Any questions as to whether the Colts tanked last season?

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Let's put it this way, if the Patriots had taken an approach to yesterday's game like the Colts took last year, Hernandez would still not be playing, Welker would have been given the day off for his ankle, Ridley and Vareen would have mysterious injuries that kept them out and left the running duties to the newly-signed fullback, and Mallet would be in there chucking it up to Slater and Jeremy Ebert.

All of those guys would be trying their best to win. They wouldn't be capable of it, however, and the owner would be smiling.

 

[Yehoodi]

I do think that there is a very good argument that the Colts season was very “interestingâ€

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. Bottom line when happen that id not supposed to happen then something is very likely in the air, where there is smoke there is fire if you will.

1) Never, ever, since the Merger has a dominate team gotten a first overall pick so soon after being dominate (I include the 70s fins, ‘boys, steelers, raiders, skins, Vikings, 80s 9ers, skins, giants, 90s boys, 9ers, broncos, packers, and the 00s teams and so on) . . . other than the 70s boys who got it via a trade . . . but bottom line teams NEVER fall of the cliff one year removed from their dominance, much less the colts who were touted as possible one of the best ever at 14-0 just a year prior and furthermore are not back at 8-4 . . . never happened

2) After they had secured the first overall pick after game 13 with a 0-13 record, and therefore it was safe to win, they proceeded to go out and beat two of their division rivals resulting in direct playoff impact on them with Houston missing out on a bye due to the loss and Tenn knocked out of the playoffs due to a bye. Since Jax had no implication it was okay to lose to them and secured the pick. If they were good enough to win in weeks 15 and 16 which coincidently had DIRECT impact on their hated division rival, why could they not be good enough to win the other 14 weeks?

3) Manning’s injury was supposedly happened in 2006 but they waited till 2011 to have surgery. Surely you can’t put up a record of 2-14 with Manning, so if you don’t need him this year, you might as well have the surgery.

4) There were a few key head scratcher plays during the season, I just name a few, Clark fumbles at a key point in a game which helps the loss, as mentioned by a prior poster Garcon holding the ball up in the air, which is unnatural act, as he is being taken down, the ball comes out and “somehow†the Cinn. Player gets in the end zone for a winning TD, against Pitt, late in the game with the risk of a victory in a close game, they pull the QB and put in Painter who proceeds to over throw a wide open Garcon for the go ahead TD . . . there are more but those are one that come to mind

5) For what its worth Luck knew the Mannings and Polian son was on his coaching staff, so the higher ups in indy knew of this kids potential long before 2011

6) This franchise had another “off†year the year prior to drafting manning, so they have been through the “oh Winterford I feel faint and can’t seem to get anything done today†rodeo . . . not to mention leaving in the middle of the night from Baltimore

7) Have had Manning the team knows firsthand how important a franchise QB is to a team

8) The fact that, before the season when Manning signed his contract, he has a poison pill clause put in contract of the payment a few days before the draft, forcing the colts to have to pay him up front or release him, which would give him the freedom of FA as opposed to being traded. Why would the player and team, prior to the season, have a clause in the contract so related to the following season’s draft?

9) Bad teams are bad . .. . truly bad teams are bad for a while, we know their names and the recent versions, STL, DET, OAK, CAR, KC, etc . . .and there are on the bottom for more than one year . . . and the badness of the team can seen, bad player coaches or whatever . . . but most importantly this bottom of the NFL, first overall pick, teams don’t get good overnight with a first overall pick . . . even Wash with the great RGIII is a 500 team so far . . . but yet the “bad†colts are now 8-4 with a first overall pick, this years colts looks a lot more closely to the ’03-’10 colts . . . well looks like those teams with a seasoned HOF QB replaced with a first overall pick . . ., meaning there is more consistently in the prior 10 years than last year . . .

10) Luck set a record for wins by a first overall, again like items 1 and 9 above you have something that has not happened in over 40 years of football, a rookie setting a record for wins and dominate team falling off a cliff . . .
Those are all facts and

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I don't know if they tanked the season or not last year. But, if they did, it sure looks like a smart move.

 

[The Gr8est]

The owner kept in place a truly awful coach all season for a reason.

The Colts kept running Curtis Painter out there as their "starting QB" for a reason.

They kept passing on waived players, despite being first in line and having some cap room, for a reason.

They kept sitting hurt-but-not-injured key players like Dallas Clark game after game for a reason.

I don't think that the players that actually took the field necessarily did things to lose games on purpose, but the front office certainly manipulated the assortment of players that took the field in order to lessen the chances of winning last year.

What muddies the picture is that Polian and his son got fired after carrying out Irsay's orders, but I am guessing Bill was eyeing retirement anyway and got something under the table for delivering the top draft pick.

The tanking theory isn't second guessing or hindsight. We all talked about it when it was happening. Suck for Luck T-shirts were a best seller in Indy by about week 7. Indy fans know what was happening then, admit it now, and are happy with the overall result.

While the reasons that the Colts coaches and players did not tank the season have been adequately explained in this thread, it IS possible for management, like the owner, who DO benefit from getting a franchise changer like Luck, to fail to make changes which doom a franchise to a poor performance.

It may not guarantee getting, Luck, but it does put them in a position to benefit from drafting very high, even if they fail on getting Luck.

THAT scenario IS possible, but certainly not proven.

The scenario that Palm Beach Pats Fans outlines here is the only one plausible one I've seen for anyone who thinks that the Colts may have not been too disappointed in losing.

 

[Yehoodi]

I don't know if they tanked the season or not last year. But, if they did, it sure looks like a smart move.

it might seem like a smart move, but it destroys the integry of the game, who is choose who can tank . . . because if you dont, what will happen is that 5-8 of the lower teams, will tank, and then you will have 5-8 teams giving aways wins to the rest of the league and throw way out of balance the league and competition, . . . for instance a team that might otherwise be 4-12 may end up being 12-4 if they have 8 games against the freebie teams . . .

it woud be one massive rest their starters weekend the entire year . . .

the moment one guys does it, you can't then stop another from doing . . . house of cards issue . . .

is not necessarily smart if others were similiarly minded as it would destroy the league

 

[ExiledBostonPat]

Sorry, the Colts were a facade team Caldwell. You could see in 2010 that they were carried by Manning and without him they would have be a 4 win team.

Peyton Manning carried that franchise for a decade. Their regular season record was about as good as ours, if I recall the stat correctly.

Its only in the playoffs they often got exposed for the sub par team they really were. Not for nothing that the real difference in record between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning is not in regular season, but in playoffs. Manning is 9-10 all time, a losing playoff record. Says it all really. He carried that team as you said.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Peyton Manning carried that franchise for a decade. Their regular season record was about as good as ours, if I recall the stat correctly.

Its only in the playoffs they often got exposed for the sub par team they really were. Not for nothing that the real difference in record between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning is not in regular season, but in playoffs. Manning is 9-10 all time, a losing playoff record. Says it all really. He carried that team as you said.

Or you could also say that in the playoffs they were just as good a team as they were overall in the regular season, but Peyton consistently failed to deliver the types of performances he had from September through December when the pressure was on in January. He deserves some of the blame for his ballooning turnover numbers in the playoffs.