But they all seem to be overlooking one significant factor – Bill Polian’s track record is generally one of building teams that are great in the regular season, then failing in the playoffs, or ultimately in the big game itself. Essentially he is to football exactly what the local media uses in Minnesota ridicule the Minnesota Twins – regular season success followed by postseason failure.

Additionally, though he has had success, he’s coming off of a tenure in Indianapolis where the team has been ultra-competitive, but has not cashed in to its utmost potential despite employing one of the best quarterbacks of all time. This has largely been due to Polian’s inability to complement a top-notch offense with a good defense, in part, due to his unwillingness to focus on and inability to consistently draft competent players – particularly in recent years.

The pundits are generally giving him credit for building three successful franchises:
•    Architecting the Buffalo Bills team that went to (and lost) four consecutive Super Bowls
•    Building from scratch a Carolina Panthers team that went to the NFC Championship game in their second season
•    Taking the perennial loser Indianapolis Colts to the promised land with their Super Bowl XLI win
I get it—lots of successful seasons, and seven Super Bowls. Nobody is denying that he has had some successes. But all that has netted one Super Bowl victory, and three franchises that were (or appear to be) absolutely decimated when Polian departed.

Let’s look at each of his stops a little bit more closely, with some help in particular from Polian’s Wikipedia page (which appears to have been written by his agent).

Polian was promoted to General Manager of the Bills after playing an “instrumental” role in the signing of first overall pick from 1985, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith.  Not drafting, but signing. And his involvement in that signing (as Director of Pro Personnel) was largely due to general manager Terry Bledsoe’s heart attack. Also drafted in 1985, before Polian was GM were quarterback Frank Reich and likely future Hall of Fame wide receiver Andre Reed.

In 1986, he was able to “convince” 1983 top pick Jim Kelly to join the team from the USFL – something that couldn’t have been particularly difficult to do since the USFL had folded and the Bills owned his rights. To his credit, Polian did also grab Kent Hull from the USFL, although 10 teams were interested in Hull, and he admitted that the only reason he picked the Bills was because their starting center had recently been seriously injured, according to the New York Times link.

He also added first round picks Ronnie Harmon (who joined the Bills as a role player after having a decent career with the Chargers) and Will Wolford, who had an okay run with the Bills (and perhaps not too coincidentally is now the Colts color analyst), along with 12 guys that even as a moderate Bills fan from their Super Bowl run, I’ve never heard of (all subsequent draft information for Buffalo can be found at databasefootball.com).

In 1987, this “skill as a GM was apparent” as he moved from third overall in the draft to eighth, also picking up the 36th pick overall, which was then traded to Tampa Bay in a deal for the 29th pick (then the first pick in Round 2). The eighth pick was used on Shane Conlan, the 29th on Nate Odomes. Those guys were components to the four-year Super Bowl run and Pro Bowlers (Conlan three times, Odomes twice).

But neither was an amazing talent (and Conlan was seemingly not worth the eighth pick – it was not a stellar draft class, but he was drafted one spot ahead of Jerome Brown, who was on his way to a Hall of Fame career before being tragically killed in a car crash, and two spots ahead of Rod Woodson, the only Hall of Famer in that draft to date). He also drafted a few other role players who contributed to the Super Bowl teams, such as Keith McKeller, Leon Seals and Jamie Mueller.

Also notable in 1987, he was involved in the Eric Dickerson trade, which sent RB Greg Bell (who had been a Pro Bowler in his rookie year in 1984, before getting hurt in 1986–and who would become the 1988 AP Comeback Player of the Year while rushing for 1,200 yards and leading the NFL with 18 total TDs, following it up with a league leading 15 rushing TDs in 1989), the Bills 1988 first round pick, and their 1989 first and second round picks to the Los Angeles Rams, to receive the rights to then unsigned third overall pick Cornelius Bennett.

