'Real Fans' Are Overrated

I think Colts fans are perfectly justified in being unhappy with the huge wave of cuts- Peyton Manning, most notably, and now Addai, Clark, Brackett, Bullitt, and Painter.

Ok, most Colts fans are good with the cutting of Curtis Painter. But WRs Reggie Wayne and Pierre Garcon are also likely done here, and Dwight Freeney is on the trading block. If you were a fan, was it because you just love the blue jerseys and the horseshoe helmet, or was it because you identified with likeable players that made long careers here?

So, if the likeable players are gone, what's to be excited about? Rah-rah blue jersey? Rah-rah Irsay's team?

And, is the fan anything more than a sucker if expected to buy tickets and go to games where the odds are great that the team is not only going to lose, but look bad doing it? I think 'sucker' is just the right term.

So, when someone suggests that you aren't a 'real fan' if you have quickly lost interest in this team, let them know that they are just a 'sucker', and that you aren't the kind of fool who knowingly flushes good time and/or money down the sewer in accepting frustration where entertainment should be.

I'll give Colts GM Ryan Grigson this: When he cleans house, he CLEANS HOUSE.

$28 Million Is A Lot Of Money

Even to Colts owner and billionaire Jim Irsay. So, the team will cut Manning tomorrow. From ESPN:

Sources close to the team told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen that the announcement will come at a news conference in Indianapolis on Wednesday with both Manning and owner Jim Irsay in attendance.

The decision to pass on the $28 million bonus owed Manning and not to pick up the four remaining years on his contract means Manning will become a free agent, and sources told Mortensen that he intends to continue to play.

This is no surprise. When the team stunk just enough to line up for the #1 pick, and there is an NFL-ready quarterback in Andrew Luck lined up to be made the #1 pick, saving the $28 million is a bonus, really. If they stayed with Manning, the Colts might not have picked Luck, rolling the dice on Manning's health. Even if Manning proves healthy, putting Luck on the bench might not be the best thing for him- even if a year with a clipboard in hand worked out pretty well for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
My pic of Peyton Manning huddling up during his last game in a Colts uniform, a playoff game against the NY Jets, January 2011.

We'll hear a lot of buzzing about loyalty here in Indiana for the next several weeks. I have mixed feelings. Only one of my favorite sports heroes (Steve Largent) played his entire career with one team. I was greatly disappointed when my favorite hockey player, Owen Nolan, was traded from my favorite team, the San Jose Sharks. But I understood it, as the Sharks got a #1 pick, a player who had been a #1 pick, and another player who immediately became the Sharks' new captain.

In this case, Irsay saves $28 million. I got the impression he would have cut Manning to save $28,000. Irsay simply wasn't going to be the kind of owner who paid that kind of money just to display loyalty over money.

Going To The Colts Game

I'll cross another item off the Bucket List tonight in going to a Colts playoff game. Actually, it will be my first game at Lucas Oil Stadium. It's been ages since I'd gone to an NFL game.

Some I talked to have taken to tweaking me about attending an event at a publicly funded stadium, given my opposition to same. Give it up. I long ago came to the conclusion that I couldn't do much of anything on this earth if I was going to live by litmus tests.

How could I eat any food but that which I grow? After all, I oppose farm subsidies, and virtually all American foods are subsidized. How could I interact with any other living human being? After all, I don't agree 100% with anyone? The battles over funding the stadium are over. The battles over continued subsidization of the team carry on, and I lend my voice. But, do I boycott the stadium forever? To what end? Am I hurting those with ill-gotten gains at that point? I don't really think so.

So, go Colts! I hope they win, and I hope it's a great game. I'm going with great friends for pre-game fun, and for the game itself. That's what matters.

Yum, Yum! Plate O' Crow!

Looks like I was proven wrong about the Colts chances after resting players. Where's my fork and my salt? Todd, can you help a feller out here?


While I did watch the game, and was pulling for the Colts, I found myself fairly detached from it. I watched hockey and surfed at the same time. I'm not one of those sports fans who merely cheers on the team wearing my colors. I like my teams to have certain characterisitcs that I can identify with. Shrinking from greatness and history is just not something I can get behind.

I've struggled with being a San Jose Sharks fan these last couple of seasons. Now they are one of the most talented teams in the league. It wasn't always the case. My favorite years backing the Sharks were '99-04. These were the years with decent talent like Owen Nolan, Mike Vernon, Mike Ricci, Vincent Damphousse, and Gary Suter. They were coached by Daryl Sutter, and were a tough, gritty team, with players like Bryan Marchment, Stephane Matteau, Adam Graves, Dave Lowry, Ronnie Stern, Tony Granato, and Ron Sutter. These teams acheived beyond their talent, and I really wanted to pull for them each and every game.

