Monthly Archives: October 2011

Bill Polian, Indianapolis Colts, Jim Caldwell, Peyton Manning

Breaking Bad

The Indianapolis Colts are going to fire Jim Caldwell at the end of the season, right?
They have to, don’t they?
Rhetorical questions aside, I’m not sure how they can’t fire him. Although as of right now, Colts team president Bill Polian doesn’t seem to think it’s Caldwell’s fault the Colts are 0-7.
“How you evaluate [Caldwell] is what you do with what he has,” Polian said. “You can’t hold him responsible for injuries. You can’t hold him responsible for an unforeseen surgery [to Peyton Manning] that no one anticipated would happen. The things that he can control, I think he’s done a terrific job of, given where we are from a standpoint of personnel.”
There are a million and one ways to rip that comment to shreds, but we’ll just start here: Caldwell’s done a terrific job? Is Polian watching the games? Coming off a 62-7 loss to the New Orleans Saints? That was a terrific job? If it is, how is bad game planning and a porous defense described? Stupendous?
These aren’t the Detroit Lions that went 0-16 a few years ago – the Colts are just two short seasons removed from a Super Bowl and have made the playoffs for a decade. They can’t be this bad without Manning, can they?
Peyton Manning is invaluable, to be sure. He’s worth many more wins than any replacement player, obviously. But the New England Patriots lost Tom Brady in 2008 for the season in the opening game and still went 11-5. Was his backup better than Manning’s? Turns out, Matt Cassel was better. But we didn’t know that at the time – Cassel had not started a game since high school.
Maybe all this does prove Manning is better than Brady and that even in a season where Manning missed the entire year, he’s still league MVP. We can argue about that at another time.
But maybe the Patriots “system” and head coach are vastly superior. Maybe the Colts problem isn’t injuries to front line, but the incompetence of the front office and coaching staff.
The Colts have the worst defense in the NFL. That’s not a statement or a claim – it’s a fact. They have allowed the most points in the NFL. Does Peyton Manning affect the defense? In some ways, perhaps he does – it was always a defense built upon the notion of playing ahead and rushing the passer. But even with that, did Manning affect the defensive side of the ball that much? Can the defense be this bad?
Call me crazy, but I think it’s perfectly acceptable hold the head coach responsible for the complete failure of the entire team to win a game against a schedule that’s included Cincinnati, Kansas City, Cleveland and an underachieving Tampa Bay team through the first seven weeks.
Some, including me, think that you can hold a coach responsible for lackluster effort and poor game planning. Some nut jobs out there think you can hold a coach responsible for mismanaging his timeouts (last year’s playoff game against the Jets, anyone?). What did Caldwell have on Tony Dungy and Polian anyway to secure the job a year before Dungy retired?
Much like his stoic demeanor and his blank expression in any situation – he’s very Art Shell-ish that way – Caldwell’s resume includes a head coaching stint at Wake Forest where he went 26-63 in eight seasons. The highlight of his tenure with the Deamon Deacons was a 7-5 record and a trip to the prestigious Aloha Bowl in 1999. It was also his only season with a winning record. And for those that may not know, the ACC was pretty weak in the 1990s. Those are the makings of an elite NFL head coach? That and a stint coaching the quarterbacks for Tampa Bay under Dungy?
One would imagine that after Manning’s injury, Polian and owner Jim Irsay would have talked to Caldwell about expectations.
“Look, Jim, we know it’s going to be awfully tough without Peyton this season. As you might expect, reasonable outcomes of the season have been altered. We’re not expecting a Super Bowl or even the playoffs. We’d be thrilled with a winning record, but it’s not like we’d fire you for a losing record. However, just to be clear, you know you have to win a couple games, right? I mean, we can’t rightfully face the fans and media come January and tell them we’re keeping you after a 2-14, 1-15 or 0-16 season, without or without Manning. I mean, Jim, we can’t keep you if don’t squeeze out a few wins.”