Bennett, admittedly one of my favorite players of the era, was definitely a key component to the Super Bowl run, although again not having what I would consider a Hall of Fame career.  And one has to wonder what may have been done with those picks — although the Rams squandered them. With Polian’s track record, it is very possible that the Bills would not have found what they needed to actually win one of those Super Bowls, unless they used a high pick on a kicker to replace Scott Norwood.

In 1988, without a first round pick, he made what was probably the best draft pick of his career – definitely of his time in Buffalo – in selecting Thurman Thomas, who eventually made it to the Hall of Fame. After that, the most notable pick was 8th rounder Jeff Wright.

In 1989, he made one notable selection – 3rd rounder Don Beebe. His drafts from 1990, 1991 and 1992 featured several somewhat recognizable names from those Super Bowl teams, but no stars that helped them over the top. Polian was fired after the Bills lost the third of the four Super Bowls, despite being named NFL Executive of the Year in 1988 and 1991, not because he didn’t do a good job, but apparently because he didn’t get along with team treasurer Jeff Littman, according to the Polian Wikipedia profile.

The Bills did make it to (and lose) their fourth consecutive Super Bowl the year after Polian left, before turning into a mediocre team finished 7-9 in 1994, won a weak division in 1995 advancing to the divisional round of the playoffs (the last year they won a playoff game), and wildcard finishes in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

His time in Carolina from 1994 through 1997 requires much less analysis. After spending a year working in the league office for Paul Tagliabue (helping craft the league’s salary cap and free agency rules), the Panthers hired him in 1994 to prepare for their 1995 entry to the league. He “tried to create the quickest Super Bowl winner in history”–and did build a team that went 12-4 in its second year and made it to the NFC Championship game, after a 7-9 first season. In 1997, they fell back to 7-9, and Polian took a promotion with the Colts.

Often ignored by those dazzled by Polian’s brilliance – the Panthers were even worse in 1998, going 4-12. They turned around briefly in 1999 under first-year coach George Seifert, before continuing their slide, finally bottoming out in 2001 with a 1-15 record.

Also ignored – three more terrible drafts in Carolina, highlighted by the selection of Kerry Collins fifth overall in their inaugural draft, after trading down – a move that almost backfired (though in fairness, they did take second-rounder Mushin Muhammad in 1996).

Other draft highlights:
•    1995: Tyrone Poole, first round
•    1995: Blake Brockermeyer, first round
•    1996: Tim Biakabatuka, first round
•    1997: Rae Carruth, first round

Given that it’s 3:30am and I’ve just spent two-plus hours of my life analyzing Polian, I’m going to keep the Colts analysis shorter, but here are some highlights I pulled out from various Wikipedia pages, Pro-Football-Reference.com pages and the Colts draft history at databasefootball.com:

•    1998: Manages to make what turned out to be a no-brainer pick into a difficult decision by nearly taking Ryan Leaf over Peyton Manning. One could argue that had the Colts gone Leaf over Manning, both of their careers would have turned out differently–although I don’t think even Ryan Leaf believes that one. Rest of the draft pretty much sucks.

•    1998: Hires son Chris as Director of Player Personnel. Later promoted to Vice-President of Football Operations and general manager, then fired with Bill in 2012. Now apparently part of a package deal, as apparently the only way he’ll get a job at that level again? Purely speculation on my part.

•    1998: Replaced Lindy Infante as coach with Jim Mora. Not a terrible decision, but apparently Polian potentially wanted to hire Nick Saban.

•    1999: Trades Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk to St. Louis Rams for 2nd and 5th round picks–drafts Edgerrin James as replacement, surprising many by passing on Ricky Williams (and presumably passing on the chance to rake the New Orleans Saints over the coals for picks in the process?). Colts finish 13-3, but lose in the first round of the playoffs at home to the Tennessee Titans. Faulk leads the Rams to the Super Bowl title, becomes second player ever to surpass 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in the same season, and wins the NFL Offensive Player of the Year award. He would go on to win that award twice more, set a record for rushing TDs in a season, and win the NFL MVP in 2000. But hey, the Colts got Mike Peterson and Brad Scioli for him.

