If that were all that was involved here, perhaps. But it clearly is not. First of all it is the top pick in the draft, not just any old number 1 pick. Surely you know the difference. Second, Luck not coincidentally is the top prospect at Qb, which not only means he will replace Manning, but that as the most important position on the team, puts them in the perfect position to prepare for their future. Third and speaking of preparing, the rest of the Colts team is clearly in a rebuilding mode. Far better for them to go with a rookie who is a top prospect than bring back Manning, and having a below average team to surround him. Luck will develop as the Colts rebuild, in other words. They will be on the same timeline. Fourth, the Colts get out of Manning's contract. Timing again is key here given the pending huge payment otherwise due Manning. Add those in and I don't see what is so mysterious about what the Colts did.
Imagine the leadership Manning would bring to this team.....immeadiate credibility. You can bet that no one would be arguing in the huddle with Peyton in there! Suddenly the whole dynamic changes, locker room changes. Free agents and potential draft picks would be on the radar again for the next 3-5 seasons potentially ....Just sayin.....
Haven't told me anything I don't know about their plans with Luck and the #1 pick, also Manning's contract that they got out of. Which brings me back to my point. The NFL is a year-to-year league, there are no more 4 or 5 year rebuilding programs. If they felt Manning was still the elite, all-time great with a few years left in him, why not keep him and use the #1 pick to bolster their team elsewhere? Any #1 overall pick is a crap shoot, we've seen as many teams set themselves back a few years by taking the wrong QB as we've seen get another franchise QB. So if you already have Peyton Manning, he's an institution in your franchise, your undisputed leader for the past decade, a coach on the field, why gamble on the unknown when you already have him? Unless you think he can't play a few more years. Both sides have said it's not about the money, he makes a ton in endorsements and if he wants to win, and there's little doubt about that, he would understand about the cap and finish his career in Indianapolis.
Have you not heard that they are gutting that team.....Wayne, Freeney, Clarke, Brackett are all on the block, even with the release of Manning....THEY ARE STARTING OVER WITH LUCK. They are in a 3-5 year rebuilding phase. The Manning era is over in Indy from the top to the bottom. Why would you keep that guy for that money if all the other pieces are gone. It makes no sense.
Every team in the NFL without exception is in rebuilding mode. Teams that aren't rebuilding are in decline. The Colts were built to win a title for a 5 year stretch, the entire team needs to rebuild and starting with a great young QB in a no presure situation is a good place to start. It is always better for a team in decline to move on a year or 2 to early rather than a year or two to late. The Jets took a shot with Favre when the Jets were ready to win a title back in 08. All the pieces were in place. A couple of injuries and we fell short. We have been rebuilding ever since and frankly the team has been in decline since we were 8 and 3 in 08. Mark Sanchez is not the prospect that Andrew Luck is. Andrew Luck is a once a decade QB prospect. Doesn't mean can't miss but it's not like drafting Sanchez or even Bradford.
I understand that, but if Manning can still play at his level why can't you win? I saw Chad Pennington go to a 1-15 team and win a division, you're telling me Manning couldn't win in Indy with whoever is there? We just saw a 9-7 team win a Super Bowl, sorry I'm not buying into anybody going with a 3-5 year plan. So you're a proponent of the 3-5 year rebuilding plan but you've written off Sanchez after three years, two of which we went to the AFC Championship Game? You say we've been in decline since we were 8-3 in 2008, so that means we were in decline when we were 9-2 and 11-5 two years later? We were in decline when we went on the road and beat Manning and Brady in the playoffs in consecutive weeks? Makes no sense.
The Jets under Tannenbaum did their 3 year rebuild, our window started in 08. We have been in decline ever since but still made it back to the finals in 09 and 10 mostly due to Rex's revamped scheme. The team has been in decline now for 3 straight years. It showed up in crunch time last year. My opinion on Sanchez is he may well develop but apparently Jets management aren't sold on him. If they were why not bring in an OC and QB coach who were NFL gold in their passing philosophy? Bringing in Soprano and leaving Cavanah in place says alot about what Jets management think of Sanchez. After 3 years dumb it down and run the ball.
