I look at it like a "knowing what we know now" question. Knowing that Luck quits in 2019, and misses an entire season too, of course it's a no-brainer the team should've kept Manning. In hindsight. Hindsight is 20-20.
We don't know what the team would've looked like with Manning because having Manning, and have the #1 draft pick with 2 alleged "superstar QB's" waiting to be drafted, would've changed everything.
The one thing we do know is we would've gotten to see Manning make his comeback, and it would've been as a Colt, and we would've gotten to see him retire a Colt. We got two more seasons out of Luck on the field than what we would've had with Manning. What Manning would've been able to do with his return and resurgence as a Colt would've been gravy.
So, knowing what we know now, we made a mistake. Knowing what we knew then is still a different variable entirely.
The Rules of Pacers Digest
Hello everyone,
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?"
In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*""Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?
"In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Dude....Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
You're leaving out a ton of context. Manning was just coming back from missing a year at age 36, and reports were that he was barely able to throw a ball.
Polian had just been let go. Much to a lot of fans desire.
The roster and salary cap were all jacked up and needed to be cleaned up.
We had a new GM.
We had an entire new coaching staff.
It was full-blown rebuild mode.
The ONLY bonus we had was the #1 pick. Absolutely, we could've brought in a bunch of picks for Luck. But regardless, step into Manning's perspective ---- late in career, just seriously injured, new coaches, new GM, we had let go of a bunch of Manning's old teammates... The roster and salary cap weren't in great position to make serious moves.... why on earth would he have wanted to come back into that rebuild??? He didn't --- it's why he got on a podium, generated a few tears, made it look like he was being ousted against his will, and then orchestrated the greatest free agency tour de force of maybe all time.
He wasn't looking to limp through a rebuild. He was looking for a contender that was just short a QB (which was not the Colts) where he could have a chance at a few rings before his neck gave out. Enter Denver, who had assembled a good roster and was in win-now mode and were looking to upgrade from Tebow.
And then take things further --- imagine Manning behind that now infamous Colts o-line. If Luck, as sturdy as he was, got lit up behind it, Manning wouldn't have lasted a year with that swiss cheese neck of his. Yes, Manning is faster getting rid of the ball, but he would've been bent in half behind that line. Luck was scrambling for his life half the time, and he was mobile. Manning would've been a sitting duck.
And finally, it's in the past, and it's moot. Getting all bent about it now is just silly. I won't ever agree with the notion that keeping Manning was better for us or him. It was the right move for both parties. He wasn't going to stay here. We made the right move for our future. Who'da thunk that tough ol Luck would walk away from the game because of a sprained ankle. No one. It came so out of left field that everyone was shocked. Still am. Most folks thought Luck was about to embark on a stretch of years kicking the league's ***, not retire.Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 08-30-2019, 03:51 PM.Leave a comment:
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If the roster won a lot with Luck from 12-14, how does it not win a lot with Manning who was Better than Luck during that time period? And it’s just a fact that we were very close to winning several extra games in 2011 despite having arguably the worst rotation of QB’s in league history that season.Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post
Yes, I get that Luck extended plays with his body that Manning couldn’t have made. But Manning was also much better at reading defenses, making audibles, and dumping it quickly.
The fallacious thinking is people always acting like you swap Manning for Luck, but everything else stays the same. But It wouldn’t have been the exact same. We would have got a ton for the draft pick. Wasn’t Cleveland willing to trade us their entire draft class or something crazy? And that’s when we weren’t even shopping it. A public auction of the Luck pick would have led to an insane haul and we’d still be feeling the ripples of acquired talent.
I was fine with it a few months ago when it looked like Luck was just hitting his prime, but the Luck era is over now and no way was it even close to being worth missing out on Manning resurgence.Last edited by Sollozzo; 08-30-2019, 03:14 PM.Leave a comment:
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Nah, I know people say this, but I've never agreed with it. That roster minus Manning won ~10 less games without him. It was a **** roster. That team any way you slide it was a lot worse that Denver's. There's a reason Manning went there. And remember, that Denver team won a lot in spite of Manning at times. It was a strong roster. Polian had just been removed and we were facing a rebuild.Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
And people still don't want to face the notion that Manning may not have even wanted to stay. Had he stayed, we still would've been out a QB. I firmly believe this team with Manning would've fared no differently in the playoffs had he stayed.
