The fallout from Sunday’s misguided decision by the Colts to tap out from their pursuit of perfection continues.
Last night, team president Bill Polian’s weekly radio show ended 10 minutes early, just as a caller had Polian on the ropes regarding the logical disconnect between resting injured starters for a meaningless game and pulling healthy starters from a close one.
Now, a reader points out that the Colts have asked folks who post messages on the team’s official “Fan Forum” to quit complaining.
Under the heading “Enough is enough,” site moderator named “TubaGuy” makes this plea: “Up to this point we have been letting people vent and get their emotion out. I think it has been needed, and we didn’t want to shut it down. However, now it’s getting to the point of being childish and VERY repetitive. At some point, probably Tuesday or Wednesday, it is time to move on. Whether you agree or disagree with the coaching move, this forum needs to move forward. We still have a lot of playing to do, and we need to come together and focus on the future. Let’s move on, people. . . .”
Though it’s not the first time an NFL team has tried to nudge the discussion on its message boards in a different direction, the fact that the Colts find themselves in this predicament reconfirms that the organization grossly underestimated the local reaction to the abandonment of the quest for perfection with less than 1.5 regular-season games to play.
So either the Colts aren’t too smart, or they’re extremely arrogant. We’ll let PFT commenters debate this and any other topic for as long as they want.
UPDATE: In a tweet from “MyColts,” the Twitter page of MyColts.net, a fan site owned by the Colts, the team says that “Tuba Guy is a fan and a volunteer,” which apparently is supposed to make us regard the message as irrelevant. The problem, as we pointed out in response, is that TubaGuy also is a moderator, which means that the Colts have authorized him to speak on their behalf within the confines of the team-owned message boards. Moreover, the fact that the Colts have not removed their moderator’s post asking fans to talk about something other than Sunday’s game ratifies TubaGuy’s words. (We suppose we’ll eventually get an e-mail from someone with the Colts explaining that the person who handles the Twitter page for MyColts.net is also a “fan and a volunteer.”)