I think Rex's philosophy has always been run the ball and it will be more now. When they got away from it they struggled, when they got back to it they succeeded. I still don't get how we've been in decline for three years when 2010 was the best record we've had since 1998 and we won two road playoff games. Even if you want to write off the previous playoff run as a fluke off a 9-7 season, 2010 kind of shoots your logic down. Even this past year we were in control of our own playoff fate until the second to last game.
2010 we had a nice record we had 2 wins against teams with winning record. The 09 team was better overall than the 2010 team, the 08 team was much better than both of them until Favre got hurt.
And we knocked off two Super Bowl champions in their own buildings in the playoffs. Yet you're holding up the 8-3 mark in 2008 as some kind of a high point, why? We beat a bunch of bad teams to get there, too--Chiefs (barely), Rams, Bills, then beat the Pats without Brady in OT and I'll give you Tennessee. That's what the NFL is, when you have a good record you've beaten usually a bunch of bad teams and a couple of good ones. I don't see how one is much better than the other or how that means we're in "decline", that makes no sense. The five games we lost in 2010--Packers won the Super Bowl, we lost 9-0, game was closer than that, Bears played them in the NFC Championship Game, our game went down to the end, Pats won the division and we beat them twice, Ravens went to the playoffs and we lost 10-9 that game, only bad loss was Miami 10-6. Steelers beat us in the playoffs a month after we beat them in Pittsburgh. That's more solid than 2008, the whole team fell apart.
We had 4 wins against teams with a winning record. Two of them were in January. The 2010 Jets were a good pass rusher away from a Super Bowl. They were using trickery and extra DB's to defend the pass (effectively) but that left them with a fundamentally unsound personnel alignment against a team that could either run or pass as the Steelers could. The 2011 Jets were almost the same on defense with the same issues there but the offense came unhinged because of poor lineplay and bad performance by the offensive staff and then the QB.
The 2010 team had a Safety in the playoffs who could cover and run a bit in Lowery as did the 09 team with Rhodes. Last years team didn't have a cover safety at all.
Well the 2011 team wasn't put together all that well. They were still in the same neighborhood defensively as the 2010 team. It was the 2009 team's inability to cover the slot receiver after they lost Strickland that knocked the Jets out. It was the 2010 team's inability to defend both the run and the pass with the same defensive personnel that knocked them out. Mendenhall early and the slot receiver late.
We had 2 11 and 5 teams in our division that year and beat them both when we were healthy. We went up to NE and beat them in their building on Monday night football and followed it up by killing an undefeated TN team in their building the following week. We were arguably the best team in football at that point with an excellent shot at the division and a bye. Jenkins was as solid a player as we have ever had in the middle of the Dline and Favre was playing well. It fell apart when Favre got hurt but at that point we were arguably the best team in football and it was the last time you could ever make that argument.
Not really. After we went to Foxboro and knocked off the 14-2 Patriots in a playoff game and were headed to Pittsburgh to play a team we had beaten a few weeks earlier you could make the same argument. There were only four teams left, we'd beaten one and shown we could play even wtih the other two.
If we're going to bring up health I'll also point out we lost Kris Jenkins for good on the very first series of 2010 and finished the season/playoffs without Jim Leonhard. Injuries happen every year, they are not an excuse.
Speaking of safeties.. The fact that the Jets let Lowery go to Jax was really stupid. I think they should forget Manning and try to sign back important pieces like him and another WR.
That was one of the more puzzling moves I've seen Tanny make - and it was only for a 7th round pick. WTF was he thinking?
The 7th round pick was going to have a lower cap figure than Lowery? Seriously, there's no evidence at this point that Mike Tannenbaum has any kind of long-range plan beyond managing the roster for next season based solely on what happened last season. Woody lets him spend a bazillion dollars on moving pieces around and so the Jets look better than they should because they have all that cash over cap going on from year to year. Then you get to next year and everything is trending downwards unless the Jets go out and make a big splash in free agency again to fill the holes that the last few cannonballs into the pool created. I don't think the Jets have looked more than a year in the future with anything they have done since 2006 and 2005 was so bad for such obvious reasons that they had no choice that year. Only a fool would have gone for the big shinies with the offensive line falling apart.