•    1999: Other than James, Peterson and Scioli (who was average at best), draft pretty much sucks.

•    2000: Draft highlighted by 2nd rounder Marcus Washington, a solid LB they couldn’t re-sign after 2003 season, at least in part due to cost of signing Peyton Manning—admittedly, a move almost any personnel person would have to make in today’s NFL salary cap era, although one also might wonder why an NFL executive as talented as Polian couldn’t convince Manning to take less to keep core defensive talent with the team. Manning has proven flexible in restructuring his deals, but not to the extent of Tom Brady.

•    2001: Fires Mora, apparently still wants to hire Saban. Forced to hire Tony Dungy by owner Jim Irsay.

•    2001: After acknowledging in firing Mora that the team needed defensive help, drafts Reggie Wayne in the first round. Wayne has been a great player, but the defense continues to suffer. Rest of the draft features starting offensive linemen Ryan Diem and Rick DeMulling, and mid-level (at best) defenders Idrees Bashir and Cory Bird. Forgive me for not bothering to look them up.

•    2002: Makes what I would argue might have been his best first-round pick ever, bucking conventional wisdom and selecting defensive end Dwight Freeney, considered by many to be too small to play that position in the NFL. Freeney has had a Hall of Fame caliber career. Rest of the draft? Typical Polian.

•    2003: Picks up Robert Mathis (5th round) and Cato June (6th round) in two of his best late round steals. Added another offensive weapon in the first round with TE Dallas Clark.  Rest of the draft…meh.

•    2003-2004: “convinced the competition committee and the leagues head of officiating Mike Pereira to issue a crackdown on illegal contact and defensive holding in the secondary, claiming that the Colts receivers had been roughed up illegally by the Patriots defensive backs without penalty during the [2003 AFC] Championship game [from Wikipedia]. So we have Polian to blame for today’s passing games, where refs throw excessive flags and wide receivers complain about being breathed on too harshly. OK, can’t blame him for some WRs being pansies.

•    2004: Adds defensive help in Bob Sanders, who was always a game changer. In games he played. The problem was there weren’t many.  Since playing 15 games in 2007, Sanders has been injured for all but 11 of 64 games. Another playoff loss to the Patriots.

•    2005: Possibly the best team they had, finishing 14-2, despite drafting Marlin Jackson in the first round. Jackson and, perhaps, fellow cornerback Kelvin Hayden, were perhaps the highlights of that draft.  Follow it up with a divisional round loss to the Steelers.

•    2006: Polian lets Edgerrin James leave, drafts Joseph Addai as a replacement (the only notable draft choice). Addai has a solid rookie year (and solid 2nd year) before starting to tail off due to injuries. James has comparable – arguably better – stats in his two years in Arizona, but the decision is lauded because…

•    2007 (2006 season): POLIAN FINALLY LEADS COLTS TO SUPER BOWL VICTORY.  Or maybe it was Peyton Manning that led them.  Or Tony Dungy. And we’ll just ignore that the Chicago Bears were possibly the worst (and luckiest) 13-3 team in NFL history that year, and that the NFC in general was just terrible. I mean, Rex Grossman led this team to 13-3, with a 54 percent completion rate and a 23-20 TD-INT ratio, yet they were the #1 seed in the NFC by a three-game margin. The fact that the Colts were only favored by seven still amazes me.

•    2007-2011: Continued failure at drafting, continued failure at preparing for the end of the Manning era, culminating in the 2-14 record for 2011 when Manning finally missed time due to injury, and ultimately what led to the Polian’s being fired, and me spending three hours of my night researching this crap, hopefully convincing some local fans (in Minnesota–not so much Chicago or other cities) to not root for this guy to get hired.

Is this a complete picture? Obviously not.  I largely ignored the role of free agency in the building of the Panthers and the Colts – but it’s safe to say, Polian largely screwed that up too, in my opinion, signing too many veterans with his “win now to get me a new job” mindset in Carolina (and then let impact guys like Kevin Greene go elsewhere, when they still had productive years left), and has spent most of his tenure in Indianapolis finding ways to pay Peyton Manning so much money that he continually has failed to add supporting cast around him, while other quarterbacks (most notably Colts nemesis Tom Brady) has taken less than market value to ensure the long-term viability of the franchise.