Now? They team often takes the tack of, "We're the great San Jose Sharks. We merely need to put our sticks on the ice, and we'll win". They've gotten knocked out of the playoffs, early in the playoffs, every season since coach Sutter left.

Give me heart over talent any day. I couldn't tell which it was that won the game for the Colts yesterday. Maybe a little of each. Maybe a lot of Ravens' mistakes. Big mistakes.

I'll watch the next game. Well, at least part of it. I'll be playing hockey during part of it. I really don't suspect I'll be thinking about the Colts even a little bit while out on the ice.

What Next? Jokes on SNL?

The Onion has a take on the Colts rested players. Excellent.

Colts To Rest Starters For First Game Of Playoffs

INDIANAPOLIS—At his weekly press conference Monday, Colts head coach Jim Caldwell announced that he will rest key starters during the divisional round of the AFC playoffs to keep his players fresh for a Super Bowl run. "You can't win the Super Bowl if you don't get there with all your players healthy," said Caldwell, who added that next Saturday quarterback Peyton Manning would probably get the first two series, which will mostly be comprised of running plays. "Dwight [Freeney] and Dallas [Clark] will get about a quarter in the AFC Championship game. But honestly, even if we make it to the Super Bowl, I can't see playing these guys the whole game. The 2010 season is closer than you think." Throughout the entire press conference Manning could be seen in full uniform, stalking and pacing in the back of the room.

Heh.

The Integrity of the Game

Conspiracy, or just resting some stars for the playoffs? Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley sees a conspiracy. From ESPN:

Pittsburgh's problem: The Patriots (10-5) and Bengals (10-5) have little at stake other than which team will be seeded No. 3 in the AFC. With a wild-card playoff game awaiting both teams next week, New England and Cincinnati are expected to rest some starters to avoid possible injuries.

New England coach Bill Belichick hasn't revealed who will play. Woodley, last week's AFC defensive player of the week and a Pro Bowl alternate, thinks he knows already.

"All of them lay down," Woodley said Wednesday. "No one wants to see Pittsburgh in it. That's just how it is. Everybody knows we're a dangerous team once we get into the playoffs, no matter how we played the whole year. Once we get into the playoffs, the Pittsburgh Steelers is a playoff team."

Are. Are a playoff team. Well, he probably wasn't an English major in college.

I don't buy his conspiracy theory, but I do think the Pats and Bengals will be as beatable this week as any all season. Just like the Colts. Wake me up when the second round of the playoffs start.

Conversely, Hockey Players

I once met Troy Auzenne, a former lineman for the Bears and Colts. He went something like 6' 8" and 300. When he shook my hand, it disappeared inside his.

We had a deep, meaningful conversation about sports that went a little like this...

TA: You play hockey? You guys are crazy!
MK: What do you mean? You guys are giants and you smash into one another every single play.
TA: Yeah, but you guys don't wear facemasks!

Those days, I didn't. Now I wear the birdcage, and providence smiled upon me when I put it on, as a guy slammed his stick across my caged face, saving me roughly half of my teeth.

So, while the Colts pull starters for fear they might get hurt, pro hockey players get hurt fairly severely and won't miss a game. Check out Dallas Stars' Stephane Robidas, via ESPN:

Robidas, 32, suffered the injury when he was hit in the face by a puck during Sunday's practice.

"I saw a dent there, so I knew something was wrong," Robidas said. "My cheek bone caved in a little bit. They had to do an incision on the side of my head and pop the bone back out. It was causing a little bit of pain."

Robidas said the procedure took 10 to 15 minutes.

"They put me under, but the surgery was at 7 a.m. and I was home by 10," Robidas said. "I'm ready to go."

That means Robidas will be able to play his usual spot on the top pair with Nicklas Grossman.

'Causing a little bit of pain'. Now, THAT'S a professional athlete!

Update: Robidas not only played, he logged more on-ice time than anyone else on his team... by five minutes! That's unreal. Robidas led Dallas to a 5-4 win over one of the NHL's best teams, Chicago, with a broken cheekbone. Finished with an assist, a +2 rating, and blocked two shots. With 25:44 on ice, Robidas logged more time than 99% of NHL players will get per game, any game.

Full admiration from me.

More Armchair Quarterbacking

I'm with ESPN's Howard Bryant here, on the benching of Colts starters:

But here is where the entire logic of resting starters in December collapses: In the most dangerous and violent of sports, football coaches don't practice this protective strategy during the season. If Caldwell or any coach were going to rest starters at the end of the season, he should do so during the entirety of the season, following the NBA approach (it is commonplace to watch Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan watching a fourth-quarter blowout from the bench).

Take, for example, how Caldwell handled Manning earlier this season:

• Led 31-10 in Week 3 at Arizona with 11:31 left. Manning played the whole game.

