Irsay retrospective

[Rally5]

    I've been a die hard fan since the day the Mayflowers rolled it to Indy and I really respect the fans here who were fans before that time and followed their fandom from Baltimore to Indy.  I was speaking with my son this morning lamenting the game yesterday and I told him this is how it used to be before the Manning and Polian era.  In fact, during the Manning years, I never took for granted how good we were I always reminded myself that "this is a special time."  Then I went on to tell him when people always talked about how great Peyton was (we live out of town) I would often respond with our MVP is really Bill Polian, that's when things changed in Indy no matter how you paint it.  Remember many people wanted Ryan Leaf and Ricky Williams and Polian brought us Manning and James.  Anyway, I decided to do a little research and found that during the Polian years the Colts were 146-94 and that with some bookend bad years.  When you look at the Colts outside the Polian years (1984-1996 / 2011 - P) we are 128-149.  

 

    I thought about it some more and we're seeing a slow deterioration year over year of what I believe was a championship culture.  During the Polian years we had: arguably the best QB of all time, a HOF GM (maybe GOAT), a HOF Head Coach, a HOF WR and a likely second in Wayne.  We had two likely HOF Defensive ends and a Defensive Player of the year and several more Ring of Honor inductees.  Remember, prior to Polian were inducting guys like Jim Harbaugh (who I like) for having a four decent years as a QB in Indy, that was as good as it got!   As we sit here today the only people in our organization from players, coaches, and head office with that potential seem to be Andrew Luck, TY and Frank Gore mainly from his time in SF.  So, the culture that was so carefully built over a decade is now been washed away with poor drafts, poor free agents and an arrogant head office approach based upon zero history of success.

 

    Truth is, the Irsay's (Jim or Bob) have never been especially good operational leaders of this team, Jim "wanted his team back" so we ushered out HOF talent and culture and replaced it with a rookie Head Coach, a rookie GM, a rookie QB and decided to start all over with high energy media friendly people that Jim really likes.  Well, the result of that is unfortunate for us Colt fans but should come as no surprise when you consider none fo these people had any experience int he job roles in which they were hired.  I was critical of Irsay as a leader last year and a bunch of people came running to his defense.  I'll stand by an old quote by Bill Parcells that ayss "you are what your record says you are"  I happen to credit the Polian era to the leadership of Bill P and when you look at the franchise on balance it's not very impressive.

 

I guess here's the point (finally), I don't dislike Jim Irsay at all, I will always be thankful they brought football to Indy.  I like Jim even more when he hires experienced, talented front office people and lets them run his franchise with intelligence and let him just play on Twitter and buy memoralbilia!  I don't care how media friendly they are, I don't care how nice our coach is, I like Pags, good dude, not an NFL HC. The front office in the NFL is almost everything and Grigson may be a great GM someday but after he learns and evaluates his significant mistakes in Indy.  Even Belichick was fired in Cleveland once upon a time.  So, even if we turn this season around I never see this front office or coaching staff delivering at an HOF level and isn't that the ultimate mission?  Irsay can eat the contract extensions, mistakes are expensive, and then go find people with serious bonafide's to put this back together again.  No F/X Coaches or GM's, no college guys, get people with Super Bowls on their resume, there are people out there with a legitimate track record to be hired and take us to a new era.  Sorry I took so long, the conclusions here are nothing new but we often do not contemplate the owner's role in all this and it seems worth mentioning,

[colts8718]

13 minutes ago, Rally5 said:

    I've been a die hard fan since the day the Mayflowers rolled it to Indy and I really respect the fans here who were fans before that time and followed their fandom from Baltimore to Indy.  I was speaking with my son this morning lamenting the game yesterday and I told him this is how it used to be before the Manning and Polian era.  In fact, during the Manning years, I never took for granted how good we were I always reminded myself that "this is a special time."  Then I went on to tell him when people always talked about how great Peyton was (we live out of town) I would often respond with our MVP is really Bill Polian, that's when things changed in Indy no matter how you paint it.  Remember many people wanted Ryan Leaf and Ricky Williams and Polian brought us Manning and James.  Anyway, I decided to do a little research and found that during the Polian years the Colts were 146-94 and that with some bookend bad years.  When you look at the Colts outside the Polian years (1984-1996 / 2011 - P) we are 128-149.  

 

    I thought about it some more and we're seeing a slow deterioration year over year of what I believe was a championship culture.  During the Polian years we had: arguably the best QB of all time, a HOF GM (maybe GOAT), a HOF Head Coach, a HOF WR and a likely second in Wayne.  We had two likely HOF Defensive ends and a Defensive Player of the year and several more Ring of Honor inductees.  Remember, prior to Polian were inducting guys like Jim Harbaugh (who I like) for having a four decent years as a QB in Indy, that was as good as it got!   As we sit here today the only people in our organization from players, coaches, and head office with that potential seem to be Andrew Luck, TY and Frank Gore mainly from his time in SF.  So, the culture that was so carefully built over a decade is now been washed away with poor drafts, poor free agents and an arrogant head office approach based upon zero history of success.

 

 

 

    Truth is, the Irsay's (Jim or Bob) have never been especially good operational leaders of this team, Jim "wanted his team back" so we ushered out HOF talent and culture and replaced it with a rookie Head Coach, a rookie GM, a rookie QB and decided to start all over with high energy media friendly people that Jim really likes.  Well, the result of that is unfortunate for us Colt fans but should come as no surprise when you consider none fo these people had any experience int he job roles in which they were hired.  I was critical of Irsay as a leader last year and a bunch of people came running to his defense.  I'll stand by an old quote by Bill Parcells that ayss "you are what your record says you are"  I happen to credit the Polian era to the leadership of Bill P and when you look at the franchise on balance it's not very impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess here's the point (finally), I don't dislike Jim Irsay at all, I will always be thankful they brought football to Indy.  I like Jim even more when he hires experienced, talented front office people and lets them run his franchise with intelligence and let him just play on Twitter and buy memoralbilia!  I don't care how media friendly they are, I don't care how nice our coach is, I like Pags, good dude, not an NFL HC. The front office in the NFL is almost everything and Grigson may be a great GM someday but after he learns and evaluates his significant mistakes in Indy.  Even Belichick was fired in Cleveland once upon a time.  So, even if we turn this season around I never see this front office or coaching staff delivering at an HOF level and isn't that the ultimate mission?  Irsay can eat the contract extensions, mistakes are expensive, and then go find people with serious bonafide's to put this back together again.  No F/X Coaches or GM's, no college guys, get people with Super Bowls on their resume, there are people out there with a legitimate track record to be hired and take us to a new era.  Sorry I took so long, the conclusions here are nothing new but we often do not contemplate the owner's role in all this and it seems worth mentioning,

 

I have followed them from Baltimore to Indy Irsay has taken a step back. The sooner he realizes the mistakes in hiring Pagano who is nothing more then a cheerleader and Grigson (Trent Richardson)the better off the team will be in the long run.