Colts owner Jim Irsay didn’t pull any punches Tuesday while speaking about Carson Wentz at the NFL owners’ meetings.
A day after Frank Reich said Wentz shouldn’t be seen as a scapegoat for the Colts’ late-season collapse, Irsay went in the completely opposite direction.
He blasted his former quarterback with the strongest terms imaginable.
“I think the worst thing you can do is make a mistake and try to move on with it,” Irsay said at the NFL owners’ meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., according to the Indianapolis Star.
“For us, it was something we had to get away from as a franchise. It was very obvious.”
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A year after the Colts traded a 1st-round pick and a 3rd-round pick to the Eagles for Wentz, they reversed and sent him to Washington.
Wentz went from supposed savior in Indianapolis under Reich to disaster in just a few months. And the Eagles haven’t even used the first-round pick they got from the Colts.
“In conversations with trusted veterans on the team, when you talk to them confidentially, they often really share what’s happening,” Irsay said. “What I found was very worrying.
“You look for the right chemistry with every team. It’s as important in football as it is in any sport out there. When that chemistry isn’t right, when it’s not there, it can be extremely damaging and degrade performance to a degree that is startling and shocking.”
Wentz actually played well mid-season. From Week 4 through Week 16 he threw 22 touchdowns and just 5 interceptions, the Colts went 9-3 and his 99.8 passer rating was the third-highest in the league.
Then disaster struck in the form of a 26-11 season-ending loss to the Jaguars that knocked the Colts out of the playoffs.
“Your guy has to pick you up and carry you around Jacksonville,” Irsay said. “He has to do it. Not an option. Must. No excuses, no explanations.”
It was the second-biggest loss by a team favored by 15 points or more as far as historical point spreads are available since the late 1970s.
“No disrespect to Jacksonville, but I mean they’re the worst team in the league,” Irsay said. “You’re playing well and hard for the first quarter or so and they want to go to their dressing room and clean it up.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. You say, “My God, something is wrong here. It needs to be corrected.’ I think that’s how we feel.”
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Irsay alluded to Wentz’s stubbornness and refusal to change the way he plays the game as he ages and his injury-plagued body prevents him from doing the things he has done from a sporting perspective.
“You can’t always convince people to do things differently if they don’t want to do them differently,” Irsay said.
“You’re always trying to see in all areas of your team where the coaches can come in and improve and improve a situation and make things better, but in the end the players out there are playing the game and they’re going to play their game.”