Ryan benched?

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

These are valid points but the thing to keep in mind is, as Bowen points out, Jim GENUINELY believes that this team will be BETTER with Ehlinger at quarterback. He thinks forcing this change will be the catalyst that sends this team to the playoffs.

He may be the only one who thinks that and he may actually be crazy, but his opinion is the only one that matters.

No question the guy has the right as the owner to demand whatever he wants. Whether its a good idea or not is a different question. I feel like in recent years, Irsay has been gradually been conditioning himself to become more and more involved in personnel decisions. He gets largely positive press when he allegedly demanded that Carson Wentz be run out of town, which only encourages him further. He then posts comments like his infamous "all chips in" statement which sounds OK at the time, and again fuels his personal perception that he's a badass owner laying down the law.

But this also makes him more personally accountable when things don't go right...which then makes him inject himself further into personnel decisions. Less publicly-involved owners can let things play out and then make rational decisions from their desk without the unnecessary public pressure of having these kind of comments thrown back to them constantly. It's entirely self-created, and I think destructive unless you think that Irsay knows better than Ballard/Reich how to address the situation. I don't.

Perhaps I'm overstating all of this, I don't know. It just feels like a terrible decision, and unless Ehlinger lights it up it will make the Colts look like they are just as clueless as the rest of us.