The Peyton Manning saga came to its logical conclusion Wednesday given the perfect set of circumstances laid out in front of the Colts. Manning was due an unholy sum of money by the end of the week -- $28 million -- he is coming off a season lost to injury, there is no guarantee if he will ever play again and the Colts are set to draft their next franchise QB No. 1 overall in Andrew Luck.

Those are the facts we all know. What this post asks is: What if we took the Luck factor out of the equation. What if the Colts had the No. 8 pick or some such thing and were in no way in a position to grab a franchise QB? What impact would that have had on a difficult -- but inevitably no-brainer -- decision?

Could the Colts, in good faith and without a plan to move forward, have cut ties with their franchise QB?

Our best guess is that the Colts would have stuck with him. That's jus our gut. We do know it would have been a much more excruciating decision, and a far more fascinating one than the emotional-but-expected one that played out Wednesday.

Your thoughts, please, in the comments.