It was throwing in the towel for the season. Kinda feel for Saturday bc it really isn't a fair shake.

You have to sort of wonder if Jim was able to see just how trash we were, frustrated with the re-tread QB carrossel and told Frank we needed to get busy losing and Frank refused leading to his dismissal.

No question Sunday was a tank and that Vikings loss, man that TD to Cook late, Franklin in particular, looked like he was pretty cool with Cook getting into the end zone.

I think Jim saw we would be 7-9 or 9-7 and maybe just squeak into or just miss the playoffs. Thing is, this is small market team. Its not like Kraft Heinz is backing this team's finances. Jim wants a competitive team on the field all the time if possible.

...But we simply are not going anywhere till we get a good QB, and the best way to do that is at the top of the draft. He knows it is the only path to long-sustained success. It doesn't help that the last few years have not been great QB classes.

I don't think coaches or players lose or want to lose. I think players might go into preserve my body for next season mode though. For the most part they don't want to tank. It gets coaches fired and players dismissed or drafted over. But if an owner were to say fire his coach and OC mid-season and no one there was competent enough to manage an offense. Well...

I don't adhere to conspiracy theories at all. I think Q ppl are nuts. But Irsay went against his own policy he has talked about repeatedly. Acted the crazy owner, which I think he plays up to a degree, and went to town.

I don’t believe that for a second.

Irsay genuinely believed that Saturday would turn things around, just like he believed Ehlinger would.

I believe that 100 percent.

Maaaaaaaan, Jim's been around this game since he was a baby, call him a lot of things, but he is a football guy. Surely he had enough vision to know inside that the outcome of installing a coach with a mediocre HS record and nothing more, combined with a dumpster dive QB, was not going to turn this thing around. Yeah, I think it was pretty clear to anyone that can see, Ryan was washed up, but a 6th round undersized QB as the answer?

I think he wanted to sell it all to hell to drive some energy into the seats of LOS but had a keen eye on the draft order possibilities if we absolutely sucked which has much greater odds than us suddenly getting rolling.

Now I'll throw this out.

Stroud this year
Marvin next

Burrow / Chase 2.0?

If its really true that Reich just wanted to be a glorified OC and to let his coordinators run their units, then that's a huge shit show. He's focused on execution but not toughness and discipline - just reps and technique.

I assume that's why he wanted Gus Bradley as DC. The guy was HC. And John Fox was probably doing a lot of the "real" HC duties behind the scenes.

Then we've become a finesse team that doesn't even have that.

I think Saturday is failing because the culture of no accountability and no toughness has seeped through this team through and through. It's soaking in it.

An entire new staff is going to be needed

It’s strange that after being a physical team last year, Reich just decided fuck it and become a finesse team this year. Even more strange is that decision so quickly affected the players that Nelson went from future Hall of Famer to little bitch in the matter of a few games.

Or again it could be that having a shit OL and a bad, immobile QB doomed the team. Guys keep making up scenarios to blame Reich. Like he suddenly forgot everything he knew on offense and put all the guys in skirts emasculating them the first day of training camp. Everyone wants a yeller and a screamer, they mistake that for leadership. If the guys constantly need yelled at to perform you have the wrong fucking players.

I think he wanted a trial period to evaluate Jeff. He probably thought he had nothing to lose. But turn it around? I doubt he thought that, historically that doesn’t happen.

They had Joel Erickson on Kevin and Query, a guy who has covered other teams and who still has contacts around the league, and they asked him what he’s heard about how the Colts franchise is viewed after this season.

He said he’s heard basically two different things.

One, that the vitriol Colts fans had for Frank Reich is not shared around the league. Basically, Reich is viewed as a decent coach who did as well as can be expected with a perpetually bad quarterback situation.

Two, that the franchise as a whole is not viewed as nearly as stable from ownership as it was previously. He said he’s gotten a lot of texts that end with basically, what the hell happened there?

I believe both of those. I’ve always felt Irsay’s firing of Reich had more to do with the fan base than anything else. You look at the QB situation in Indy and it’s hard as hell to have expected Reich to have won much more than he has. Especially when you throw in the issues at the other “winning” positions - LT, DE, WR, CB. He’s a good, not great coach, but far from the issue with this franchise. The sad thing is that this off season is the one where Reich would have the best chance to shine - mentoring a young QB.

I understand the argument that if Reich was only good and not great then there is room to improve. The issue is that the way Irsay went about things - both meddling with playing decisions and the joke of hiring Saturday - likely turns off the higher level candidates. The team simply isn’t a desirable destination due to Ballard and, especially, Irsay. I’d likely rather have Reich over whoever accepts the job for next year.