Peyton Manning might not have made any decisions yet, but Colts owner Jim Irsay was able to have his “I told you so” moment after what might have been the final game of his former quarterback’s career.
“I knew it was the right thing to do for the Colts,” Irsay said of releasing Manning, via ESPN.com.
That’s easy to say now, since Irsay was able to parlay a year of stink into Andrew Luck. But Irsay said after running into Archie Manning over the weekend that everyone agreed with the decision to part ways.
“I saw Archie last night” Irsay said. “We had a nice conversation. Happened to be at Elway’s Restaurant at the Ritz Carlton. It was a decision that it was the right move to make. Peyton and I had talked about it. He said it best in the press conference, I didn’t decide. He didn’t decide. The football gods laid the cards out. We both knew it as best for him and us. . . .
“To me, it’s been tremendous that my vision at the time was it would work out this way, that Peyton would be able to go somewhere, continue his greatness, continue his career. We would be able to go forward with Andrew. Again, having the type of success we’ve had so soon I think was a surprise to me.”
Irsay was also abale to compare his current quarterback to the boss of his former one.
“[Luck’s] magic, when you watched him in college, when the play breaks down, in that half a second, he does things that are so innate and so unusual; that’s when the magic happens,” Irsay said. “He just decides in a split second, and he has the athletic and the physical skills to do that with his arm strength, with his feet. So really the sky is the limit. You hate to bring up comparisons with John [Elway] being there running their program and stuff, but John was that way of course at Denver.”
Irsay can talk about his vision and plan as much as he wants, but there’s also an element of, well, luck involved. Had Luck not decided to stay in school an extra year, he’d have been playing for the Panthers now, and Irsay might have had visions of Robert Griffin III instead.