So no, it's not a no-brainer that we should've kept him. Until a week ago that same statement would be silly. At the time it was made, it was the right decision for the long term. We couldn't have foreseen Luck would retire at 29. It still seems unfathomable to talk about it.Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 08-30-2019, 03:23 PM.Leave a comment:
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The Colts were a playoff team the year before Manning got hurt in 2010, and were a playoff team the 3 years after he got Hurt with Luck (12-14).Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post
The roster had problems, but I think the awfulness of it gets exaggerated a bit. Even in 2011 with the pure garbage rotation of Collins/Painter/Orvlosky, we STILL had the opportunity to win MULTIPLE games that season that were crapped away because of the hideous QB play.
We would have got a haul for the Luck pick. We don’t know what the coaching hires ultimately would have been. We don’t know what FA’s might have come.
I’m not saying that we would have built a better team than Denver. But we know Manning had plenty of gas left in the tank and we know Luck made 1 AFCCG and only played two seasons after Manning retired. Knowing all of that, it’s a no brainer that rolling the dice on Manning would have been the better move. I’d rather have the contentment of knowing Manning finished his career here than the torment of seeing Luck walk out during his prime.Leave a comment:
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Why would he. I think you always go down this path of player communication. He's retired, why the hell does he give one **** what people are saying. Not gonna happen. On top of the obvious, he is notoriously private.Originally posted by Bball View PostLeave a comment:
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All the Manning talk still does nothing for me because he was never going to do here what he did in Denver. That Denver team was set up a lot like we are this year actually, a contender with a need for a QB. The Colts at that point were bogged down in big, bad contracts with old players, declining roster talent. We would've had Manning for 3 more years, and likely no more playoff success than we did with Luck, and would've been having a QB search 3 years earlier than this year.
Manning made the right decision for his own career. The Colts made the right decision. No one could've predicted the outcome we just went through.Leave a comment:
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The national media's narrative would be helped if Luck was actually helping push it and filling in the blanks.Leave a comment:
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One thing to keep in mind with the national media reaction is this: yeah they keep a general eye on the Colts, but the Colts are still just one of 32 teams. They were very good last year, but there are still several other teams that warrant more attention than the Colts.
So the national media knew that Luck had some bad injuries in the past. They knew that Luck was battling an issue this year. But they weren’t around the team every day like a Kevin Bowen or Mike Chappel is.
So when the national media hears that Luck retired, it’s easy for them to fall back on the “well Luck had some bad injuries in the past and I guess Grigson and Pagano ruined him, so we have to respect his decision.”
Add all of that to the anti-football national media narrative, and their reaction isn’t too surprising.
But the local radio hosts and reporters who keep a very close eye on this team day in and day our know that this is a bizarre story that just doesn’t add up at all with the info that we’ve been given.
A 29 old QB retires because of an injury that we know nothing about - one week after chucking balls around and doing leg drills. We still have yet to be given one concrete piece of info of what happened.Leave a comment:
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This touches on something kind of glossed over in the Luck discussions (of course it also goes down the path of the now overused narrative about Luck making a 'brave' choice that others might now feel empowered to make as well... in so many words anyway).
But by Luck (and possibly the Colts) either hiding what was really going on or dragging it out so long, the team wasn't able to properly prepare mentally or physically as if Luck was gone. Only now, at the end of the preseason, does everyone have clarity that Luck is not playing in game one... he's not playing at all.
There's been a lot of talk of the fans having the rug pulled out from under them... But the players have as well. Maybe some read the tea leaves. Maybe Luck told some sooner than others (and others not at all), but in the end, until it was official, it wasn't official.
Obviously, they did practice without him, but always with everyone eyeing the spot he would be returning to at some point. But not now.
While this clarity, finally, is good now, it would've been better sooner. The distraction and storm already passed.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/08/28/an...chester-rogers
INDIANAPOLIS — All that’s left in the locker that used to belong to Andrew Luck are some black and white plastic hangers, bunched up on the right side of the otherwise bare hanging rod. His blue and white Colts nameplate has been removed from the clear plastic holder above the locker, and all of his gear and belongings are gone.
