Changes To The Blog, Good and Sad

Week Two is in the books, and already I'm tired.

Have the playoffs started yet? No? Man, season already feels like a roller coaster.

Currently, more people read and link to Stampede Blue than ever before. To be honest, it's kind of odd. I'm not used to writing things and seeing them getting picked up by Pro Football Talk, National Football Post, etc. I still sometimes think we are that little unknown Colts blog, with no one except a few hundred loyal Colts fans as readers.

Now, things are different.

We have more people reading us than we did during the Super Bowl. I didn't even think such a thing was possible. But, since training camp, numbers keep going up and up and up. The Bob Sanders injury news last week, and our work regarding The Bill Polian Show, boosted the page views significantly.

I know some of you could care less about this kind of stuff, but it's important to me because reaching new audiences, and providing relevant Colts-related news and commentary to all audiences, is what we are about. We've been very successful doing this, and considering much of the time dedicated to this mission is volunteer time on the part of several writers here, it's a small miracle.

In addition changes to our page views, we also have changes into our writing staff as well. As some of you may have noticed, our longtime writer Joe Baker (aka, shake n bake) is no longer a site editor for Stampede Blue. Joe was a very valuable editor and strong writer for our blog for over two years. We will miss him (and his unabashed homerism for Colts players from Iowa). On behalf of Matt Grecco and LovinBlue, I'd like to thank Joe for all the good work he did for this blog. We wish him well in his future writing endeavors.

Finally, throughout the year we'll work to add new writers and new voices to Stampede Blue. No timetable on when they will be because, quite honestly, it's hard work making the rest of the the blogging universe look "sloppy and amateurish by association."* Doing that and searching for new writers who will assist me in my quest to destroy all blogger credibility is a tough job. But, hey, a tough job and a lack of any sort of social life (outside of Friday night dinners with my spouse, who DREADS NFL season because it takes away her husband) is a small price to pay for the task of bringing you unfiltered, unbiased news about our favorite team.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Stampede Blue.

* A blogger recently said his site was viewed as 'sloppy and amateurish' because it was 'associated' with ours. He also took some shots at yours truly because... well, I'm still not quite sure. My suspicion is because he's either jealous that our site is read by more people than his, or that he is just a crazy kook who likes to rant alone in the dark about things he knows nothing about. I have emails to support the second explanation. So, I think I'll go with that as the reason.

Oh, and we won't link to the story he wrote mentioning this because we respect his strong opinions on what is and isn't sloppy or amateurish. We obviously do not want to taint his site with our brand of 'journalism,' which he now clearly deplores. Of course, this person had no problems accepting links and promotions from us when he was trying to make a buck off his recently published book (speaking of things written 'sloppy or amateurishly'), but whatever. We certainly do not intend to make anyone look worse than they already are. Though, in this person's case, he pretty clearly does not need our assistance in appearing like a sloppy, amateur, 'weenie' blogger.

He pretty much defines the stereotype.