A year ago the Indianapolis Colts were in preparation for the 2011 season and a possible chance of playing a Super Bowl in their own city. Peyton Manning had a neck injury but it was expected that he would ready for the 2011 season. Jim Caldwell, the Polians and the rest of the coaching staff were trying to figure out how to improve on a team that had been defeated in the first round of the playoffs.
The current Colts are almost unrecognizable from the organization they were a year ago. Jim Caldwell is gone. Bill and Chris Polian are gone. Nearly every coach is gone. Peyton Manning could be gone next. I’ll let that soak in.
The Colts officially announced that Chuck Pagano would be the new head coach earlier today. Pagano was the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens for a couple of years. He has never been a head coach, and has been with four teams in the past decade. Even though he has jumped from team to team, he has an impressive track record.
Pagano joined the Cleveland Browns in 2001 as a secondary coach. In his first season, his secondary unit accounted for 28 of the Browns’ 33 interceptions (the Browns led the league in interceptions that year). In 2003, his unit allowed just 13 passing touchdowns, tying a franchise record.
In 2004, Pagano became the secondary coach for the Oakland Raiders. In 2006, that defense allowed 151 yards per game, and 285 total yards. That ranked them first and third in the NFL, respectively.
After that stint, he was signed by John Harbaugh to become the Baltimore Ravens’ secondary coach from 2008-2010. He then became the defensive coordinator before the 2011 season.
So we know that Pagano can dramatically change the quality of a defense, but how we hill manage an offense; and for that matter, an entire team? That is unknown. The Colts still need to hire an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. Hopefully more time is spent on finding on offensive coordinator, because Pagano is a defensive genius.
If that wasn’t big enough news for Colts’ fans, Peyton Manning had an interesting chat with Indianapolis Star reporter Bob Kravitz on Wednesday.
When Peyton was asked about how the changes have affected his rehabbing, he said:
"I'm not in a very good place for healing, let's say that. It's not a real good environment down there right now, to say the least. Everybody's walking around on eggshells. I don't recognize our building right now. There's such complete and total change."
When asked about wanting to return to Indy:
"I don't want to get into some kind of fan campaign with the owner, but I think it's well-documented that I want to play in the same place my whole career. It's been a privilege to play here. I love the fans, the city, the transformation of the fans, how our place has become the toughest stadium to play in, the fact our fans wear more jerseys to games than anybody else. It's been fun to be a part of that. But I understand how it works. I understand tough decisions have to be made. There's personal and there's business, and that's where we've got to separate the two. I've seen other guys leave places and it was personal. I've invested too much into this city for that to happen. We live here, we've given lots of time and money to the community and our church, and that's never going to change. Nothing changes that."
On Thursday, Colts owner Jim Irsay basically told reporters that he didn’t appreciate Peyton telling Kravitz “inside” details on the Colts organization. Irsay went further to say: ““I don’t think it’s in a good interest to paint the horseshoe in a negative light, I really don’t. He’s such a big part of that and everything else, but the horseshoe always comes first. I think one thing that he’s always known, because he’s been around it so long, is you keep it in the family. If you’ve got a problem, you talk to each other.”
I have no idea how this whole thing is going to turn out, but most “experts” speculate the Colts will get rid of Manning before his contract bonus is due in March. I still believe that they should keep Manning and trade the number one draft pick for two first round picks.
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