In honor of the owner celebrating his 60th birthday today, lets look back at the 6 biggest moments the team has had under his ownership.
Jim Irsay is one of the most polarizing owners around the league. By everyone’s account, he is a great boss to work for and allows his employees to do their jobs. But he also has had some off the field problems with drugs and alcohol that has led to some bad press.
Under his ownership, the Colts have moved up to the top shelf of the league. This is the most accomplished era of football since the franchise has been in the league. A large part of that is because of Irsay. He has brought this team success with his hires.
Not all of his hires have been good. The team is finally crawling out of the mistakes made by former GM Ryan Grigson. That hire started out well, but quickly soured. Now Grigson is unemployed throughout the league and the Colts are finally contending again.
Since 1997, which is when Irsay took over the team, the team has had mostly success. He has had his share of memorable moments over the years. Now seems an appropriate time to look back at all of those moments, the good and the bad.
The first moment on this list is fairly recent, although it wasn’t all his fault. In fact, it was mostly his GM’s fault. But it was one of the biggest moments in recent team history.
In 2017, the Colts decided to move on from Chuck Pagano. They tried a one year honeymoon period with Pagano and new GM Chris Ballard, and it didn’t work. So they got rid of Pagano and let Ballard hire his own guy for the 2018 season and beyond.
Only that hire didn’t go as planned. Ballard selected offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to be the next head coach. But McDaniels decided at the 11th hour to back out, and left the Colts without a head coach late in the hiring cycle. It was a complete nightmare for the franchise.
Irsay was as staggered as Ballard was. But he gave Ballard a vote of confidence to go out and find a guy who did want to be in Indy for the long haul. Ballard did, and he eventually found Frank Reich. Reich looks like the right hire after having a stellar rookie season.
This moment led to Ballard telling everyone that “the rivalry is back on”. While the Colts weren’t able to beat the Patriots in 2018, the team has confidence that they can do so moving forward. It also helped juice up the Indy fanbase to renew that rivalry.
This wasn’t the finest moment in Colts history, but they were able to make the best of it. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make the best of this next moment.
This moment was also in 2017. This was the year of the fated injury. Andrew Luck started the season on the PUP, but the team was confident he’d be fine. He didn’t participate in training camp, but was still expected to be ready for the start of the regular season.
That didn’t happen. Luck was then ruled out for the first two weeks, so they had to improvise. The Colts started Scott Tolzien in their opener, and that was a disaster. Once they saw that, they traded for Jacoby Brissett and immediately moved him into the starting role.
Even though they traded for Brissett, Irsay kept saying Luck was coming back. He had promised season ticket holders that he would be back for the season. Then in October, it was announced that he was placed on IR and would miss the entire season and would undergo another surgery.
Luck had to repair a torn rotator cuff as well as some tendons in his bicep. This was the second surgery on his shoulder, and it sent the franchise into a tailspin. While Brissett played as well as could be expected under the circumstances, the Colts finished with a 4-12 record.
That record was good enough for the 3rd overall pick. They then traded that for the 6th overall pick, which they used to draft Quenton Nelson who turned out to be an All-Pro in his rookie year. But the Luck injury scared everyone within the organization.
This next moment helped close the book on one of the most successful eras of the team and ushered in a new one.
Peyton Manning was the best quarterback this franchise has ever known. But 2010 was the last season he played for the Colts while actually being out on the field. The 2011 season was the biggest change the franchise had seen in some time.
Manning had offseason neck surgery in 2011 to relieve some nerve pain he was feeling that was affecting his throwing arm. He was expected to be ready for the start of the season. No one seemed concerned, as it was announced he would be back for the start of the year.
But then opening day rolled around, and he wasn’t there. The Colts had to call Kerry Collins out of retirement to take over the starting duties while Manning healed. Manning was then expected to miss the first four games of the season. But he never came back.
