Irsay was probably the only one who knew how close Phoenix came to actually landing the team, but it was a real possibility. The Jaguars and Panthers are still the expansion choices, and Baltimore still gets the Ravens. The aforementioned reception Jacksonville gave Irsay happened on Aug. With Irsay in town to see the Gator Bowl — a hypothetical new home for the Colts — a crowd of somewhere between 40, and 55, filled the stadium to watch the Colts owner land a helicopter on the field.
Owners of the Saints , Oilers, Falcons and Cardinals all briefly mentioned Jacksonville as possibilities in the decade before the city was picked as an expansion site in But if the Colts picked Jacksonville back in the early s, Indianapolis may have been that bargaining chip that eventually got a team via another relocation.
But the real curveball is that getting a team a decade earlier may be a terrible scenario for Jacksonville. When the shine of a new team wore off, the Jaguars went through the challenges of being a bad team in a small market without much tradition. But the buoy through the toughest times was a stellar stadium and its ironclad lease.
Louis, but the Chargers still end up begrudgingly leaving San Diego to join the Jaguars. March gave us the Indianapolis Colts and the dominoes fell favorably for Arizona, Jacksonville, and even Baltimore — which got a two-time Super Bowl winner in the Ravens.
All in all, most cities can be happy with the way things shook out when the Mayflower trucks shipped off for Indianapolis. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Businessmen make decisions to thrive.
Modell did the same thing when Cleveland wouldn't build him a new stadium. Then teams came back. It should be pointed out that Irsay's son, Jim, has been the epitome of class as the Indianapolis Colts owner.
Nobody I spoke to in Baltimore had a negative word to say about Jim. Many said they liked him and were happy for his success. Former Baltimore Colts linebacker Stan White reminded how Jim brought the old Baltimore Colts team back to Indy and generously gave them divisional championship rings, something Robert Irsay didn't do. Jim appreciates history and I've never heard him say a negative word about Baltimore.
He deserves the respect that many in Baltimore have for him. The one issue with history is that the Colts' name and records came to Indianapolis. Understand this, Colts fans, that was wrong. Indianapolis deserved a new name so it could have its own history.
Unitas, one of the game's greats, never played a down for Indianapolis. He was a Baltimore Colt. His accomplishments shouldn't be considered part of the Indianapolis history. Ask yourself about how many horse races you see in Indianapolis. Yeah, you don't. We care about the Indy , a very special and different kind of racing that put Indianapolis on the sports map as the "Motorsports Capital of the World. The NFL didn't make the same mistake twice with the Browns. The name and records stayed in Cleveland.
So at least somebody learned from the previous mistake in this mess. That would go a long way to putting this endless story to rest forever. But if not, we all move on anyway. And that's what I learned from this trip. Most Baltimore Colts fans had to move on because if not, that bitterness would eat them up and define them. If you live with bitterness in your soul for the rest of your days, what do you have?
It's one football game today between teams representing cities that will forever be linked by NFL history. But so many of the players weren't even born when the Colts left Baltimore. That's ancient history to them. The memories of the famed championship game that pitted the Colts against the Giants were gone too. That famed game that took place at Yankee Stadium has ultimately been considered to be one of the best football games of all-time.
With an Alan Ameche touchdown in the waning moments, the Colts won the game , and they would also repeat as champions the following season. The Jets were enormous underdogs entering the game, but they managed to win , in what is considered to be one of the biggest upsets in sports history.
Nevertheless, many people fail to realize that even though the Colts lost that game all those years ago, it was still a phenomenal team that just happened to be outplayed that day. That would become the first Super Bowl victory for the city of Baltimore. During the Colts' time in Baltimore, they had a phenomenal history. Despite a storied history, the last few seasons is probably what ultimately decided the fate of the franchise.
After a mediocre three-season stretch from to , the Colts turned things around in They won the division title with a record under a new head coach, Tim Marchibroda. Quarterback Bert Jones would go on to have a dominant campaign, as he threw for 18 touchdowns.
However, in , Jones got even better, as he threw for a career-high 24 touchdowns. He also achieved a passer rating of over , successfully becoming one of the only three quarterbacks in the s to obtain that goal. The Colts would win the division title in and , but it was back to mediocrity in From that season to the night they moved, the Colts never won more than seven games in a season.
