It's not like hte Colts have been a pure embarrassment since then. They've made the playoffs eight times, and in the years they didn't, they generally hovered around .500. They've had some highs. They had Andrew Luck. But really it's been one long descent from that moment of being on top of the football world. Bill Polian made his decision, that resting up a team that wasn't 14-0 good anyway was mre important than chasing 16-0. I disagreed then. Many did. I don't know if I would call everything that's happened since karmic retribution, but it wouldn't be the worst throughline for a 10-part docuseries.
The story goes that Jim Irsay vehemently hated the fact that Bill Polian pushed coach Jim Caldwell to pull his starters and give up on the 16-0 season. Bill Polian was a noted asshole. He was our asshole, the Colts asshole, and ruthlessly good at his job. Jim Irsay hated the fact that Bill Polian basically pulled every string on that franchise. Irsay wanted his franchise back. After a fairly staid 10-6 season in 2010 (their worst in eight years), Peyton Manning got hurt in 2011. The Colts fell to 2-14, got the #1 pick that gifted them a generational prospect, and Bill Polian had everythign he needed to "take his franchise back." He fired Polian, cut Peyton, drafted Luck and it was all supposed to be hunky dory. It all may have worked also, if not for that darn Peyton.
The biggest risk in all of that was Irsay cutting Peyton - the guy who basically built this franchise and turned them into a professional outfit. Manning missed an entire season and had a scary neck injury. The only failure point to Irsay's plan was if Peyton returend as good as ever. It's one thing to cut a guy who wouldn't really play again. It's another when the guy you cut leads a team to a 50-14 record over four seasons, two Super Bowls, one title, and two incredible seasons, one of which would see him set all time records that still haven't been broken for yards and TDs. I honestly don't think Irsay could take the fact that Peyton returend as good as ever and he would be the known as the guy that "gave up on Peyton."
So what did Irsay do? He doubles down on this being his franchise - and namely that he went to some degree to put down the Manning/Polian era. He lamented them winning "just one" Super Bowl. He lamented their "star wars" numbers of offensive glory, noting how teams win on defense and running and that normal bullshit. Forget that the Manning era was incredibly successful in every way - won twelve games in a row seven straight years, had four MVP seasons from Peyton, etc. But no, Irsay wanted somethign different.
That something different ruined Andrew Luck's career. With Luck, he should've just repeated the Manning era - surroudn him with great weapons, invest in pass rush, build through the draft, etc. Instead, through GM Ryan Grigson, and coach Chuck Pagano, they did the opposite. The overspent in free agency on interior lineman and linebackers. They wasted picks on running backs (Trent Richardson!). They never got a real pass rusher. They had a terrible line, made worse by Luck's one failing of holding the ball too much. Luck was great enough to win a lot of games, but also couldn't hold up. He was beaten and battered into a shock retirement right before the 2019 season.
That leads to big mistake #2 (#1 being cutting Peyton and overreacting to Polian). Luck's retirement should have been a moment of introspection. Instead it wasn't that at all. By then Chris Ballard and Frank Reich had replaced Ryan Grigson and Chuck Pagano, and while both have been a step up, neither had the right approach. It's been five seasons since Luck retired and there's still undercurrents of that admitted shock being an excuse for why there is no answer. It definitely lasted through three years of recycling old QBs to worse and worse results (Rivets in 2020, Wentz in 2021, Ryan and 2022). None of those were even medium-term answer, but the Colts trod on.
And then came the Richardson pick. They got a top draft pick eleven years after getting the top draft pick that got them Andrew Luck. Anthony Richardson had a lot of red flags - not many starts, accuracy issues in college. It was going to take time. 10 games isn't enough time. But the rushed decision here, even if Shane Steichen is taking full responsibility, is another sympton of how broken this franchise is mentally.
It was broken when Irsay "wanted his franchise back." It was broken when he demeaned the Manning era because he couldn't handle he cut a Peyton who could still play at an MVP level. It was broken when it literally broke Andrew Luck - something that was such a gift that they just wasted. It was broken when they decided to keep trotting out old QBs instaed of actually just re-setting thigns for the post Luck world years ago. And it is broken now when they are seemingly either fully giving up on a guy 10 starts in, or just wasting time to further evaluate by pushing that decision into 2025 to see if Flacco can go 9-8 like Wentz did in 2021. I don't think Irsay is a bad owner, but he's a rash and emotional one that has still not mentally recovered from 2009.
Someday the Colts will get out of this cycle of stupid decision making and mediocrity. When that day eventually comes, I hope we can look back at maybe this - the quick trigger failing of Anthony Richardson - being what set them back on track. Fifteen years ago, they pulled their starters. It was a fairly cowardly, weird move, but led to so much madness. Fifteen years later, they've pulled their starter at QB. It is fairly nonsensical. Hopefully not a perpetuation of a fifteen year nightmare, but the more I think about, the more I think it is.
