I guess our buddy Bob is sick of getting slammed by everyone in town. Barely a week after saying things like:
“Now, is Jim Caldwell the right guy? Simply stated, he has to be.
Because he’s owner Jim Irsay’s and team president Bill Polian’s choice and has been for months now. They committed to him last year and now it’s incumbent upon them to see it through.
At the same time, the Colts should understand turning to Caldwell will be a tough sell. He’s an unknown commodity and comes with the reputation of being Dungy Lite. Go ahead and dream of Bill Cowher or Mike Shanahan, but with the domineering Polian in charge, the Colts will never have a high-profile, independent-minded head coach.
Right now, angry, frustrated Colts fans want a spittle-spewing, butt-chewing SOB who will inspire this team to play as well in the playoffs as it does in the regular season — and I don’t blame them. They don’t want soft-spoken. They don’t want even-keel.”
Bob changes course radically with his “welcome to the big time Jim Caldwell” piece. This morning he writes:
“Caldwell is his own man and he will be his own man, and over time, he will put his signature on a team that should reach the playoffs as long as No. 18 remains healthy. But if Caldwell is a whole lot like Dungy, on and off the field, the more power to him.
No, he’s not a sexy choice (although the lovely Mrs. Caldwell, Cheryl, would certainly disagree). He’s not a Mike Shanahan or a Bill Cowher or a Marty Schottenheimer, not a choice who demands big, brassy headlines. But for the Indianapolis Colts, who said goodbye to a giant as coach Monday, Caldwell is the right choice at the right time.
And isn’t this the way the Colts do things? They grow their own. They hire from within. They keep it in the family. It’s hard to argue with the results. Next man up.“
Bob’s original piece on Dungy was sort of a cop-out as he blamed “Colts fans” for wanting Dungy gone, and replaced by the likes of Cowher (or maybe Pat Riley, I’m not really sure), but the tenor was unmistakable: it’s a mistake to hire Caldwell. Now, we certainly didn’t see any of those “angry Colts fans” around here, but most people stupid enough to dump Dungy are at least too smart to post here. If you think people raising questions about Edge James generated a strong response from us, you don’t want to imagine what we’d do to a Dungy hating Colts fan here.
I don’t know if it was the backlash he got, or the inspiring nature of the last couple of days that helped him see the light, but his tune has completely changed. His piece this morning was nice, and I’d give him props…if my memory didn’t happen to go back longer than a week.
I have to think that he now regrets his choice of words last week.
Links:
Outside the lines reports on the Harrison incident. They paint a lurid scene, but fail to mention that the Philly PD found spent casings in the car the man who was shot was driving. Pretty sloppy reporting. That fact pretty dramatically changes the scene.
Jim Caldwell speaks to Mike and Mike. Nice job by everyone involved
The Polian piece got a slight update. Nothing big, just adjusted the Colts record under his watch and for the 11 previous years. We will be updating the Lost Predictions in conjunction with the season premiere on Thursday, January 22nd.
Here’s a nice list of what happened after a great coach was replaced.
Thanks to our friend Christa for pointing out this story where Reggie Miller talks about Barack Obama.
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