Included in this stretch was an embarrassing season in and an awful campaign in the strike-shortened season. After their miserable campaign, the Colts held the No. They would go on to select highly-decorated Stanford quarterback John Elway, but he told the franchise that he would rather play baseball than play for their down-trodden team.
Elway wanted a trade and he eventually got it, as he was dealt to Denver. The rest, they say, is history. Elway's refusal to play for the Colts could have likely been the straw that broke the camel's back, at least for Robert Irsay. Elway was weary of playing for the Colts, who were the laughingstock of the NFL. The quarterback's blatent excuse that he didn't want to play for the franchise or head coach Frank Kush was unforgiveable from the view of Irsay.
The Colts would play the season in Baltimore, but that would be the last time the Colts would ever be considered Baltimore's team. With the Colts' sudden conjecture to move to Indianapolis, let's stop and think what would have happened if Robert Irsay didn't get fed up with the city. What would have happened for the franchise and the city of Baltimore? Hopefully, those answers will be answered relatively soon. As we all know, from to , Baltimore did not have a professional football franchise.
In , Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell decided to move his Browns franchise to Baltimore, where they would be renamed, the "Ravens".
The controversy that followed would abruptly end when the NFL and the city of Cleveland reached an agreement on Feb. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue then promised the city that they would receive another NFL team, either through expansion or relocation. Tagliabue even set a date for a possible team and that it would be "no later than ". Once the team was officially moved to Baltimore, the team immediately got off to a tremendous start, at least in the offseason.
With two first-round selections in their grasp, they were able to take offensive lineman Jonathan Ogden and linebacker Ray Lewis with those two picks. Ogden would go on to be the anchor of the Ravens' offensive line for many years in what is viewed as a Hall of Fame-caliber career. Lewis, on the other hand, is still suiting up for the Ravens every Sunday and is considered to be one of the most feared and dominant linebackers in NFL history. Once Lewis decides to call it quits, there will be a spot in Canton waiting for him.
Since the Ravens' inception in , there have been many great players that have donned a Ravens uniform. However, these players likely would have never played a down in purple-and-black if the Colts hadn't moved. If Irsay had decided to keep the Colts in Baltimore, there would have been no way that the NFL would have given the city a second team.
When Art Modell announced that he would be moving the team, that team would have likely ended up in a larger market like Los Angeles, even though they would have been without an NFL team for just two years at this point in time.
There's always the distinct possibility that Modell could have moved the Browns to Indianapolis, the city that the Colts moved to twelve years prior.
After all, Indianapolis had been pushing for an NFL team for many years and they would have likely gotten one. Additionally, you could have also never ruled out a city like Memphis, who had tried for many years to get a professional football franchise. The "City of Blues" did have a USFL team named the Memphis Showboats in and , but that league would fold at the conclusion of the season.
To this day, Memphis still remains without a football team. There's no doubt that some of those cities may be far-fetched and befuddling, but there's a great chance that a lot of people would have attended their games. After all, those cities have a substantial population. Also, Kansas City has had a franchise for many years and there are over cities in America that have a higher population.
Regardless, there would not have been another team in Baltimore. As of right now, there would just have been the Colts. You just never know what could have happened. But, I can take a page out of Joe Namath's book and guarantee that the Ravens would have never materialized if the Colts remained in Maryland.
If then-owner Robert Irsay decided to keep the team in Baltimore and endure criticism, paltry attendance ands laughs from the rest of the league, there may not have ever been a team in Indianapolis. The NFL expanded in with the additions of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Carolina Panthers , and aggrandized even more in with the accession of the Houston Texans.
There's a legitimate possibility that the NFL would have stuck with those plans and they would have never allowed Indianapolis to have a professional football team, leaving the state with just the NBA's Pacers. If that were the case, that would have left a gaping hole in Indiana. However, Irsay was able to move the team to Indianapolis, but the output wasn't much better. The Colts suffered many difficult years of mediocrity in their first 14 years in Indianapolis.
During that span, the Colts were exceedingly pedestrian, as they accumulated a record of This included zero ten-win seasons, one division crown in , three second-place division finishes, three playoff appearances, five seasons of four or less wins, seven different head coaches and a horrendous campaign in But then came , when the Colts franchise was finally rejuvenated.
The Colts finished with the league's worst record in , meaning they would hold the first overall selection in the NFL Draft. Clearly, they made the right choice in choosing the second-generation, highly touted quarterback from Tennessee.
0コメント