by Kent Sterling
There is an old saying in sports that the best teams have an owner who owns, a general manager who generally manages, and a coach who coaches.
The Indianapolis Colts were a team like that for many years, most of them very successful.
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Owner Jim Irsay sent a tweet today just before 2p that pulled back the curtain a little bit on the inner workings of the Colts:
Many starters played briefly or were nursing little injuries,but it was a crap performance,my apologies/My commanders got n earful from me!
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) August 12, 2013
Maybe that was meant to reassure fans that there was a consequence for the poor performance during yesterday’s 44-20 debacle against the Buffalo Bills in the preseason opener. Maybe Irsay was just kidding. I don’t know. He’s a tough guy to read sometimes.
If Irsay was serious, I would direct his attention to the 4-22 preseason record his team compiled from 2005-2010. After winning at just a 15.4% clip in those six postseasons, the Colts went on to win 75-of-96 in the regular season, a Super Bowl Championship, and an AFC crown.
The Colts are going to be what they are because of how they play beginning September 8th against the Oakland Raiders. Whether they bounce back to win their last three preseason games or lose them all, their record will be 0-0 when the regular season begins.
No one likes to be embarrassed, and if there is something systemically wrong with the efforts of the front office staff or the coaches, those should be addressed, but Ryan Grigson and Chuck Pagano don’t need Irsay to tell them that the Colts looked hapless yesterday.
I believe Jim Irsay is one of the most effective owners in the NFL, but assuaging the doubts of nutty fans who overreact to a preseason hiccup via Twitter seems more than a little unownerly.
Grigson took over a team in ruin after a 2-14 2011 record, much like Bill Polian did before him when the Colts qualified for the first pick in the 1998 NFL Draft because of a 3-13 record. Both took once every generation talents at quarterback, surrounded them with role players, and the wins followed.
This is no time to deviate from that recipe for success, and a closed door meeting to shake things up once in awhile is not the worst idea, but outing the meeting on Twitter is a distraction.
That is if it happened. I’m going to give Irsay the benefit of the doubt and chalk the tweet up to an effort to pacify lunatics who ran screaming from Lucas Oil Stadium yesterday after the drubbing by a team the Colts should expect to beat sound with starters.