But apparently, that didn’t happen.
It’s obvious the Colts have been held together by Peyton’s abilities over the past decade and little else. Reggie Wayne isn’t elite. If he were, he wouldn’t have completely disappeared. Apparently, Austin Collie won’t even be in the league if it weren’t for Manning. Dallas Clark was once among the best tight ends in the league and some sort of hybrid slot receiver-slash-tight end. Now he has stone hand. Freeney and Mathis apparently are only good in a certain defensive scheme where they can pin their ears back and take some risks after Manning’s given them a 21-10 lead.
The other night, during the Sunday Night Football telecast, Dungy defended Caldwell. Of course he did. Caldwell is a Dungy man. But perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps Dungy realized what the rest of us are just coming to realize: that without Peyton Manning, the Colts would have been a dumpster fire the past 12 seasons.
So he has to protect Caldwell because doing so masks the fact that he also benefited from being the head coach of the team Manning played for. Without Manning, Dungy doesn’t win a Super Bowl and his faith and leadership abilities aren’t quite as lauded. His books aren’t best sellers without Peyton Manning.
Dungy is a good man, without question. I’m sure Jim Caldwell is a good man, too. But that’s not the point. The question is, were and are they good coaches without Peyton Manning under center and shredding defenses?
I’ve been highly critical of the Colts for not winning more Super Bowls with Manning. I’ve said they are akin to 1990s Atlanta Braves. But that’s not really accurate. Manning masked the fact that the Colts shouldn’t have been in position to win one title, let alone contend for a decade.
Look, someone has to be the fall guy if this continues and the Colts finish with less than four wins. It’s the way things work.
For example, if Apple sales drop to record lows not seen in over a decade and people revolt on the product, the company can’t just say it’s because they lost Steve Jobs. They can’t afford to just sit on their hands.
It’s the same with Indianapolis. The Colts can’t afford to do it. The fan base, as I predicted, is already cracking.
I’ve eavesdropped on many conversations – at my son’s football practices and games, at work, at the grocery store, at restaurants – and heard the same thing: fans are turning off games. And to my surprise, it’s not all because No. 18 isn’t on the field, it’s because of what else isn’t on the field – effort, desire, heart, and some semblance of football talent.
People are fed up. After seven weeks of the season, they’ve moved on from Manning’s injury for the time being and just want to support the team and see it compete. They too, have little expectations of a Super Bowl or a playoff run. But what they see is a team using Manning as an excuse, not in their words, but on the field. They see a team that embarrassed a city on national television and got beat 62-7 – giving up three touchdowns after the Saints pulled most of their star skill players and stopped throwing the ball.
Someone has to pay. Those are the rules.
And if it isn’t Jim Caldwell, then maybe it should be Bill Polian.
Because maybe you can’t anticipate injuries, but you kind of have to plan for them. It’s the NFL. Injuries happen to every team, every year. This one happened to be a big one, to the Franchise (large “F”). And Manning, clearly after all this, is the entire Franchise.
So perhaps the guy who put the franchise (small “f”) together for the last decade is the fall guy. Perhaps the guy who, by all accounts, has whiffed in the draft and free agent market for the past four years should take some responsibility. He’s been duct-taping the franchise around Manning for several years in an effort to save money, no doubt. Well, now the waiter has brought to check to the table.
And someone has to pay the price.
Because someone always has to take the blame for something this bad. 
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Five for Fighting, The Meaning of Life

