Former Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian seems furious with team owner Jim Irsay for disparaging the Colts’ defense and special teams as a way to backtrack from his “cheap shot” at Peyton Manning.
In an interview with USA Today, Irsay seemed to express disappointment over the Colts only winning one Super Bowl with Manning at quarterback. He also said he wanted Super Bowls more than big stats, which sounded like a “cheap shot” at Manning, as John Fox said.
After his comments made huge news Tuesday, Irsay went on his Twitter to “clarify” things. That’s when he stuck his foot further in his mouth, blaming the team’s defense and special teams for the lack of success.
My comments meant if we gave Peyton better SP Teams n Def,we would have won more than 1 Sup/Bowl,instead of asking Peyton 2do too much
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 16, 2013
It's hard 2C how any individual could understand them any other way,but CONTRO sells so I understand the games "Let's get something started"
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 16, 2013
Greatest QB of their era,which is obviously Brady vs Peyton(my vote's Peyton),at least now the media will NOT use Sup/Bowl wins n debate!!
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 16, 2013
In that debate,the clock will spin swiftly back to October,2013…and theIr middle name will quickly endure a hyphen to add hypocrite 2 name
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 16, 2013
Prelude 2 what I was talking about-ORGANIZATIONAL Model n Team building/discussed with J Bell; we committed 70% of cap on Offense n some yrs
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 16, 2013
It’s obviously difficult to understand Irsay’s tweets. I mean you seriously need a special decoder to figure out what that doofus is trying to say, but it’s obvious he switched the blame from Peyton to the defense and special teams. Well that didn’t sit well with Polian, who was the man chiefly responsible for constructing those teams.
“Well I never had an exit interview, so I can’t tell you [what Irsay meant with his comments],” Polian said with a bitter tone. “But let me deal with some facts, OK? I’ll give you some names: Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Kelvin Hayden, Gary Brackett, David Thornton, Adam Vinatieri, Pat Angerer, Bob Sanders, Antonine Bethea. And, by the way, there was a salary cap.
“When he talks about this model that he wants to build, which I’ve said a hundred times is perfectly OK — he’s the owner, he can do what he wants — when he has to pay Andrew Luck as one of the top-paid quarterbacks, if not the top-paid quarterback in the league two years from now, he’ll be back in the same boat we were in for all the years that we had Peyton.
“We did our best. If it wasn’t good enough, that’s fine. I don’t have any problem with it. But I will tell you this: I and I’m sure I speak for most of my teammates and colleagues, are very proud of what we did. Our record is there for all to see. It’s up to this new group of Colts and this new model to meet or exceed what we did.”
That was a great response from Polian. Irsay should have just stood by his original comments, said his quotes were taken out of context, or just clarified and said he had tremendous respect for Manning. I’m not sure why he decided to turn around and blame the defense and special teams for a lack of Super Bowls. It just seems so silly on his part.
