Breaking News Polians Fired in Indy

[R0CKnR0LLA]

from what I just heard jim caldwell is out as well

[Zithers]

Yeah, you guys are so right..Polians didn't build a great defense, draft Marvin Harrison, draft Marshall Faulk, draft Edgerrin James, draft a group of offensive lineman that stayed in Indy for a while, pick Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf, and build around a franchise quarterback for over a decade that ended in 10 postseason appearances and a Super Bowl.

all of those players were drafted in the 1990s lmao. who have they drafted in the past five years that is good?

austin collie, pierre garcon, clint session... uh... jerry hughes? donald brown? anthony gonzalez? pat angerer? fili moala? tony ugoh? mike pollak? wait... all of those guys are high picks that suck out loud.

i'm pretty sure freeney or mathis were the last great picks. or antoine bathea. the team lives and dies with one player, which means they didn't do anything except, well, keep one good player.

[MWCarolina]

from what I just heard jim caldwell is out as well

i think Caldwell should go, i dont think he's a great coach anyway.

[pstall]

Yeah, you guys are so right..Polians didn't build a great defense, draft Marvin Harrison, draft Marshall Faulk, draft Edgerrin James, draft a group of offensive lineman that stayed in Indy for a while, pick Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf, and build around a franchise quarterback for over a decade that ended in 10 postseason appearances and a Super Bowl.

No, it had nothing to do with Bill Polians (you know, the guy that got Carolina to an NFC Championship in 2 years). It was all Peyton.

Polians didn't deserve to be fired at all. He had a philosophy that worked for a long time and it's very hard for a team like Indy to make big splashes in the draft every year when they haven't had a first round pick above 20 since before the damn millennium.

Don't dog on him and act like he's done nothing.

Swagadelic.

[bleys]

I knew I should have made a bet a few years back on who would be fired first, Hurney or Polian..

[R0CKnR0LLA]

i still don't know how jim caldwell got that job to begin with

he went 26-63 at wake forest playing against the craptacular ACC competition

polian at least was good at running a team once upon a time

as has been noted though, his recent drafts have been pretty bad

they've been clinging on to an aging declining group of players for awhile now and those poor drafts have started to catch up to them

losing manning obviously should set you back but there's no excuse for just how horrible they were this year. for most of the year it looked like they wouldn't win a single game

[rayzor]

ugh. since we have two threads about the exact same thing here's a post that says the exact same thing...

it's not about the losing seasons. there's a whole lot more going on.

i started a thread a few weeks back about some of the things that was going on inside indy and how polian never wanted dungy as coach.

cut and pasted for your reading pleasure:

pretty interesting read...esp. considering those who wish that polian had stuck around here.

The only Colts coach Polian has ever hired was Jim Mora Sr. The marriage ended badly, with Polian firing Mora after he refused to dimiss his then-defensive coordinator, Vic Fangio, following the 2001 season. Today, Fangio coordinates Jim Harbaugh's San Francisco 49ers defense, which ranks No. 1 in the NFL. Mora Sr. still has not spoken a word to Polian since their break-up ten years ago.

After Mora, the common myth is that Polian then hired former Tampa Bay head coach Tony Dungy. Not true. Polian never had any intention of hiring Dungy back in 2002. It was Colts owner Jim Irsay who wanted Dungy despite Polian's protests. To make the situation work, Irsay and Polian went to Tampa, met with Dungy, and worked things out. The rest is history, as they say.

Phil Wilson of the Indianapolis Star spoke about the hiring of Dungy yesterday on an Indianapolis radio show:

It's always been speculated that Polian wanted to hire Nick Saban as the Colts head man after Mora was canned. Some of you might not know this, but Saban was who Polian wanted to hire in 1998. The deal never materialized. Polian settled for Mora.

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As Phil Wilson astutely points out, the problem with keeping the Polians around is, quite simply, many coaches don't want to work for them. The Polians have an awful reputation in league circles for being insufferable pricks (they act that way with everyone, not just media), and they are known as meddlers. They will want full control over the roster, and they will also want the next head coach to retain some of the current assistants working under Caldwell.