The Meaning

Typically, I write about sports and only sports. But I just can’t let this go without sharing it. Driving to work today, I heard the song “100 Years” by Five for Fighting. And it got me thinking, which is always dangerous, what is the meaning of life. I’ve been five for a moment, 18 for a moment, 23 for a moment and now 31 for what feels like an even briefer moment. But how does it all connect to construe a meaning?
And you’re thinking sarcastically, simple question right?
It’s a question that often times goes beyond any religion and one that has made men from Plato to Nietzsche devote much of their lives to finding the answer.
Not that I’m about to do that, but I’ve recently realized that I’ve spent way too much time being an introspective individual, consumed with finding answers and figuring things out in terms of how they relate to me. I obsess over stats and information. I have to know.
I record Jeopardy! and watch it almost nightly with my wife. It’s a win-win for my personality, which is obsessed with knowing about, well, everything. If I know an answer, it proves to me that knowledgeable. If I don’t know the answer, then I figure I’m learning what the answer is.
My obsession with knowing probably speaks to why I majored in History, why I am obsessed with sports, records and stats, why I consider Disney World a Modern Marvel and why I think Dr. Seuss was brilliant in making the big stuff seem so simple to understand.
I have a scary memory, in the sense that I can vividly recall moments in my life with great precision.
I can remember waiting for the Dumbo ride with my dad in Disney World as a 3-year-old. To me, it was great. In reality, it was 150 minutes of insufferable Florida humidity for my dad, who’s only hope was to probably get a 10-second smile from his only child.
As a five-year-old, I can remember believing that Indiana was the greatest place in the world. At 18, I thought it was the worst. But when I was little, we lived on three acres in the country and I would sprint from the back deck of our house to the woods at the back of the property. I remember setting off fireworks on Independence Day from this water well that stuck out of the ground. I remember the white and blue metal swing set and the sandbox that set off to its right. I remember my room, the open windows and the summer breeze and the cloth green covered toy box in my closet.
I remember going out on Halloween with my parents best friends, Steve and Pam, and their boys, Jonathon and Jeremy, who for a long time were like siblings to me. Once, Jonathon swallowed too much fake blood through his Werewolf mask and we had to cut the night short. I didn’t care, I was hanging out with older boys that I looked up to and thought my Voltron costume was cool.
We took trips to Florida (again, Disney World) with that same family many times in my early life. I remember riding in the back of the gold and tan van my parents owned, as my dad and Steve traded driving shifts with their 80s man perms. I remember how Jeremy and Jonathon would try to get me to pick which one of them was my favorite, all as Alabama’s “40 Hour Week” played on the radio as we drove through Tennessee and Georgia. I remember that making me feel very important. And I certainly remember everyone groaning when I had to go to the bathroom again while we were driving.
I ended up going in a empty Pepsi can most of the time or else we still might be on the road.
I remember where we stayed on those trips and I remember buying a set of squeaky toys from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for my brother who never came due to a miscarriage. And I can remember finding the box with the toy in my parents closet years later as I was searching for a pair of my dads shoes. Even in a painful memory, I remembered upon finding it the joy of picking out that gift with my mom.
Why would I remember all of that? Some of it is significant and some of it isn’t, right?
I’m starting to believe all of it is.
My parents were and are wonderful people and I love them dearly. My dad would take me wood chopping in the fall, and we planted these pine trees on that three-acre ground that were watered nearly every night after dinner in the spring, summer and fall. I would ride around on the water tank and turn it on and off at each tree while my dad drove his orange and navy blue Kabota tractor. He coached me in every sport and never missed a game in my sports life from age 6-18.
My mom let my imagination run wild, with toys scattered everywhere. It’s the kind of thing you do with an only child – you let them leave their toys just where they are, for days on end, because they are telling a story to themselves through play. She always made my favorite foods and let me put mustard on everything – which became a running joke with Steve, Pam, Jonathon and Jeremy. Though they protested at the noise at times, I played Nerf basketball at all hours.
What does that tell me? I have no idea.
But I remember.
I not only remember, but am deeply intrigued with significance of these events in my life. What do they tell me about the Meaning of Life?
Perhaps it’s not quite so complicated. As the great Dr. Seuss once said, sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
At 18, I went off to college thinking I was going to conquer the world, as most probably do. But within three weeks, I was back home, licking my wounds and feeling like I lost my identity without sports. I remember feeling lost, lonely and devastated. Slowly, I discovered who I was over the course of about five years without even knowing it.
I got into a music phase and listened to the Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Bob Seger and so many others because I remembered hearing them play on old records when I was little. I grew out my hair. I cut if off. I nearly went to college in Florida.
I met a family of boys who were sports and movie junkies and they became as close to brothers as I might ever get. We’ve shared so many meaningless meaningful memories – yes, a tongue twister that adequately describes what happens when you drive to Wal-Mart at 3:00am to buy a fake wrestling belt in order to prove who was the best trampoline wrestler – that I’ll share those bonds for life. Weddings, babies, fantasy football drafts, a trip to Fenway Park. Two of them are godfathers to my children. We got poison ivy from rope swinging in to ponds. I can recall falling asleep to movies like Rambo at 2:00am, which is difficult to do, falling asleep to machine gun fire on a TV. This past Independence Day, we nearly blew ourselves up setting off fireworks next to a gas tank. (Yeah, we’re idiots.)
