Loading ...Former Indianapolis Colts' offensive line coach Pete Metzelaars made some curious comments this week regarding the mindset of the Colts' coaching staff this season. Metzelaars said during a news conference in Buffalo introducing him as the team's new tight ends coach:
"The way his (Peyton Manning) injury took place, there was always kind of the thought that 'Well, he could come back, he might come back, maybe the recovery time is going to be x.'"So we found ourselves kind of holding out hope, 'Well, let's not change everything because there's a chance he's going to come back and when he comes back, then we're going to run it this way.' Unfortunately, he never did come back."
These comments don't make a whole lot of sense when examined more closely.
The nature of Peyton Manning's neck surgery wasn't all that mysterious with regard to planning for 2011. Once he had the final procedure, it was pretty clear that the best case scenario the Colts could hope for was a speedy recovery that would make Manning available in December at the soonest. By then, the Colts season would be nearly finished.
The procedure that Manning underwent wasn't something that was without precedent in the NFL. A cursory look at other players who had the surgery showed at least a six month recovery period which would also require some conditioning on the back end for him to be in "playing shape."
So why in the world would the coaching staff not make contingencies based on the high likelihood they would be without Manning for the duration of the season?
Knowing what we know now about the internal chaos within the Colts organization, it very well could be that the Colts' coaching staff wasn't getting all the information. If that's the case, shame on Jim Irsay, Bill Polian and whoever else was responsible for that. If the full nature of Manning's recovery wasn't made known to the coaches, they were essentially left hanging out to dry trying to cobble together game plans using a system for which the personnel just didn't fit, a point Colts 101 made repeatedly during the season.
Were Manning's doctors straight with the Colts? Did they lead the decision makers to think that some unrealistic timetable for recovery was realistic? That, we'll probably never know.
At best, Metzelaars statements sound like a cop out. Any coaching staff worth its salt has learned to adapt their system to personnel. Injuries are a fact of life in the NFL and adjustments are made by teams every year based on available personnel. We're not talking about an in-game adjustment here. Metzelaars is implying that the Colts' coaches couldn't adjust their offensive game planning over the course of half a season because Manning "might be back." That just doesn't wash.
At worst, we're talking about massive organizational dysfunction, where key information was withheld and decision makers weren't given what they needed to make the right choices with the team.
Jim Irsay made it a point after the season to emphasize his record of hiring "football people" and giving them what was needed to do their jobs. For the sake of the Colts, let's hope that he did that last season and that the current staff will have what they need to revitalize this team.
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