What happened next was a turntable of quarterbacks. Collins got hurt, so then it was Curtis Painter who got starts. Then Collins came back and got hurt again. All-in-all, it led the Colts to the worst record in the league, and the number one pick.
That led to some extremely tough decisions. The Colts owed Manning $28 million if he was on the roster the following seasons. Doctors didn’t know how his neck would hold up for the rest of his career. To top that off, there was a once-in-a-generation prospect sitting there to be taken in the draft.
Ultimately, it all led to a tearful press conference in which Irsay proclaimed to the world that they were releasing Manning and he would be a free agent for the first time. Manning gave the city of Indianapolis a tearful good-bye and a heartfelt thank you.
This wasn’t the only transition that happened during this season, and that leads us to our next moment.
After cutting Manning, other decisions needed to be made. Irsay decided to shake things up in the front office. He decided to fire Chairman Bill Polian, who had been the former GM. He also fired his son Chris Polian, who was the current GM.
Bill Polian had been the architect of the best era in Colts history. It came as a shock when they got rid of him. Irsay then decided to hire a former scout with the Eagles, Ryan Grigson. Grigson was the new GM and had some big decisions to make.
Early on, his decisions were spot on. He drafted Luck over Robert Griffin III with the number one overall pick, and also got T.Y. Hilton in the third round. His moves in his first season were so well received that he was voted as the Executive of the Year.
But those decisions quickly would falter. He spent reckless amounts of money on aging veterans who didn’t pan out. Players like Andre Johnson, LaRon Landry, and Trent Cole were signed to big deals. All of them performed extremely poorly while with the Colts.
Eventually, Grigson’s inability to protect Luck up front cost him his job. Luck got hurt, and Grigson was good as gone because he hadn’t invested draft capital on the offensive line. That led Irsay to hire Chris Ballard who has ushered in a new era of Colts football.
This next moment was the defining draft moment of Irsay’s entire career of owning the team, and led the Colts to the most successful run in team history.
In 1998, the Colts had a huge decision to make with their number one overall pick. They could either take Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf at quarterback. Both seem to have the skills of an NFL quarterback. Ultimately, GM Bill Polian decided on Manning. That was the right choice.
Manning turned around the fortunes of the team almost immediately. In his second year, he led the Colts to a 13-3 record. He ended up winning four league MVP’s with the team and led the team to two Super Bowl appearances, including one win.
Leaf, on the other hand, did not have a good career. He was drafted second overall by the Chargers and was a complete disaster. He only lasted four years in the league, and eventually went to jail for a myriad of charges, including stealing pain killers.
Manning’s success with the team allowed a lot of infrastructure to occur in downtown Indianapolis. The Colts got a new stadium in 2008, built numerous new hotels, and made upgrades to the convention center. This all led to the city getting the 2012 Super Bowl.
That one single decision in 1998 launched the Colts into a new era of success they had never seen before. That led to the single best moment that Irsay has experienced since owning the team.
Of course, the number one moment for Irsay since taking over as owner of the team happened in 2006. A year after perhaps the most talented team the Colts ever had suffered a crushing playoff defeat at home, they turned it around and won it all.
The Colts played the Bears in Super Bowl XLI in the rain in Miami. It was, and still is, the only Super Bowl in which it has rained. It was a sloppy game, with all kinds of turnovers from both teams. Both teams fumbled snaps and it was a defensive grind early.
Kelvin Hayden had the defining moment of the game in the fourth quarter. He picked off a Rex Grossman pass and returned it all the way for a touchdown. That put the lead out of reach for the Bears and allowed the Colts to emerge victorious and win their only Super Bowl in Indy.
Peyton Manning was named the MVP of the game and he was finally able to get the monkey off his back of not winning the big one. This win validated all of the hard work that the team did, including coming back from 18 down against the Patriots in the AFC Championship.
Irsay was finally handed the Lombardi trophy and he loved every second of it. He desperately wants to hold another one, and is working towards getting one. Hopefully, he can get another one before he turns 70.