But it has to mean something that I remember all that, right?
After years of struggling with what my purpose and the meaning of life was, I nearly had a breakdown when I was 23. I remember praying to God one night, alone in my apartment, that whatever was keeping me from meeting my future, I would give everything away to feel complete. I’m not that much of a crier, but that night in the middle of the summer, with the moon shining through my bedroom window, I balled for an hour. I’d never felt more alone.
The next morning, I decided that I’d just stop thinking about it. Whatever life brought was what God wanted. I couldn’t make anything happen – as had been proven through time, as it seemed as though all my plans failed.
About three weeks later, I changed my major to History. Instead of doing what I thought I was supposed to do and worrying that it would take me another year to graduate college, I did what felt natural and what I liked. I had some literature handed to me on my way into campus one day about the Peace Corps. I never told a single person, but I applied and wanted to go. My first class of the semester, a few weeks later, I walked in excited about reading and writing for 16 straight weeks and thinking about my potential for finally making a difference by joining the Peace Corps.
A beautiful blonde entered the room and sat down in the next row. All I know is that I will never forget the feeling I got when she walked in. For two months, I sat behind her and flirted/pestered her. I’ll never forget talking to her until 2:00am on the phone for weeks on end, with CMT as our soundtrack. I’ll never forget meeting her 18-month-old son and feeling…complete. I’d never felt more whole. I never went to the Peace Corps and threw the application away.
I won’t forget feeling heartsick and lonely on a cruise ship on a family vacation after the girl and I been dating for a couple months. I felt bad being 23 years old and moping around in front of my parents on a vacation that they’d wanted to take with me for years, but every time I looked at the Caribbean Ocean, I saw her eyes. I must have spent $100 that week to use the ship’s computers in order to e-mail her from Grand Cayman and Cancun and all the water in between.
When I finally saw her real eyes at the airport upon our return, it was all over for me. Within weeks, we were talking about getting married. I’m certain people thought we were crazy.
And we were. We still are.
She was and is my soul mate. And she has been my wife for six years.
She is my best friend and understands me like no one else and we share little moments that mean something, though I can’t pinpoint what that something is. The other night, we stayed up watching “The Horror of Dracula,” a late 1950s horror movie. I loved it. She probably loved it because I did. It was amazing because we were watching this old movie together, creating a shared moment in the time of our relationship.
The 18-month-old I met when I was 23 is now a nine-year-old, straight-A student who excels in baseball and football. We’ve bonded over sports and spend more time driving in the car to a game or practice than anything else. He told me the other night he was sorry I had to stand in the cold and wind for two hours at his football practice. I told him it was fine, because I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. All I could think about was the beauty of the fall leaves and sun setting in the background of his practice. There’s something about the feeling of watching him run around on a baseball or football field that I will never forget, even if he stops playing tomorrow.
And my wife and I have added three more children.
Our five-year-old daughter, Brielle, is as beautiful as her mother. And she’s going to break my heart.
Every night, she climbs in our bed. She’s been doing this for several years and every morning I wake up telling myself that last night is the last night I can handle her knees in my back. But she’s been sleeping on my chest since she was five days old and it brings me as much comfort as it does her. I can already see myself as a 50-year-old man, giving her away at her wedding and that feeling of her sleeping in our room will wash over me. Most certainly, I will cry like I’ve never cried before.
Our wild, crazy, three-year-old son, Dryden, lights up every room, either with his smile or with his Buzz Lightyear toys. He has my imagination and gets so involved in playing that I can see the fantasy he has created in his mind. One minute, he’s a pirate aboard a make believe ship on the play set in our backyard, the next he’s racing Matchbox cars or driving his Jeep to work.
Our newest is a three-week old son, Brooks, who has red hair and sounds like a lamb every time he makes a noise. His eyes are curious and he’s already moving his neck around to take a look around.
Part of me can’t wait to see what they become, what they do and how I can help them through it all. Part of me wants to wait, wants it to slow down. Just so I can remember it all.
They repeat, “Goodnight, Daddy, I love you” 400 times before I am permitted to leave the room. And I say, “Goodnight, I love you” 400 times back. They sing along to the Beatles and watch Back to the Future.
And I will remember that.
That all has to mean something, right? I’m almost certain it does.
Life isn’t about one thing in particular. It’s a collection of moments, snapshots in time; an accumulation of time that represents who we are and what we love, enjoy, treasure and value. In some ways, I’ll always be a boy. I have an uncanny ability to compartmentalize memories that define what the meaning of my life is.
So this is the conclusion I’ve come up with: The Meaning of Life is like Jeopardy! – I know some things. I know what I love. I know what I enjoy. I know the things I treasure and value.
And if I don’t know the answer, then I’m learning what the answer is. 

