The purge at West 56th Street continues:
- Both Polians out.
- Special teams coach out.
- Caldwell out.
- Assistant coaches Pete Metzelaars and Frank Reich out.
- Linebackers coach and interim defensive coordinator Mike Murphy likely to retire.
- Defensive backs coach Alvin Williams likely to join Leslie Frazier in Minnesota as the new defensive coordinator there.
Now, finally, strength and conditioning coach Jon Torine is out.
Torine has been with the organization since 1998, the year Bill Polian was hired as team president. It's also worth noting that most of the time both Polian and Torine were in Indy, the Colts seemed to have the worst track record of keeping players healthy and ready for an entire sixteen game season.
In fact, the injuries got so bad in recent years that the Colts had to do an internal investigation into the problem. Predictably, the results they revealed to the public was that the injuries were just 'bad luck.'
Fair or not, the fact that the Colts injury list each season for the last six years read like War and Peace did not reflect well on Torine. His job was to get players back on the field. Every year, people I talked to in the league office asked me the same question, How does that team's strength coach still have a job?
Well, now he doesn't.
This is nothing against Torine personally. Never met the guy. But, in a bottom line business like the NFL, Torine wasn't getting the job done. Bill Polian and Jim Caldwell under-performed in recent years, and it cost them both their jobs. The perception is Torine kept his job year after year despite under-performing due to Bill Polian's loyalty. With Polian gone, Torine is now gone.
It will be interesting to see if a new strength coach and a new philosophy on drafting players will decrease the number of injuries next season. If it does, that will reflect poorly on Torine, and on Polian to a certain extent.
Also, Paul Kuharsky is reporting that the Colts have not, as yet, fired offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen or assistant offensive line coach Ron Prince. It's difficult to see either man retaining their job in Indy. Christensen was promoted to OC by Caldwell, and Prince was brought in to work with Pete Metzelaars, who was fired yesterday.