• Led 28-3 in Week 4 versus Seattle with 8:02 left in the third quarter. Manning played the whole game.

• Led 31-9 in Week 5 at Tennessee with 7:32 left and a bye week coming up. Manning played the whole game.

• Led 28-6 in Week 7 at St. Louis at the end of third quarter. Manning played the whole game.

So Caldwell coached a certain way all season long. Why, then, would Manning be more at risk on Sunday than he had been during the rest of the regular season? If the stated objective is to win the Super Bowl, wasn't Manning unnecessarily at risk on the field for the entire game in a 42-6 win over the Rams?

Taking out his starters would have made more sense under the following conditions: 1. The game was especially physical and/or dirty; 2. Weather increased the risk of injury; 3. The result of the game was no longer in doubt; or, 4. The players in question were already playing with injuries that threatened their playoff availability.

When Manning was removed, he had not been sacked nor intercepted. The Jets are a tough, physical defensive team, but Manning had completed 14 of 21 passes for 192 yards. The two teams are formal rivals, but the game itself wasn't a particularly edgy one in which a star player was at greater risk of injury due to a cheap shot or rougher play. Weather, naturally, was not a factor because the Colts play indoors. At 15-10 with five minutes left in the third, the outcome of the game was hardly assured, and Manning, who has played in 191 consecutive games -- which is to say every game of his NFL career -- is not an injury risk.

And if injury was truly such a major consideration, why allow Manning to play at all? He could have broken his leg in the first quarter Sunday and could injure himself at Buffalo next week. In short, none of it really made sense.

I'm with Bryant when he says that Coach Caldwell created a distraction- his decision. Good coaches remove distractions. He created one, at precisely the wrong time: right before the playoffs.

None of this is to say that the Colts can't overcome. They certainly can. Overcoming 16-0 would have been a better 'problem' to deal with, though. Just because the Patriots lost the Super Bowl after going 16-0, well, post hoc; ergo, propter hoc?

What In The Wide World Of Sports?

I can't remember the last time I was so irritated watching a sporting event. There were the Indianapolis Colts, winners of all 14 of their games, lining up against a very mediocre NY Jets team. At home. With a chance at history. So, what happens? Rookie coach Jim Caldwell pulls Peyton Manning and several other starters in the 3rd quarter, and the game goes from a Colts lead to the first loss of the season.

I was damn glad not to be one who paid for a ticket to this game. I would have wanted a refund. Good for the fans who booed throughout the latter part of the game. They were ripped off. They paid full price, they should have gotten to see a full team, for the full game.

The coach is apparently thinking that he wants to spare his stars potential injury. There are a few flies in that ointment.

First, look no further than the team's recent history. When they've rested players like this in the past, they've been eliminated early in the playoffs. The one Super Bowl win came in the season the Colts were a Wild Card team, playing every playoff game without rest, scrapping continuously. Why would anyone deviate from their own model for success?

As an Ohio State fan, I get the value of continuous play. Year after year, OSU rolls to a good record and a bowl game awaits. Because the Big Ten doesn't have a playoff, the Buckeyes have a month-long layoff. They come to the bowl game out of synch, rusty, and generally lose. Well, that's the same lesson as the Colts' playoff history.

I just hate the cowardice. Go for the brass ring! Try for perfection! How often does that opportunity come along?

If nothing else, Colts fans hopefully learned this: Never buy a ticket for the last home game. Exhibition season is at the front end of the season, but Colts management is unaware.

Limbaugh To Own The Rams?

I was amused to see that one former painkiller addict wouldn't support the other. From the AP:

Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy the St. Louis Rams ran into opposition within the NFL on Tuesday. Colts owner Jim Irsay vowed to vote against him

I get the feeling that Indy's conservative football fans must have some large cognitive dissonance buzzing their brains right about now. The Colts are 5-0 and playing some of their best football ever, but the team is the city's welfare queen poster child, with Irsay a billionaire in no small part due to transfers of wealth from the populace to him. Then, the iconic Limbaugh gets a slap in the face from Irsay.

The Left boycotted Whole Foods when its' CEO said things it found insulting. Any chance the right will boycott the Colts?

Before any Limbaugh supporters call it un-American for Irsay to take this stance, just remember that the NFL and its' franchises are a different kind of property than, say, a common piece of real estate. The other owners do have a vote on whether or not to accept any prospective owner or ownership group, and they can discriminate against any prospective buyer, for any reason, no matter how illiberal that might seem.

The Great Football Swindle

Oh, thanks, Indy Star. Way to be there for the citizens, telling them about the horse that has left the barn a couple of years ago. The Star published an in-depth story yesterday about where all the money generated at the new stadium will go. Mainly, it goes into Jim Irsay's pockets. This would have been information easy enough to suss out before the deal was done- you know, at a time important enough for the citizens to make it useful, before the votes.