Also, by many accounts, the Polians have a terrible reputation amongst fans, media and coaching circles, and son Chris Polian garnered much of the blame for the toxic situation apparently created during this 2011 season.

The bottom line is this: Bill Polian has had a lot of success as a personnel man in the NFL. But that has been accompanied by a lot of baggage in terms of failed drafts and controversy. Especially in recent years, his drafts and other personnel moves have left a Colts team operated by one of the league’s all-time great quarterbacks short of being able to field a complete team, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. While his successes cannot be ignored, the signs that he may be a former personnel superstar whose best days are behind him should not be left uninvestigated either.

Any team looking at Polian as the potential savior to their franchise—and any fan base clamoring for their team to do so—would do well to take note of the entire package before handing over the reins, and make sure they feel that the long potential long-term consequences are worth the short possible headaches.

However, I came across a post today that is the best I have read at putting forth the players’ perspective.

I don’t agree with every point TJ “The Dude” Johnson makes. But it’s a well-written, well-researched look at the reasons the players have taken the strategy they have used.

In fact, if they hired this guy to make their case with the public they’d probably be better off. If you have a few minutes, check it out. I thought it was a pretty good read.

I was already irritated that a bunch of rich guys couldn’t come to an agreement with a bunch of richer guys on how to split a plenty big pot o’ cash. But then I started reading.

Some players, in between hollow apologies to fans or tweets of disbelief wondering why fans are irritated with them instead of or in addition to being upset with the owners, are posting “jokes” like Alex Brown (alexbrown96) did Sunday afternoon: So since I am unemployed and have a pregnant wife and 2 other kids can I go get WIC?

I find it hard to locate the humor in that statement from a player who, according to the USA Today’s database, Brown has made no less than $16 million in salaries and signing bonuses during his time in the NFL.

Sure. It was a joke. But for one of the eight-figure players to be making jokes about joining a program aimed at making sure low-income mothers can feed their babies and young children healthy food … Brown did nothing with that line to change the perception that players are out of touch.

Then you have owners like Jim Irsay (jimirsay) illustrating that being rich and being smart can be mutually exclusive.

6:06 PM March 11: I am shocked that the union has walked away from mediation n collective bargaining after the 16 – 4 format they wanted was offered today. WOW

Yeah, the results were so unpredictable. And anyone with half a mind didn’t realize that clearly wasn’t the issue that was going to end the standoff.

6:18 PM March 11: I guess D Smith wants to one up my old friend Gene Upshaw

Yep, invoke the name of the dead former union president who was often criticized, right or wrong, for being too close to the owners. DeMaurice Smith may be arrogant, he may be a jerk, I have no idea. But just because he doesn’t see things the same way Irsay does, he’s trying to one up Upshaw? This is a stretch of mythic proportions.

6:31 PM March 11: And come on, any NFL fan or Media peep agree, this “SHAM” decertification thing that ends negotiating is BS, even hockey union didn’t do that!

So in the span of 25 minutes Irsay expressed utter shock that the union didn’t immediately knuckle under at keeping a 16 game schedule when the main issue is the owners wanting another $1 billion off the top, he invoked the dead former union head and he mocked the union strategy.

Guess what – plenty of sham to go around in the NFL’s arguments and in the statements released by the official spokespeople for both the union and the league in the moments following the negotiations falling apart Friday evening. Particularly sham-ful have been statements both sides have made about how bad they feel for the fans in the wake of the negotiations falling apart.

Make no mistake – the players and the owners don’t give a royal flying crap about the fans right now. No matter what Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen might write in a letter to his team’s fans or whatever Drew Brees might tweet about how the players are telling the truth and the owners are trying to kill the goose with the golden egg, the bottom line is this: The owners want to get back some of their $9 billion a year. And the players want to make sure the owners get as little of the pie as possible. It’s as simple as that.

