When not hijacking a podcast with a stream of consciousness that saw the host ask not a single question until nearly 15 minutes elapsed, Colts owner Jim Irsay continues to keep the bar very high for his underachieving-of-late football team.
“I’ve said it before -- we’re into plural Lombardis,” Irsay said at a town hall event with season-ticket holders, via Zak Keefer of the Indianapolis Star. “That’s what our goal is. And I’ll be damned if we don’t go out and get them.”
Based on Irsay’s past comments, he’s not talking about adding a Super Bowl trophy to the one the team won 11 years ago. Irsay wants two during the remainder of Andrew Luck’s career, which enters Year Six in 2017. To make that happen, the Colts need (at a minimum) an offensive line that can keep Luck from getting injured. Irsay believes he has it.
“Let me say this: the offensive line is fixed,” Irsay said. “I’m telling you guys, the offensive line is fixed. The reason I’ll tell you it’s fixed is because [former longtime Colts offensive line coach] Howard Mudd told me it’s fixed. If Howard Mudd tells you it’s fixed, trust me, it’s fixed.”
All due respect to Mudd, it makes more sense to see what the offensive line does, or doesn’t do, when the games that count commence. And it’s not just the offensive line that needs to be fixed; even with top-five-all-time quarterback Peyton Manning on the roster, the Colts needed a star-studded cast of characters to win one Super Bowl. They won’t get a second one (technically, third, but no one really remembers Super Bowl V) until they get more great players. And that’s the job of new G.M. Chris Ballard.
“I just have to tell our fans that Chris Ballard is the real thing,” Irsay said. “I’m telling ya, there are many a team out there that wanted him. He wanted to be here.”
That’s one point on which we’ll wholeheartedly agree with Irsay. Ballard has had plenty of chances to take a G.M. job, and he consistently said “no” until the chance came to commandeer a team that has a franchise quarterback and not much else. If Ballard can put some great players around Luck, the Colts will have a chance to get halfway to the unreasonable goal that Irsay continues to set for his team.