Manning and Washington Redskins / Dallas Cowboys

Forbes reported that Peyton Manning increased the value of the Indianapolis Colts by $233 Million in his time in Indy. Irsay ranks right down there with Jones of the Cowboys and Snyder of the Redskins as the worst owners in Football. Irsay is gutting the team and front office, releasing players left and right that has helped Peyton increase the value of his team. Unlike Lebron James wanting to leave Cleveland and the value of that team taking a huge hit, Peyton wanted to stay in Indy and finish out his career. Irsay proves again that Billions of dollars and Brains don't always go hand in hand.

The NFL hammered the Washington Redskins with a $36 Million Salary Cap penalty and the Dallas Cowboys a $10 Million Salary Cap Penalty. What this means is that both teams have that much money less in salary cap versus the rest of the league for the upcoming season. The reason is that there was a soft cap last year after the lockout but teams knew the penalty for going over. Washington frontloaded some contracts with a lot of money last season, like Albert Haynesworth who the Skins ended up releasing, and they went way over the cap. The penalty is loss of Cap space this year. So the Redskins just traded 3 first round draft picks and a 2nd round pick to move up to #2 in the Draft in order to draft RGIII with the intent of adding more players thru free agency. Now they don't have a 1/3 of the cap that they thought they would have to add players so they are in bad shape. How many Einstein's does it take to understand that "If we pay too much in 2011-2012 season then we will get penalized that amount for the 2012-2013 season? Even a hilljack Kentucky Wildcat fan like myself can figure out that one. Maybe I need to apply for a job with the Washington Redskins organization. My bet is somebody got a pink slip over this bad use of a calculator.

A couple thoughts, and interested in all views.

a. Is Irsay weeding out the folks who although they have served the team well in the passed decade, need to go to make room for the next decade of winners?

b. Totally opposite look, Isray has made a bundle, maybe he's devaluing the team to make it easier for him to cash out his chips by selling.

I'm a Colts guy, so neither option makes me feel good about the focus of sports. But the reality is sports is a business.

I heard a real interesting interview about the front office firings. The reporter said that Bill Polian had basically forced his son on the team and then had him promoted to GM for which he (Chris) was not qualified for as he (Bill) withdrew from much of the duties, probably looking towards his own retirement.

Here is a link to an article the sheds some light on some of the behind the scenes of the organization.

[URL="http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2012/1/3/2678834/bill-polian-fired-jim-irsay-peyton-manning-colts"][COLOR=#0066cc]http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2012/1/3/2678834/bill-polian-fired-jim-irsay-peyton-manning-colts[/COLOR][/URL]

The ironic thing is, I find myself defending some of the reactions to Irsay, when truth be told I don't care for him. The "Baltimore" Colts were my second favorite team many years ago (Giants have always been my favorite team), so I have long liked the team. I was a big Bert Jones and Colts fan back in the day, and never have like the Irsays ever since they snuck the team out of town in early morning hours. They never had any class.

Also I am a big Peyton fan, more so now because of the connection with Eli, my favorite QB.

That said, in this day of salary cap NFL there comes a time teams have to cut ties and make the best calculated plans to move forward or they can get stuck in a real bad era of football just that quickly. When looking at the big picture, the entire picture, I can't blame Irsay for anything he has done. Will it work out? Who knows if it does, the NFL is far from an exact science. All Management can do is trust their scouting department and at some point pull the trigger on the tough decisions. Only time will tell, probably within the next four to five years we should have a pretty good idea of the answer. Peyton will likely be done, and Luck will be approaching his prime.

If I were forced to make a guess, I really believe it could end up a win-win. Peyton will have a better chance for that second ring by moving on from a total rebuild, and the Colts will likely benefit in the long run with a complete fresh rebuild around Luck.

As far as Washington and Dallas and their cap "penalties", I think it is not about being dumb or poor at math, but instead about honesty or lack of depending on ones interpretation.

During the uncapped year it is appears that all the owners made a "gentleman's" agreement to adhere to the cap. In reality without an agreement with the player association doing this really adds up to collusion among the owners.

Snyder and Jones being the snakes that they appear to be likely concluded they could circumvent the gentlemen's agreement and the other owners/league wouldn't have enough nerve to do anything about it.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It could very well end up in court. They each were given the options of spreading the cap hit out over two seasons if they choose to. In my opinion if you see them push the entire amount to next season there is a better chance of a lawsuit (or threats of one) coming.

Now it is being reported that the NFL is going to require that Washington/Dallas must absorb 50% of the cap hit this year.

Pretty interesting, with free agency starting today and forcing them to use 50% now that should would prevent the teams from pushing it all back untill next year and fight it all in court. Hmmm. Just saying.