It's time for the truth. After Manning retires. . .

Recently I have been reading all these articles about how good the Colts will be without Manning. Honestly this team would be terrible.

Careful. People might hate you for saying this. Call you names. Question your commitment as a ‘true’ Colts fan.

Me?

I say, good article. Don’t agree with all of it, but nicely done. Recced.

I’m tired of people coming up with excuses for not only this team but Caldwell and Polian. The truth is if they were truly great there wouldn’t be any controversy over them. When I look at good coaches in the league I would define a good coach as one that you don’t have to think about whether he is good or not. That immediately knocks Caldwell off the list of being good. I may not agree with everything Caldwell does and he might even be right on some of the things that I don’t agree with him on, but a good coach doesn’t have a ton of questions out there. If this were 5 years ago I would be a lot more lenient with guys like Polian and Caldwell, but now we are talking about messing with the career of Peyton Manning, one of the greatest athletes to ever play football. All I want is for Caldwell and Polian to be more helpful. We don’t need all these ‘questions’ it’s just making it harder on Manning.

BBS thanks for the props, I know you like McAfee, and I understand that he is probably a cool guy and that I am probably just reading him the wrong way, but I just got frustrated with the special teams unit as a whole last year, so the last thing I liked was reading about some of the trouble he was getting into. From what I hear most people like him, but I just get frustrated with him sometimes, especially since after he came back after his suspension he wasn’t punting as well.

and for anyone, ANYONE who thinks this team would have more than 3 or 4 wins without Manning needs to pull their head out of their ass. If you don’t agree then you obviously don’t know a damned thing about just how good Manning really is.

This is discussing the inevitable loss of Manning and the Colts future afterwards… it is not a straight forward, take Manning out of the equation and base wins on performance minus any QB whatsoever.

I think the Colts will draft a great successor for manning in the next 2-3 years… that is if Peyton’s bionic arm surgery doesn’t take place… and in that case it’s the next 12-18 years… but I digress. The Organization will continue to run and who knows, maybe we’ll draft another QB who will make bloggers around the world take all credit away from the rest of the team! I haven’t looked much into early college QB prospects, but a lot can happen as far as player development from now to then… have faith fellow COLTS fan!

Rec’d for being a look into the inevitable future of the franchise. I for one will still be a fan and look forward to watching many more years of COLTS football.

I haven’t seen that many articles at all professing how good the Colts will be post-Manning – in fact, quite the contrary. Everyone seems to love that the Colts’ window is closing.

If you don’t want to support the Colts post-Manning because they won’t be successful, then what kind of fairweather fan are you? Only the worst type of fan supports a team when successful and abandons it when it is not. If you don’t want to support a bad team, go and support the flavour of the month, don’t discredit proper Colts fans.

The franchise is bigger than Manning, and we have some excellent players coming through. Antoine Bethea and Jerraud Powers spring to mind on the defensive side of the ball, and Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon on the offensive side.

By all means continue to be fickle, just don’t bore us with this rubbish.

only when he deflected passes or got interceptions, i never remember him as much of a tackler.

without manning the team doesn’t do very well and bill is alright by me

I was a huge fan of Cato June. He was nasty in Madden too.

You’re not a Colts fan. You’re a Peyton Manning fan. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I’d still root for the Colts if they went 0-16. They’re my team. I root for the symbol on the helmet, not the nameplate on the jersey.

Cato June was a good fit for the Colts. The Colts are all out of lightweight linebackers now that Freddy is gone. Gilbert Gardner was the worst of the 225# batch and David Thorton was the best. June was a large safety in college converted to a linebacker in the NFL for his cover skills. He had plenty of good hits and definately a lot of good pass defenses. I think the conversion to linebacker meant fighting off of blocks, which safeties don’t have to do, was his weak point. That’s understandable. A lot of weak looking tackle attempts that you see are because the linebacker didn’t get off of a block and only managed to get an arm in there. The Colts have gone a little heavier, nobody under 235#, and so speed is more of an issue now. Thorton was awesome, June was damn good. But the Colts knew what he was. He did last a few years on the Bucs, though. He was a high character guy that I personally liked.

The Colts had the first pick of the draft to get Manning. Brady is the oddball. For the Colts to get another first pick, and that pick be another Manning, that’s a thin stretch. I think the Colts are done for once Manning retires. He’ll have to retire, which will be hard because going form the best ever to the team cutting you is a long, long fall. Then the Colts will have to lose really badly one year to get the top pick. Some poor asshole quarterback will have to lead the Colts to a 3-13 (or 3-15) season and then return to obscurity.

Will the Colts still be in Indy for that? Will the NFL still be the NFL or will the players, in essence, form their own league so they can make a check next year? Will TV follow the empty NFL or the players in their own pick-up game league? Will you watch Rich Eisen on his neon stage interviewing Goodell or Peyton Manning throwing passes on a highschool football field?

Hmm? What should the players start doing right now if they want to end this? Keep arguing or pretend to start their own league?

“Am I the only guy that doesn’t like Pat McAfee? The guy is a joke. He is an average punter and all his off field jokes/antics are just annoying. He isn’t that good to be doing stupid shit off the field.”

2010 Season – Pat had 16 touch backs.

2009 Season – Pat had 21 touch backs.

In the 3 seasons before Pat – Adam V had 27 touch backs.

I am not even going to break out Vandershank’s stats.

I could care less what he does off the field – as long as he keeps getting this defense better field position – kick off after kick off.

I think alot of people just all of the sudden take the fact that are kickoff’s are EXTREMELY improved for granted.

Kickoffs were a HUGE problem for this team for years – and now we have a young kicker that if he keeps his head on straight can be getting more and more touchback’s for this team for years to come.

What did he do that was so bad anyway?

I remember being young and stupid a few times – he is a kid.

I think he paid for his mistake – was embarrassed by the coach/GM suspended for a game.

Give him a break – he’s our kicker and I for one am glad to have him on the team.