Anything else either side says is nothing more than trying to win the game of public opinion.

The bottom line for fans, in my opinion, is this: There’s $9 billion a year to spread around. $9-frickin-billion. Figure out how to get it done.

Denny Mezzapesa (@DennyMezzapesa) pretty much summed up my opinion and I think he said it as well or better than I ever could. His Monday, March 14 tweet at 14:17:

“@BobPapa_NFL @AdamSchein – Can someone Send a Memo to the NFL and NFLPA to SHUT UP. Sorry we cant share 9 billion is all they should say.”

So true.

I don’t remember who was playing during that game. It might have been Detroit and Tampa Bay or some other out-of-market game I had on after watching the Vikings complete their game for the day.

With Nike taking over NFL uniforms sometime during the next couple seasons, there is a good chance any time she sits down with me to watch a game (a rare occurrence) that she’ll be saying the same thing more emphatically.

I found out recently that Nike was to soon take over the production of NFL jerseys from a post on the website for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, which indicated that the company planned to “dramatically” change the Vikings’ jerseys – and likely those of the other NFL teams.

This scared me a bit because Nike is responsible for the yellow/green/checkerboard hideous things resembling jerseys that the Oregon Ducks wear for their NCAA games. The different combinations could not possibly be more disgusting, ranging in ridiculousness from banana yellow to something (I think) slightly darker than baby poop green, some of which have checkerboard designs on the shoulder pads and knees. I think the Ducks are the best team in college football this season. I think their uniforms are the worst college football has seen since I’ve been watching football.

Well, something called BusinessInsider.com has published potential uniforms for each of the NFL’s 32 teams. Reportedly they are fake, according to sports business reporting guru Darren Rovell’s twitter status.

But they looked about like I expected the Nike team designs to look. And if this is what Nike proposes for the majority of the NFL teams, the league needs to run as fast as humanly possible in the opposite direction. A couple of teams’ jerseys would stay roughly how they look now. Seattle’s drab-on-drab gray and dark blue wouldn’t change much and Detroit would look roughly as they do now.

On the other hand, Cincinnati would look like some poor diarrhea-stricken fool on an acid trip took a crap and then vomited on a helmet that no longer has any resemblance to that of a Bengal tiger. Furthermore, I count at least three colors on a pair of pants that looks just short of obscene — can we at least keep the pants to one color? Almost every team in the league looks ridiculous based on the gross designs that showed up on this site.

Pittsburgh, a blue collar city perfect for the black jerseys and minimalist logo-on-one-side-of-the-helmet logo the team has sported for years, would switch to some kind of gross flourescent yellow helmet with the logo on the front of the jersey.

Jacksonville’s relatively recognizable Jaguar logo would become some outline of something that looks more like a cloud than a large cat. Kansas City and San Francisco look to have switched colors.

And the Vikings, who have always sported purple helmets with a white horn in some way, shape or form since the day I grew up, suddenly resemble Cretin-Derham Hall High School, a private, metropolitan high school in the area that has helmets only slightly more yellow than this site projects the modern Vikes will have.

Among the oddest looking designs was that of the New England Patriots, who, yes, would actually be sporting the stripes of the American flag on their shoulders and the stars above their left hips.And then the Kansas City Chiefs, who would sport at least a second uniform with a bunch of feathers on their shoulders. Are they going to fly away if games start going badly?

Please. These prototypes are hideous. I am not the only person in fear of what NFL teams could look like in the next couple years. If Nike goes to the hilt, as rumors say they want to, they will turn the NFL into a joke.

Please, NFL, please stop this from happening. Not all of today’s uniforms are great. There are some duds. But these examples of potential new ones — yes, I acknowledge they have been called fakes, but I believe there is some truth to rumors that Nike is floating them to see what fans would think — are absolutely an abomination. This is not college football. More importantly, this is not Arena football. Or the developmental league that used to play in Europe.

