The retirement ceremony to end all retirement ceremonies took place on Monday as Peyton Manning announced the end of his professional football career.

However, one thing seems to be apparent.

Peyton Manning still wanted to play football. Ultimately, many people were going to make Manning’s mind up for him first.

Peter King of Monday Morning Quarterback offered a pretty harrowing reality for a potential 2016 scenario for Manning during his postmortem of Manning’s retirement news:

In 2012, Manning had teams panting after him. Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco, Denver, Arizona, Miami, the Jets. In 2016, that was gone. The one team that was mildly interested was the Rams. But the Rams’ braintrust hadn’t had a serious internal discussion about Manning, and I am told the Rams would not have guaranteed Manning the starting job. And how embarrassing would it have been if Manning signed with Los Angeles for, say, $8 million plus incentives, then had to come in and compete with Case Keenum and—in all likelihood—a drafted quarterback this spring for the starting job? Imagine Jeff Fisher having to go to Manning on Aug. 25 and ask him if he wanted to be number two … to Case Keenum. Not that this certainly would have happened, but the Rams were going to play the best guy.

When the Los Angeles Rams of all teams would rather ride with Case Keenum than two-time Super Bowl champion, salt of the earth quarterback Peyton Manning, something is amiss.

Meanwhile, John Elway didn’t want any part of him coming back to Denver. Manning would have likely been released soon after his 2016 contract became guaranteed on Tuesday. Manning’s other problem was simple.

Manning’s football race is over but he sure didn’t have much of a choice.