Jim Irsay’s Meddling Must Stop for Colts to Succeed Again
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NFL owners live and breathe success. For Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, it’s been largely a success in his time as owner of the Colts.
In 1997, Irsay took over for his father, Robert, who owned the team since 1972 during the Baltimore Colts days. Robert had many ups and downs, but his son found success very quickly and has put the Colts on the map now in his 26th year of ownership.
Numbers are needed to encapsulate a career of such length, so here is Jim Irsay’s. The Colts hold a 240-173 record (58% win) with Irsay at the helm, including 10 divisional championships (from 2003-14 the Colts won the AFC South in 9-of-12 seasons), 16 playoff appearances, two Super Bowl appearances, and the 2006-07 Super Bowl championship.
Irsay was also the owner when his team drafted Peyton Manning in 1998 and Andrew Luck in 2012, both No. 1-overall picks. One went on to become one of the greatest of all time, while the other had incredible moments cementing him as one of the best Colts to play the game.
Needless to say, Irsay seems to know how to put together a winner. Jump to the 2019 offseason and the process of unwinding this streak of success begins.
This "beginning" is the unanticipated retirement of Luck. What would follow would be a roller coaster of Day-1 starting quarterbacks under then-second-year head coach Frank Reich, with Jacoby Brissett in 2019, Philip Rivers in 2020, Carson Wentz in 2021, and now Matt Ryan in 2022.
For any NFL team, this is a difficult path to follow. This year, we've seen a typically calm and collected Irsay become desperate for solutions and uncharacteristically grasping at straws. Let's start when the Colts traded away Wentz.
For any Colts fan, the conclusion to last year's 9-8 season is a sad one, with a team many thought could claw their way to the Super Bowl. Quite a few put their downfall on then-signal-caller Wentz.
Irsay was so upset with the situation that he cryptically put out tweets regarding the rest of the playoffs, saying that you "need a QB and offense who can score 30 or more points in regulation," among other things. He was also quoted later, saying of Wentz, "For us, it was something we had to move away from as a franchise. It was very obvious," according to the Indianapolis Star.
It’s not hard to see that Irsay was completely over Wentz’s unpredictable play at quarterback. Being massively behind it, the Colts traded the quarterback to the Washington Commanders for a trio of picks in the 2022 and 2023 drafts. This was a moment of, "this has Irsay’s hands all over it" for many.
Not long after Wentz was dealt away, the Colts needed a quarterback. Irsay clearly wanted the position to be solid and was leaning heavily toward another veteran. With names like Baker Mayfield and Jimmy Garropolo available for trade, one would expect that one of them would be the guy. Instead, the Colts traded a third-round pick to the Atlanta Falcons for Ryan. To say Irsay was happy to be getting a proven veteran in the building is underselling.
"Oh, man. I tell you it’s been great, it’s been really exciting having him in and his leadership," Irsay later told reporters. He was later quoted saying, "He’s excited about playing and excited about finishing his legacy over the next three, four, or five years or whatever it is."
Irsay saw how Wentz plummeted when the moment called for a big play, so "Matty Ice" seemed to be a perfect fit. Well, that legacy, Mr. Irsay, seems to be for one year only. The season quickly turned sour when head coach Frank Reich couldn’t get anything going with the washed-up Ryan, so to provide a solution, Irsay took care of things his way.
After a blowout loss to the New England Patriots on Nov. 6, Reich was fired by Irsay. However, the owner did two very uncharacteristic things in the process. First is that he fired a coach mid-season, which Irsay had never done before. Second, he fired Reich over the phone. The latter was outright unfair to do to a man who had dedicated four-and-a-half years to your franchise and was given a different Day-1 quarterback in each of his seasons.
Once this shocking news came to light, another bomb was dropped when Irsay new hired interim coach Jeff Saturday to replace Reich while candidates such as John Fox, Bubba Ventrone, and Gus Bradley were on the staff.
Now, it must be mentioned that a full-scale coaching search is not required for an interim position, per the NFL's Rooney Rule, which attempts to level the playing field for minority candidates. However, the fact that Saturday had no coaching experience outside of watching daily film and playing years in the NFL had “desperate” written all over it.
That's not to discredit Saturday's abilities but his hiring has not aged well after Irsay told reporters that Saturday was "highly qualified for the position."
At the end of the day, Irsay is arguably one of the top five owners in the NFL over the last 20 years. He has built the Colts into a true name in the NFL, as well as multiple NFL Hall-of-Famers and countless banners to grace the glorious roof of Lucas Oil Stadium.
Irsay is typically calm, collected, happy-go-lucky, and simple, as well as highly respected and adored throughout the league. However, with the constant carousel of quarterbacks and coaches, mixed with a sudden streak of instability, you can see that general manager Chris Ballard, Reich, and Ryan have had too much of the blame.
It’s time to look at the man who was pulling the strings during the Colts' disastrous 2022 campaign.
