Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay made it clear this week that the team was going to move on from quarterback Carson Wentz one way or another this offseason.
Despite a slow start to the regular season, the Colts climbed out of a 1-4 hole and seemed primed for a playoff spot. The final month of the season, though, showed what a team looks like when it tries to win in spite of its quarterback.
By the time it was all said and done, the epic collapse had taken place. The Colts missed out on the playoffs because they couldn’t beat the team holding the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft.
Irsay told the media at the NFL owners’ meetings in Palm Beach that a move had to be made when it came to Wentz.
“I wish Carson well, I think he has a chance to go into a different environment and play great in Washington,” Irsay said via Zak Keefer of The Athletic. “It’s just, for us, it was something we had to move away from as a franchise. It was very obvious.”
The Colts saw an improvement in Wentz’s game relative to his 2020 campaign. But it wasn’t enough. His erratic accuracy, inability to make the short throws and a hero complex kept the Colts offense from sustaining any stability.
It all came to a boiling point during the final game of the season when the Colts went into Jacksonville only to leave with an embarrassing 26-11 loss.
After the season, Irsay met with a handful of Colts’ veterans and according to Keefer, those conversations confirmed the notion that moving on from Wentz was the necessary decision.
What Irsay gleaned from the conversations he had with some veteran players, he said, “was very concerning.”
His conclusion, in his words: “Oh my God, there’s something wrong here … and it needs to be corrected.”
Irsay also wanted to make it clear that they don’t view Wentz as the scapegoat for the collapse at the end of the season.
“Carson is not the scapegoat,” Irsay said. “It simply didn’t work out for us and what we are trying to accomplish. I mean, he’s a good man, a good father and a guy who put a lot of effort into the year and worked really hard and wanted to have success. It just didn’t work out. And sometimes you feel like you have to move on because you can’t always persuade people to do things differently if they don’t want to do them differently.”
The Colts eventually moved on from Wentz despite not having a plan following the trade. They got pretty lucky that Matt Ryan became available after they sent Wentz to Washington.
Compared to where they were after the Wentz trade to Washington, Irsay is certainly relieved.
“Time will tell, but I really feel good about things,” Irsay said. “Extremely grateful to the football gods, so to speak, on where we were compared to where we are, you know, and I don’t underestimate that. You’re always greedy looking to complete the puzzle perfectly.”
The move for Ryan should be a better fit than Wentz was both in the locker room and in Frank Reich’s offense. Those two factors alone should be enough to keep the Colts from suffering through another epic collapse in the future.
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