This is NFL football. It’s not about designing ridiculous uniforms that have to stand out by themselves. It’s about the game. Leave the uniforms as they are. Tweaks? Maybe. But if the choice is not changing at all or forcing teams to don duds that make them look as though the pregame meal caused them to mess themselves on the bus to the stadium, I hope you know the right choice to make.

I don’t have a lot of faith that you do, given the ridiculous state of fines for uniform violations or the failed efforts to arrive at a collective bargaining agreement that satisfies billionaire owners and millionaire players while the folks making $40,000-a-year or less struggle to find a way to pay for their season tickets.

But I hope that you do. And if you do, you’ll grab someone at Nike by the lapels, whether these designs are real or not, shake them hard and say “if our teams end up looking like the assclowns in these drawings, this will be the shortest contract in league history.”

I shudder to think what this league is going to look like if you don’t come to this realization. I’m dizzy just looking at the possibilities.

For more than a year now the rhetoric going back and forth has led me to believe that neither side is all that interested in meeting in the middle to get a deal done.

I don’t really have a side in this fight. There’s plenty of damn money to go around. Figure out how to slice the pie and make sure there is a season in 2011. That’s the only thing I care about.

I found it more than a little ridiculous that the NFLPA took the time to get into a snit with three fans over the twitter handle @NFLLockout. The union attempted to negotiate with the three fans, who, according to Darren Rovell’s story here attached, had used the account to post updates on labor negotiations and occasionally tweak people involved with the league who make ridiculous statements, such as when Anquan Boldin allegedly said players aren’t really as rich as they seem because they have to pay taxes.

That brilliant one-liner, again uttered during a time when the country’s unemployment rate is as high as it’s been in years, reminded me a lot of the old Patrick Ewing line from the NBA lockout a few years back about how yes, players make a lot of money but they spend a lot too.  Thank you, Mr. Einstein.

Anyway, when negotiations broke down, the NFLPA allegedly just went to twitter officials and told them they wanted the handle. AND TWITTER FRIGGIN’ GAVE IT TO THE UNION?!?!?!?!?!?

This story is ridiculous in so many ways. But the saddest thing to me is that it seems the NFLPA is more interested in having a twitter account where they can spread more anti-league blather … and without a doubt over the next several months we’ll hear the league doing plenty of the same thing.

All the while losing time that could be spent coming to a labor agreement instead. I know, I know. Labor negotiations always go down to the last minute, blah, blah. That doesn’t have to be an iron-clad rule. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the union or the league see it that way.

I’m disappointed I didn’t know about the three fans and their twitter page earlier. I’m now a follower of both the NFLPA’s bully site and the the site the fans were given as a replacement. I’m disappointed that the Twitter folks folded like a cheap suit to placate the NFLPA bullies in this case. And I remain disgusted by the lack of any real progress toward a solution to the real problem, which is not who owns a damn twitter handle, but is instead ensuring that there is football in September 2011.

NFLPA: Epic, epic fail in this case.

I started reading it because of Van Note. I can’t completely explain why but he’s one of my favorite players from the early 1980s when I started watching the game. And the profile was very interesting. It was written as his career wound down. He had lost his starting job at center but was sticking around for a final season or two for no other reason than he really loved the game.

If Wikipedia (and my math) is correct, Van Note is 64 now. He played in the NFL from 1969 to 1986, all of which was with the Atlanta Falcons. When he retired, only Jim Marshall of the Vikings had played in more games with one team (246).

He played mostly for teams that weren’t very good, though he was a solid contributor on the Atlanta teams in 1978, that made and won the team’s first playoff games, and in 1980, that won the NFC West and had arguably the league’s best team before falling victim to a Dallas Cowboys comeback in the the playoffs.

He made five Pro Bowls and strikes me as one of those guys who will not make the Hall of Fame but who will more than occasionally be brought up for consideration.

I was very young and just learning about the game back then but everything I remember and everything I read indicate that he was, at worst, a very solid, workmanlike player and, at best, during his prime, memorably good.

