Loyalty: What is it Good For?

i don’t think anyone has any respect for Jim Irsay.

I have have a pretty big problem with all these players who expect their franchise to be “loyal to them”. All I ever hear when these players want more money or want to leave, is “well, it’s a business, I’m doing whats best for me”. Is there anything wrong with that, no, not at all. But, when they expect to have the franchise’s show loyalty back to them is when I get tired of it. It’s either a business or it isn’t. Cutting Peyton Manning is, flat out, the best business decision for the Colts. My heart tells me it’s wrong, that they owe him for all he has done, but at the end of the day, as so many players like to tell us, “It’s a business”. And if it’s a business when they leave teams in shambles (a la Lebron James), then it is a business when teams have to cut lose fan favorites and key figures.

I mean, $28 million isn’t the kind of money that you say, “well he did a lot of good for us, let’s just pay him.” That is a HUGE amount of money, more money that you or I will ever see, a lot more. You can’t simply expect the Colts to just give away $28 million. It is a shrewd business decision.

Of course Irsay could have handled this better, but the decision in and of itself, is a good one that I completely agree with.

Let me just end by saying that I do value loyalty, but are we really glad that we showed blinding loyalty to Jake Delhomme and gave him that huge extension just to see him meltdown? Sometimes you gotta know when to just let someone walk, and for the Colts and Peyton Manning, this is the right time.

That franchise was complete and total shit before he got there. And if in some alternate universe they had used that pick on Leaf, i see the Colts somewhere far from Indy.

On a side note, who ever called JR racist?

nice avatar by the way

I still think they’re years away from being a playoff contender. They have absolutely no offense, no defense and a new coach. I dont care how good Luck is, It’s going to take a lot of time for him to turn that franchise around

Our organization gets alot of unfair bad raps from the media and public opinion sometimes without real just cause. The Panthers have are blessed to have the Big Cat as our owner and founder. He is the reason we have a team in the Carolinas period. He also does treat his players with class in front of the public eye. I also think Hurney gets bashed to much for every thing he does. If you look at track records who would you rather have had up till now Polian who got lucky with one draft pick in Manning or Hurney who has been great with the first rounders he has drafted so far. I’ll take Hurney. Plus I am not sold on Luck either. There is something I can’t put my finger on with him that screams average QB in the NFL. I want to say he has been in such a controlled environment up to this point how will he deal with any adversity. I think his father is arogant and has and will control his son so much he cracks just like Todd Marinovich. I have that feeling about Luck.

I for one am happy we have JR. This is a guy who traveled to the funeral of a fan who saw every game since the teams inception, not as a media stunt, not as a way of garnering more support from fans, but simply because the man wanted to give his respects and thanks to a man who spent every Sunday watching his team play.

JR may be old fashioned, but one can seriously argue that old fashioned virtues and ideals are far better than the detached and social media driven values we deal with today. I find it refreshing to have an owner not willing to partake in all this drama and garbage people like irsay are doing. I like that our team is somewhat under the radar.

JR built this team from the ground up, and he will always have my respect for trying to keep this as a respectable organization, an organization that isn’t synonymous with breaking the law (like the bengals) or cheating (like the patriots), or even now, a media drama circus (like the colts). I firmly believe we will win a Super Bowl without being any of those things, and I believe that Cam and Rivera will win a Super Bowl for the Big Cat in the future.

Hurney and the Big Cat showed us as a fan base that they are 100% commited to this organization and the team when they took a chance on a kid that many people doubted could play in this league. Hurney put in the work and the time and went with Cam when every other dumb ass anaylist said it was a bad move. That shows me they do not care what twitter or facebook or the media thinks. They kept that close to the vest and met with players from the team and wanted to do what was best for the team. That should show us the class and loyalty that Hurney and the Big Cat has for their players. Panthers and their fan base first enough said.

In January 1984 an intoxicated Irsay appeared before the Baltimore media and exclaimed, “This is my goddamn team!” He reiterated that, despite problems, the rumors that he was moving the team were untrue. With negotiations over improvements to Memorial Stadium at an impasse, one of the chambers of the Maryland state legislature passed a law on March 27, 1984, allowing the city of Baltimore to seize the Baltimore Colts under eminent domain, which city and county officials had threatened to do. Irsay later claimed the city promised him a new football stadium, something they later denied, citing the team’s poor attendance. The next day, Irsay, fearing a dawn raid on the team’s Owings Mills headquarters, accepted a deal offered by the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis Mayor, William Hudnut, contacted his friend John B. Smith, at that time the CEO of the Mayflower Transit Company, who arranged for fifteen trucks to pack the team’s property hurriedly and transport it to Indianapolis in the early hours of the morning of March 29.- wikipedia