The Headless Horsemen

An open letter to Colts fans, from a Saints fan

Things are made worse when panic looks friendly. @jimirsay

I saw it happen. You saw it happen. That happened.

The Indianapolis Colts' 62-7 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night was one of the most spectacular flameouts of the past two decades... though trainwrecks like that happened sporadically before the NFL instituted its current policy of parity, such a complete domination hasn't been seen since, oh, the Super Bowl Shuffle. 

As a lifelong NOLA fan, I should be thrilled. And some of us were. The reaction among most hardcore, lifelong Saints fans, however, was a sense of acute embarrassment. We know loss. We know sloppiness. We know about being dominated. Not that 41-10 drubbing you gave us in 2007, or that in the 55-21 pounding you gave us in 2003, though. Those were just bad losses. We don't know what that was Sunday night.

It was more or less a given, this weekend, that the Colts would be defeated by the black and gold. Their offense had been a total mess since the neck injury of QB Peyton Manning, who was signed to a five-year, $90 mil contract even though he was 35 and had already gone under the knife. That may be all over: to many football fans, it feels like he's at the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies now. So Stampede Blue pulled Kerry Collins -- who's three years older -- out of retirement, but he got a concussion in Week 3, forcing the team to go to third-stringer Curtis Painter. He's from Purdue, like Drew Brees. But the similarities grind to a halt there.

Still, that only explains the 7. How does any modern team give up a 55-point differential? The Colts were, according to the media line, only improving after six losses, shaving the point spread thinner and thinner ever week -- there'd be more losses, for sure, but they could mark out time (or, depending on who you talk to, rebuild) with dignity. Then this happened.

You all know the stats, which read like a Guinness Book of World Records all on their own. Forget Manning: the defense allowed the Saints to score on their first nine drives. Our boys didn't have to go to third down until they were up by 28. Drew is also a future Hall of Famer, but 35 of 39? Come on.

This is not to add insult to Joseph Addai injury; any fan who got on the black-and-gold bandwagon before Sean Payton showed up knows how you feel right now. Watching the home team collapse like Lindsay Lohan at a sentencing is never fun. But, man, only 20 months ago you were giving us all kinds of hell in the Super Bowl. Until 3:12 before the end, that was anyone's game.

No, what I want to know is, who's running the show over there?

Watching the sidelines that night, you would have thought Manning -- who we consider a hometown boy, btw -- was the intense, stern head coach, slowly boiling over from sheer frustration, while actual head coach Jim Caldwell was the stone-faced assistant. We all know that Caldwell's always been stone-faced. But he's also always been an assistant. I understand he was part of the Peyton Manning deal, as departing mastermind Tony Dungy lobbied for his former right-hand man to take over the top job. Thing is, he's only ever been on the big stage once, in college ball, and his record at Wake Forest is a nearly-as-ridiculous 26-63. He used to work with someone we couldn't get out of town fast enough, QB Jim "Chris" Everett. Also, as it turns out, not ready for prime time. 

NFL coaches are a notoriously weird and wobbly bunch, defined by their quirks, all over the map personality-wise. They're not paid to be friendly and they're only somewhat accessible. Even given that, Caldwell's almost never seen talking to anyone on the sidelines, for any reason. He just seems to stand there, like the Sphinx looking out over the French army. Except the Colts fall apart like the modern French army. What's he doing out there?

I wouldn't even be disrespectful enough to ask, except that Peyton is not just revealing himself to be the MVP of all time by not suiting up, he's also looking more and more like the team's entire motivation. The whole team. Manning can't rally a defense on the field, of course, but his long drives kept them off the field. Freeney, Johnson, Muir, Bethea, and Mathis are still there from the Super Bowl lineup, and they were practically getting out of the way of our guys. Defensive coordinator Larry Coyer is likely to be out on his ass soon for giving up that sixtyburger, and he's been sticking with a scheme that was figured out long ago, but before this massacre, he was only giving up an average of 10 points a game. The team is clearly dealing with something mental, something only a leader can fix. A shame spiral it badly needs to shake itself out of.

Is owner Jim Irsay, as some speculate, hands-on enough to provide it? VC Bill Polian? It doesn't seem likely. The suits are too high up. I submit that Peyton Manning, for all intents and purposes, the guy who calls his own plays on the field and keeps the defense off it, has been the defacto head coach since Dungy left. Sure, he was on the sidelines Sunday, but when the other team goes 28-0 in the first quarter, there's not much motivating you can do. Sunday night, the "coaching staff" decided that, in the loudest domed stadium in the world, that their new, third-string QB, who wasn't familiar with -- well, with anything, should go no-huddle. Something is profoundly wrong.

Does it seem likely that Peyton would have explained that epic collapse at hafltime, when the game was already over, as a matter of details, of fixing the "little things"? Does that sound like the words of a guy who knows what's gone wrong? Also, when DB Justin Tryon wanted to start this year, you may remember he got in a shitload of trouble for tweeting this.

Who's running things?

Mind you, I don't really think Peyton had his hands on every aspect of the team when he was healthy. Yet more and more, it seems like Archie instilled a sense of noblesse oblige in Peyton and Eli over the years: when things go wrong, they don't just look upset, they look puzzled -- and worse, furious, like a child who has to stop playing football and come in for dinner. Things are not supposed to go badly when they're in the pocket. The world is supposed to co-operate. They're Mannings. Born to lead. Born to make things happen.

Perhaps for that reason, I've seen some of Colts Nation arguing that Peyton should just go ahead and replace Caldwell as coach for the rest of the season. Why not? He can't play anyway. The essence of leadership seems to have entirely disappeared from your beloved Colts, and the live shot of their coach walking away, all by himself, once again not speaking to anyone, without even an entourage -- that spoke volumes. It's not that the team's abandoned him, either. Quite the opposite.

“Honestly, I don’t think we showed up to play,’’ receiver Austin Collie said. “Our mindset could have been a whole lot better.’’

By contrast, our injured Payton, spelled with an a and sitting in the press box, didn't call any plays at all that fateful night. He had a hot dog. He hung out with Kenny Chesney. But his field general was on the field. And you can bet he pushed those guys all week.