One of the things that struck me about the profile was that he broke the picket lines during a 1974 labor issue only to decide later that he made a mistake. He became a vice president to the NFL Players Association and then the union’s president from 1983 to 1984.

One of the issues of the time was rookie salaries. “We’ve got to stop paying all this money to rookies,” he told Sports Illustrated’s Ralph Wiley at the time. “Salaries are fine, but earn them. What do rookies know about winning in the NFL? Tilt the scales to the proven veteran.”

As top picks like JaMarcus Russell, Tim Couch, David Carr and Ryan Leaf continue to sign massive contracts and fizzle out after a few years, that continues to be one of the main issues in today’s labor discussions as well. Of course it wasn’t a billion dollar institution at the time Van Note played, but it’s still instructive – the league has been fighting about some issues for as long as 25 to 30 years and still hasn’t figured out how to get it right.

Van Note may never make the Hall of Fame. But it was blue collar guys like him who came unheralded from the University of Kentucky to play for just short of two full decades who helped turn this league into what it is today.

His voice was instructive in 1986 when this profile was written. And it strikes me that if you got a half-dozen or so of his contemporaries into a room in an effort to solve the labor issues of today that you might have more success than the league and the union are having with some of the out of touch owners and players of today.

Low construction costs and the short-term remaining on the team’s lease have lawmakers planning to introduce some options for taking care of the team. The press conference announcing several options comes just weeks after the Minnesota Twins opened Target Field to great acclaim.

There are plenty of obstacles to overcome before a Vikings deal becomes reality. But the team is getting more attention at the Capitol this year, despite huge budget deficits now and projected into the future, than it has in four years.

The Colts were 14-0 at the time, and the Jets scored 19 unanswered points to win the game, including a backup QB Curtis Painter fumble that was returned for a touchdown.

One of the options likely to be considered would be awarding teams that play their starters draft choices.

Personally, I think I’ve got a better idea–how about you get the labor negotiations solved, and make sure to preserve some of the ideas that have kept the league competitive (revenue sharing & salary cap) in place, so that the likelihood that teams will have the opportunity to rest players in 2-3 games remains on the low end?

Realistically, I would think that rewarding teams for playing their “starters” seems more likely to cause problems–I’m guessing that some teams would find some loopholes, and manage to get some backups declared as starters so they could rest their stars and get the extra picks too.

Additionally, unless the picks were earlier picks–probably 2nd or 3rd round selections–I really wonder if teams would consider it worth the extra risk.

Another alternative, raised by a friend of ours over drinks this evening, would be to reward teams not with extra picks, but possibly with moving them up in draft position–and not just for playing starters, but for actually winning–by coming up with a point system for determining draft order rather than pure record, and figuring out some way to reward teams with extra points when they win games that they don’t need to win late in the season.

(Admittedly the details we have on this idea are slim, but I’m guessing that the league has some PhDs in an office somewhere that could fine tune things).

That way, at least teams are being rewarded for performance rather than just participating–and it wouldn’t add picks to the draft–which the NFLPA should and probably would be against in the first place, since it would reduce the amount of the rookie pool available for players, possibly cost more veterans spots, and reduce the number of guys that could negotiate where they go if not drafted late.

Anyone have any other thoughts on how the league could encourage teams to compete in late season games, without making a mockery of the game?

The Jets came back to win 29-15, and Caldwell and the Colts have been taking heat ever since, including a Yahoo! Sports reporter ridiculously calling it a bigger mistake than Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind rather than the ball to start overtime.

But none of the criticism appears to be more ridiculous than that of SerVaas, who has said he will petition the council to ask for refunds for all fans upset about the loss (he hasn’t found anyone on the council to sponsor his proposal).

“They came to see a game played honestly. It was not played honestly, ” he said.

Umm, you may not like it–some fans may not like it–even some sports reporters may not like it–but it most certainly was played honestly.  While Curtis Painter is definitely not Peyton Manning–hell, I didn’t even realize he was the Colts’ backup–he is an NFL player, with an NFL contract, that goes to NFL practices every day, meaning he was out there playing honestly, doing his best to win the game (even if his best isn’t very good).