Music plays from a speaker, and across the locker room, linebacker Darius Leonard playfully shouts at teammates. Left tackle Anthony Constanzo jokes around with fellow linemen Ryan Kelly and Mark Glowinski not far from Luck’s old locker on this Tuesday afternoon. This is the callous short-term memory that football players possess. In a little over a week, there will be a real game to play. Next man up.
Head coach Frank Reich said Tuesday was the first day things started to feel like business as usual since news of Luck’s retirement spread on Saturday night. “Emotionally, it felt like a more normal day,” he said. “Now that all the announcements have been made and everything’s been done, I think we’re just in the mode, ‘OK, let’s just get ready for the season.’”
Receiver T.Y. Hilton, one of Luck’s closest teammates, agreed. He’s starting to heal from the shock. “I’m all good, I’m OK,” he said. “I had a couple days, [it took me] like four or five days to get back right.”
“I’m glad he made a decision and made it clearer for the team,” Leonard says. “Because we didn’t know, was he gonna go or not? So I’m glad he made it clearer and now we can move forward.”
Though Luck’s presence in the Colts locker room is already erased and his team is pushing ahead without him, his decision to prioritize his health will have a long-term impact on players in Indianapolis and beyond.
In the wake of Luck’s retirement, receiver Chester Rogers says he’s had several conversations with friends playing for other teams who are in similar situations as Luck, struggling through a series of endless injuries. “Absolutely, there are a lot of players who feel this way,” Rogers says. “Players on different teams have expressed that to me. Man, I actually feel the same way Andrew feels. I'm waking up in pain every single day, taking all this kind of pain medicine and fighting every day just to practice.”
These are conversations Rogers says he never had with other players before Luck stood at the podium Saturday night and emotionally described the cycle of injuries and rehab that have made him feel trapped and powerless. “Andrew probably opened the door for a lot of folks,” Rogers says. “A lot of players that feel that way, that are scared and don't want to take the criticism, it's going to show them don't be afraid to put your health first.”
Luck isn’t the first NFL player to leave the game in what should be his prime. But Luck’s decision is especially meaningful because he’s a quarterback—the most important position in the NFL—playing in an era where quarterbacks are protected like never before and because of it, playing longer careers than ever before. Luck, who Reich says will no longer rehab his injury with the Colts medical staff, broke new ground as a quarterback. If the most important player to the franchise musters the courage to leave his team, what’s to stop others feeling the same way?
“It would be unreasonable to think it wouldn't have some sort of effect,” right tackle Joe Haeg says. “I'm sure there have been plenty of quarterbacks within the last 20 or 30 years that have been like, I want to retire so bad, I'm done with football, I don't like football, but they still keep playing because they feel like they have to. Maybe players will use this as a reference, or maybe even talk to Andrew himself at some point and say, are you happy you did it?”
Three lockers to the right of Luck’s old station, Jacoby Brissett, the Colts' new starting quarterback, gets dressed for practice. He says he hasn’t thought of his NFL career any differently in light of Luck’s retirement because, “it’s all circumstantial.” He’s 26 years old, and he still experiences the joy from football that Luck has lost with his latest injury. Brissett ties his cleats, puts his wristband, a banana and a life water inside his helmet, and carries it like a basket as he bounds out to practice.Leave a comment:
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Clearly he’s super fond of Denver as he should be. Great place and it worked out phenomenal for him. Obviously made the right decision by signing there.
One other gut-wrenching fact for Colts fans that hits on them making a large mistake 7 year’s ago is that Manning managed to beat the Pats twice in the AFCCG as a Bronco. A shell-of-his-old self Manning outplayed Brady in that 15/16 AFC Title game. So not only did Manning rack up a bunch of stats, wins, and a couple Super Bowl appearances in Denver, but he also managed a couple of AFCCG wins over his biggest foe.
