In San Francisco, Steve Young had the difficult job of filling Joe Montana’s shoes, just as Andrew Luck has has the difficult job of filling Peyton Manning’s shoes in Indianapolis. And Young thinks Luck’s already difficult job got harder this week, thanks to Colts owner Jim Irsay.
Young said on ESPN that he believes Irsay allowed his desire to get the last word on the decision to cut Manning and draft Luck get in the way of the Colts’ preparation for Sunday’s game against the Broncos, and as a result, Luck is under even more pressure this week.
“Jim Irsay decided to tweak Peyton Manning,” Young said. “They’ve had a long relationship, obviously there’s some acrimony there. You’re going to do it in public the week before he comes back? A real problem. My biggest problem, there’s a lot of problems, but one of the big ones is, you’ve got Andrew Luck. He’s done a phenomenal job taking a team that I thought was a team that was essentially a restart, an expansion team, and taking to a place where they’re actually competitive and doing pretty well. His job is already complex, difficult and hard to do. . . . Don’t make it more complex, don’t make it more difficult for the guy you already have there. If you have a problem with Peyton, work it out off camera. Don’t put it on camera.”
Young said Irsay shouldn’t be doing anything that could serve as a distraction for Luck this week, but that’s exactly what Irsay did.
“You’ve made Andrew’s job -- as difficult as it will be to be there this week, have all those people around and everything else -- you’ve made his job more complex. It makes no sense to me,” Young said.
Young is far from alone in thinking Irsay’s comments make no sense.