Would you ask for a refund if Manning got hurt, forcing Painter into a game?

Should Vikings fans get a refund for games earlier in the season when Tarvaris Jackson replaced Brett Favre in several lopsided wins earlier this season?  Surely some fans would have liked to see the scores run up even more.

Do baseball fans get refunds when they find out that Joe Mauer or Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols aren’t playing?

Do basketball fans get a refund when LeBron James comes off the court for a breather?  Maybe Pittsburgh Penguin fans should get a pro-rated refund for every minute that Sid Crosby isn’t on the ice?

Peter King even addressed it in his weekly column:

Tweet of the Week

“How would we look at a team that threw away a game to get a higher draft pick? How is that dif than the Colts game today?”
– alvaradoangel, Angel Alvarado, late in the Colts’ 29-15 loss to the Jets, ruining Indy’s chance for a perfect season.

Good question, Angel. Very good question.

No, it isn’t a very good question–there’s a big difference between tanking entire portions of a season to get a better draft pick (common in the NBA, very rare in the NFL in my opinion) and resting (and protecting from injury) several star players for the last third of a game as you prepare for a run at the Super Bowl–the much bigger objective for the Colts season.

Does it suck for the fans not to get to see Peyton Manning for the whole game?

Sure.

Would those fans trade missing him for the last part of a game and losing to the Jets for a Super Bowl victory?

I’m guessing most would–even if there’s no guarantee that resting him means winning the Super Bowl, nor that he would have gotten hurt playing the last quarter of the game (just like there’s no guarantee that they would have beaten the Jets if he had stayed in).

Just a thought, but maybe SerVaas should stick to politics–heck, unless I’ve missed an update, the city has even bigger fish to fry even with the Colts–maybe SerVaas can come up with a way for the Capital Improvement Board to actually afford to run Lucas Oil Stadium for the Colts’ 2010 season.

The NFL is no stranger to Sharpton, who has been critical of hiring practices for coaches, assistant coaches and general managers in the past.

Now, Sharpton is targeting another level of the NFL–ownership. And he isn’t just claiming racism–he’s declaring that a potential owner is…”Anti-NFL?”

News broke last week that Rush Limbaugh was part of an ownership group that is attempting to purchase the St. Louis Rams.  There’s no word yet on what percentage of the team Limbaugh would own, or what type of role he would play in day to day business, although one would suspect his role would be minor, since he’s got to grace us all with his golden pipes for 3 hours a day.

However, a few years back, while doing a stint with the geniuses over at ESPN, Limbaugh made an accusation that had racial overtones, claiming that Donovan McNabb was overrated, due to the media (and league’s) hope that a black quarterback succeed in the NFL:

“Sorry to say this, I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go,” Limbaugh said. “I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

For presumably this reason, Sharpton sent the NFL a letter asking Commissioner Roger Goodell to not even consider Limbaugh’s bid, as Sharpton claims that “Limbaugh has been “anti-NFL” in his comments about several of the league’s players, specifically naming Philadelphia Eagles quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick.”

So now Sharpton knows better than the commissioner, the other owners, the players and the fans of the NFL what is “Pro-NFL” and what is “Anti-NFL.”  Never mind that one owner is making claims that the salary cap and revenue sharing (generally considered “Pro-NFL” by most people I know) will be going away, and another owner (who happens to have a long history of suing the league) has made so many questionable moves in the last 2+ seasons that the NFL should strongly consider intervening on his behalf.

Not that I’m pro-Limbaugh getting an ownership stake, mind you–I just think that if they dig hard enough, they’ll find other, legitimate reasons to possibly weed him out.  And if not, well then so be it–if they want to give him a seat at the table, that’s their prerogative.

Sharpton should really go back to…whatever it is that he does outside of try to incite racial riots, and leave NFL business decisions to those who are actually in charge of the NFL.  They have plenty of experience(and potential for) screwing things up on their own, without his help.