Wilson explains to radio personality Dan Dakich on his show yesterday:

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Look, we continue to beat this drum, and we will do so until Jim Irsay opens his eyes and realizes the obvious: Bill Polian and his useless sons must be purged from the front office at the end of the season. I don't know how Jim Irsay could sell to the fanbase that soon-to-be-thrice-fired Norv Turner is going to lead the Colts to a championship. And since it seems unlikely that any sort of credible head coach would ever come to Indy and deal with the overbearing asshats who currently run the front office, the question is: Why keep them?

Why keep the Polians? How do they help? How do they improve the quality of the franchise?

Their recent draft record is horrible. They spurn free agency. They can't hire quality coaches. People around the league refer to them as 'toxic.'

http://www.stampedeblue.com/2011/12/16/2640456/bill-polian-did-not-want-to-hire-tony-dungy-in-2002-might-want-norv

btw...if you're wondering about that "toxic" quote:

As pointed out by Brad Wells of StampedeBlue.com via email and Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com via Twitter, Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star has crafted a compelling case for blaming the team’s current struggles on the son of Vice Chairman Bill Polian.

Based on interviews with several unnamed former Colts employees conducted in recent weeks, Kravitz writes that G.M. Chris Polian is a “toxic force who has brought this franchise to its knees for reasons other than Peyton Manning’s injury.” Apart from Chris Polian’s decisions as the man in charge of personnel, Kravitz explains that damage was done as Chris Polian stood on his father’s shoulders to leapfrog others on the organizational chart.

“ince he started moving up the organizational ladder in the early 2000s for no apparent reason other than being a Polian,” Kravtiz writes, “he has been instrumental in hastening the exits of scouts and assistant coaches who led the Colts to previous greatness.”

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/06/chris-polian-catching-more-blame-for-the-state-of-the-colts/

and i'll ask the same question...when was the last time he had a good draft? '06?

[pantherclaw]

thanks, but no thanks.

[rayzor]

Yeah, you guys are so right..Polians didn't build a great defense, draft Marvin Harrison, draft Marshall Faulk, draft Edgerrin James, draft a group of offensive lineman that stayed in Indy for a while, pick Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf, and build around a franchise quarterback for over a decade that ended in 10 postseason appearances and a Super Bowl.

No, it had nothing to do with Bill Polians (you know, the guy that got Carolina to an NFC Championship in 2 years). It was all Peyton.

Polians didn't deserve to be fired at all. He had a philosophy that worked for a long time and it's very hard for a team like Indy to make big splashes in the draft every year when they haven't had a first round pick above 20 since before the damn millennium.

Don't dog on him and act like he's done nothing.

wait...are you saying that polians drafted marvin harrison?

that polians drafted marshall faulk?

really?

:lol:

polian got there in december of '98.

harrison was drafted in '96

faulk was drafted in '94.

LET THE LEGEND(myth) CONTINUE!!!!!!!!

:lol:

[rayzor]

oh...and that GREAT DEFENSE he built....that was all dungy.

wasn't all that great either.

top 10 in points allowed 5 times. top 10 in yards allowed twice. the rest of the time it was mediocre...at best and that only happened after dungy brought his tampa 2 in.

[jb_online]

Don't forget that Bill put together the Buffalo Bills teams that won four straight AFC Championships. True they lost four straight super bowls, but that's not his fault.

I think his skill is in rebuilding franchises, not maintaining them.

I'm not saying lets bring him back, but I think he at least was a good GM then, if not one now. I really haven't followed his work since he moved on from the Panthers. Maybe he lost his marbles.

[charlotte49er]

I didn't see this coming at all. Though when Bill stepped down and turned the reigns over to his son, that was a big point that it was time to move on.

Now if we can get Caldwell fired, it will make me happier. Peyton took over coaching the team in the last 4-5 games anyway.

The trouble is, who to get to take over Luck and the New Indianapolis Colts? A lot of people a couple years ago wanted Jeff Fisher. I'm not sold on Cowher, or Gruden, nor Del Rio. AND it they get Norv Turner, I'll burn all my Colts gear! (The fire will be seen for miles!)

[JawnyBlaze]

lol I was about to comment on the great defense, but rayzor beat me to it. Indy has never had a great defense, just two great DEs for a long time. The only time they ever got their defense to play respectably it was at the right time (end of the year into the playoffs) and they won the Super Bowl.

[Penalty Flag]

Their DEs are about the only bright spot. Pat Angerer's okay for their LB core, but their secondary is just awful.