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Boston Red Sox, John Lackey, Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, Major League Baseball, Terry Francona, Theo Epstein

Red Sox "Chicken" Out

And now we know why the Boston Red Sox collapsed last month, ceding a nine game lead in the American League Wild Card race and going 7-20 the final month of the season.
The “how” it happened is so much more disappointing, humiliating and numbing than just missing the playoffs in historic, failing fashion.
It wasn’t the starting pitchers inability to get through four innings. It wasn’t the bullpen blowing late leads. It wasn’t the lack of offense or some defensive error by Marco Scutaro with a broken bat flying at his head.
No, it wasn’t the resurrection of some curse.
It was 25 guys, 25 cabs. It was the downright unlikable John Lackey, the fan favorite Jon Lester and the staff ace Josh Beckett drinking beer, eating fried chicken and playing video games in the clubhouse during games.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Just read this column in the Boston Globe.
Look, I get that since 2004 and especially since 2007, many fans hate the Boston Red Sox just as much as they have and do hate the New York Yankees. Winning and massive payrolls do that.
But somewhere along the line, the Red Sox became what all their fan base loathed the most: a roster of All-Stars and uninspiring players with massive paychecks who didn’t get it done when it mattered most. The clubhouse issues speak to that.
What’s most unsettling is this is not that team I began rooting for as a teenager in 1995. It’s not the team that won the two titles in 2004 and 2007. What most outsiders miss is that yes, 2004 ended the “Curse of the Bambino” and ended 86 years of frustration, sleepless nights and anxiety wondering if you would ever see your team win – but – it was the manner in which the Sox did won that mattered more.
Boston didn’t beat New York at its own game by trading for and/or signing a group of All-Stars.

Sure, they had Pedro and Manny, but that team had Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar, Mike Timlin and Trot Nixon. They were dirty. They chewed tobacco. They looked like they had been wearing the same hat since Opening Day, and some days, if the wind was blowing right, you could probably confirm that by smell. Pine tar covered their bats and their helmets. They worked hard, acted stupid and cared deeply about one another. From 2003-2008, you rarely heard a peep from the clubhouse about issues that didn’t involve Manny Ramirez taking a leak behind the Green Monster.