I think my favorite stat in sports is that Manning is 3-2 against the Pats in the playoffs, including 3-1 against them in the AFCCG. Brady has the rings and insane longevity, but Manning at least has that nice playoff head to head feather in his cap.Last edited by Sollozzo; 08-30-2019, 09:15 AM.Leave a comment:
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Nope he has be completely silent about the whole thing. I think he's secretly laughing at Irsay with how all this blew up in his face. I know I would if I were him but I also think he doesn't have an issue with Luck personally either. That being said I think he appreciates his time with the Colts he did spend most of his career here and will always have ties to the city. He won't forget how it ended though but I think he feels more attached to Denver at this point. I know people around here don't want to hear that but he still lives there and hangs around that team on a regular basis when he has no reason to for someone who was only there for four years(a memorable 4 years but still..)Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
That being said I don't expect a honest answer from him about this he'll give some canned response of how its his life and he should do what's best for him.Leave a comment:
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Yes, that was what I was saying. That quote is in contradiction to other information (I'd only seen the players didn't know, except for Brissett) including an article from the Star just a couple of days ago.Originally posted by D-BONE View Post
I just looked it up. Here it is:
https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...rs/2133442001/
Wilmore, 30, stared at the screen, shocked. He couldn't believe it; he thought it was fake. No one around him seemed to know anything was going on. But Wilmore had an idea of just who to ask to try to confirm it.
"Hey Luke," he yelled. "Is it true?"
Wilmore, a teacher who grew up in New Palestine, was sitting in sideline seats right by the net where Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, punter Rigoberto Sanchez and long snapper Luke Rhodes practice. He spotted Rhodes just feet away.
"He gives me this look like, 'What?'" Wilmore said, then he asked Rhodes, "Luck's retiring?"
"He gave me another look like, 'What are you thinking?'" he said. "I waved my phone and pointed to it and said, 'It’s on Twitter.'"
Rhodes immediately walked over to Wilmore.
'I know as much as you'
That's exactly how Rhodes remembers the whole thing playing out.
When Wilmore showed him Schefter's tweet, Rhodes said he still didn't believe it.
"I was like, ‘(Luck’s) standing right there,'" he said. "I definitely didn’t see it coming. It was a huge surprise to us."
Wilmore said he watched Rhodes walk over to Sanchez as if he was telling him the news. Then the two of them went into the crowd of players.
"I didn’t see specifically who they told," he said. "But this was within three or four minutes of the tweet going out."
"He called me over to ask if it was true, and I was like, ‘First I’m hearing it. I don’t know. I know as much as you,'" Rhodes said.Leave a comment:
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On that front..... our new team MVP is Chris Ballard, and we really need to realize this. Having a franchise QB is huge, but having a guy of Ballard's ability is what separates the contenders from the pretenders. The way this guy runs this show, it will likely allow us to recover. The assets and cap room he's accumulated make things much easier for us to acquire a franchise QB (if Brissett doesn't fit the bill). The one comforting thought I have at this point is that we have Ballard. If one guy can turn a turd into a diamond, it's him. I think Ballard knows, also, that this team is a franchise QB away from being a serious SB contender, so it will be real interesting to see what we do in the next year or two, and to see who ends up running this show under center.
There's got to be some names around the league eyeballing this Colt situation, seeing everything we have in place here and how set up for now *and* the future we are, and eyes it as a destination. I honestly feel like we're just a QB away (dammit).Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 08-29-2019, 09:44 PM.Leave a comment:
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This is the part that's hard for me to digest. I don't know if we've ever seen such a high-profile, super-talented guy walk away from a sport *right* when he was entering his prime. And Luck was entering his prime. You look at the big names who've walked, like Barry Sanders, or Jim Brown, they still got in an almost 9-10 year career, they were "short", but still not like... THAT short. Luck got in 7 years, but really it was just 6 seasons. I whole-heartedly felt that we were about to see a 5-6 year run from Luck that would've put him in the upper echelon all-time. Everything had lined up, he was finally healthy, the team was fixed, the front office had it's **** together, salary cap was awesome, team drafting was totally squared away, we could've pumped out a 5-6-7 year run of just dominating the league, maybe pulling home a plurality of rings...Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
And he just walked away. He was like... literally about to go off on the league. And instead he goes out. We as a fan base just had a huge rug ripped out from under our feet. A huge window of opportunity just suffered a MAJOR setback just as it was opening up. Soooooo.... disappointing.Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 08-29-2019, 09:42 PM.Leave a comment:
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