hear where we stood and what our interest was.”