So it wasn’t so much the dramatic comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS, but who they were in terms of character versus who the Yankees were.
Nothing epitomized this more than the famous play where Alex Rodriguez slaps the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand, and doing so with quite a bit of femininity. As he pouts and whines on second base after they call him out, there are Orlando Cabrera, Bellhorn and Millar laughing their asses off. The image is striking still today: a $200 million dollar man throwing a fit after slapping a ball out of a pitcher’s glove, and a somewhat rag-tag group of infielders mocking him.
Needless to say, I miss that team.
I miss rooting against, well, what the Red Sox are now. But this is the crux of being a fan. We’re really rooting for laundry and the numbers on the jerseys and the faces that fill those jerseys change ever year. Eventually, you find yourself rooting for a team that wears the same uniform but doesn’t fill it the same way.
I’m often more passionate about the years my favorite teams didn’t win a title, but came damn close despite having no business being there. It was the desire and the hard work in 2003 and 2004 that made those teams special. One lost a Game 7 in the ACLS, one won. But both years were special seasons.
The emotions of being a fan change all the time as you age. At the end of the day, you don’t just want your team to win, but you want them to do it the right way because it proves something, to you, your kids, your friends who are fans of other teams. It says “We did it the right way.”
I can deal with winning by not always doing it the right way and buying a top player or getting a trade done or being lucky instead of good. Those things happen in sports; the best or most likable teams don’t always win. It’s tough to swallow, but you end up rationalizing Carl Crawford’s contract, Diasuke Matsuzaka’s entire career and many other things as long as the team does well.
What I can’t deal with is the top three starting pitchers, two of which used to be in the category of hard-working gamers (Lester and Beckett) sitting around drinking beer, getting fat eating fried chicken and playing Halo while the rest of their teammates are trying not to blow it. There seems to be something missing there, an intangible of some kind.
And it doesn’t help when you pitch so poorly when you are playing that it looks like you’ve been…well, drinking beer and eating fried chicken and playing video games.
Some guys went to the optional batting sessions. Many did not. Some worked on their conditioning, while others, um, clearly, did not.
Jacoby Elsbury, Dustin Pedrioa and Papelbon, by all accounts, continued to stay committed and work, while others detached. You’d expect this haberdashery from Lackey, whom everyone in America seems to think is a royal punk and a clubhouse cancer. But Lester? Beckett? Big Papi? David Ortiz said all the right things to the media, but privately didn’t do much to bolster the team. Once, he burst into Francona’s press conference complaining about a box score that took away a hit.
Tim Wakefield, usually Mr. Red Sox, was preoccupied with chasing his 200th win and then saying it was only right the team brought him back next year. Adrian Gonzalez, terrific on the field, complained about the schedule and playing so many weekend night games. And manager Terry Francona was dealing with his own issues, as well, from prescription drugs to a separation from his wife and his son being in Afghanistan.

So that’s how the historic collapse came to be, a utter lack of passion for the game and for each other. The Sox have parted ways with Francona, which is bittersweet, but he’d lost the team. Wonder-boy general manage Theo Epstein is probably gone to the Chicago Cubs, which, despite his two World Series titles, leaves a bitter taste because of Lackey’s contract, Diasuke’s epic failure, Crawford’s struggles and you know, the general lack of chemistry in the clubhouse.

Maybe the players will start policing themselves and the new manager can break through to motivate them. But at the end of the day, the players have to care. And no one can do that but them.
Which is what makes the “how” it happened so humiliating and numbing. It’s not very Red Sox like. When they failed before, it was because of errors or ghosts or just not being very good. But this time, they killed the team from within.
And after two days of hearing the gory details of the collapse, I still don’t know how to tell my 9-year-old son who’s a diehard fan, who plays travel baseball and says he one day wants to play in college and the pros. And who’s favorite pitcher is Jon Lester. Who has Fat Heads of Beckett, Youkillis, Ortiz and Pedroia on his wall.
My son looks up to these guys. They are the favorite players on his favorite team of his favorite sport. It’s like the Sox are a girlfriend who broke up with you, punched you, took the big screen, the dogs, your money and burned your clothes over the period of a month, then came back three weeks later and told you they thought you were stupid, they hated everything you liked and never loved you.
It’s the ultimate kick to the groin to find out they not only failed, but they did so being basically about that guy. Dysfunctional, pampered, entitled.
Guess I need to start explaining to my son what term “Bush League” means. But I’ll leave the rest of the downfall out. It’s just embarrassing.
Or at least it should be.
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