But no. The Star prints it now. In all likelihood, the Star kept their mouths shut until after the raping, er, deal was long complete, so as not to have their football writers at risk for losing access to the team they cover.

It's infuriating to read about how the city of Indianapolis, which shouldn't be in the business of socialized sports anyhow, not merely helped build a palace for one man and his football team, but then gave this man the lion's share of the revenues. The man would have made out well if he built the stadium with his own money. Save me the boo-hoo-hoo for Jim Irsay. The guy inherited a football team.

I never really wonder at a man asking for the moon, stars, and sun, but I do wonder at a government that says, "Okay- no problem! You know what? Don't even bother giving us any Vaseline, either."

Fred Glass should go to jail. The Capital Improvement Board should be dissolved. It obviously has too much authority available, and clearly has no sense of priorties.

And the citizens! Where are Indiana's liberals who think inheritence taxes should strip away assets at death? Why weren't they at the fore of attacking this corporate welfare? I haven't heard them issue a peep about Jim Irsay and the Colts. Where are Indiana's conservatives, who are allegedly anti-tax? And, smaller government?

Socialized football... bread and circuses...

Super Bore

I wish I had an interest in watching tonight's Super Bowl contest. Last year's was a lot of fun, mainly because a team I rooted for throughout the season, the Colts, made the big game for the first time in my life.

Maybe I'm spoiled now. I'm just not interested in the game. I don't care about the NY Giants, and I really don't care about the Patriots. I know a lot of fans here in Indiana are going to be pulling against the Patriots. Sorry- I don't enjoy rooting against teams. It's just not my nature to be down on success, much less perfection, nor to take delight in failure.

OK, I enjoy watching Michigan's football program lose- one game a year. Michigan can go 10-1, as long as that loss is to Ohio State.

But I'm afraid that this game is going to be like so many other Super Bowl bores- a blowout that's over well before halftime. A game between two teams I can't root for at least has to be a good game in order to hold my interest. Alas- the odds aren't good here.

I'll have the game on like folks have the radio going. It will be background noise as I work on job files and pack for the road... until a commercial comes on. I want to see the commercials!

Excellent Time for a Protest

The NFL season opener is in town tomorrow night. The Super Bowl champ Colts host the Saints for a big deal game, with big deal entertainment on Monument Circle. (Kelly Clarkson is ok by me, because she had Mike Watt play bass on recent recordings.) The national TV cameras will be focused on Indianapolis.

What better time to dunk some property tax assessment tea bags into the canal? Details:

INDIANA TEA PARTY

NFL Opening GamePan Am Plaza - Across from RCA Dome.
Thursday, Sept 6th - Meet at 6pm.
Bring your assessment (or facsimille) to put in the giant tea bag.
At 8pm we march to the Downtown Canal to dunk the tea bag once more

I've heard some grumbling about this, along the lines of, 'why can't you just enjoy the moment and not try to give the city a black eye?' Har har, the city already has the black eye. Check out the murder count, murder rate, general crime rate, tax rates, wealth flight, and then see if people trying to right the ship is in fact 'giving the city a black eye'.

Sometimes, embarrassment is the only motivation for fixing obvious and huge problems.

Update: Matt Tully wrote a truly unfortunate column for the Indy Star, urging everyone to enjoy the 'circus' part of the 'bread & circuses' charade, essentially sneering at the tax protesters. From his column:

"We want to communicate with the rest of the country what's going on in our city," event organizer Melyssa Donaghy, also the city's best-known dominatrix, told me.

All I can say is, huh?

A little perspective, folks. Something tells me people in Dubuque, Detroit and Durango don't care about tax increases in Indianapolis. And I'm betting NBC will steer its cameras away from those protesting in the streets. But since you're going to be here, Kelly and Faith, I thought you could use a primer on what's going on.

A. Why must Tully identify Melyssa Donaghy as a dominatrix? Does he identify every person he writes about by their proclivities? Or, is this just his shabby attempt to smear her? That was rhetorical. Matt Tully lives to smear the earnest little people who endeavor to make our region a better place to live. I know, he's done it to me.

B. The point of shining the light of truth on the tax situation for people outside to see is not because they have an interest. It's because this event is a sham designed to prop up the gilded face of the city. Underneath the glitter is a hell of a lot of decay. The protesters are, as the kids say, keeping it real.

C. Perspective? It doesn't matter what the problems of New Orleans or the third world are. We live in Indiana. All politics being local, we work to make home a better place. If we ignored home and focused elsewhere, home would get worse. Why does Tully want home to decline? What kind of 'thinking' is that? Perspective, indeed!

Maybe it's just that the Star sells a lot of newspapers and draws a lot of website hits by running pictures and stories about the Colts, thus selling a lot of advertising. Maybe that's Tully's motivation for this slime-dripping hack job.