Last year: 11-5, lost in Wild Card round
Acquisitions: Ahmad Bradshaw, Gosder Cherilus, Matt Hasselbeck, LaRon Landry, Bjorn Werner, Greg Toler
Departures: Dwight Freeney, Donnie Avery, Austin Collie, Jerraud Powers, A.Q. Shipley, Tom Zbikowski
Vegas win total over/under: 8 1/2 wins
Verdict: OVER
Five reasons you can’t arrest John Boyett:
- Because he’s a Colts player.
- Oh wait. He did get arrested.
- Oh wait. Now he doesn’t play for the Colts anymore.
- If being on the Colts meant he could be arrested, does being a free agent mean he is no longer subject to the law of the land?
- Is John Boyett an unstoppable supercriminal who can no longer be constrained by the authorities? Yes. Yes he is.
Fan forecast, by Stampede Blue’s Brad Wells:
Greetings from Fat Hump Land! Excuse me for a moment as I slather myself with mayonnaise instead of suntan oil and drink watered down moose piss instead of beer.
The transplanted Hoosier that I am enjoys making fun of the great state I was born and raised in. My job as a Colts blogger also affords me the lovely opportunity to talk directly with national media reporters and team employees, giving me an oh-so-rosy insight into how EVERYONE hates the Indianapolis market. And for good reason too!
Last year, the nasty, scarlet-lettered “fair-weather” was slapped on the fanbase’s slopped foreheads because they had abandoned the franchise post-Manning. 13 percent of the team’s season ticket holders said “f*ck this shit, I’m going to Bob Evans” once owner Jim Irsay took a moment to stop freebasing cocaine and released four-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning.
Irsay’s reason: He didn’t think Manning would hold up in a 16-game season post-neck fusion surgery.
Actual result: F*ck you, Jim. Signed – P. Manning
Fortunately for Irsay, two things happened:
- The Colts got Andrew Luck with the No. 1 overall pick, and
- His head coach got cancer.Now, somewhere, there is a Hoosier sitting in front of his Acer Aspire laptop making a nasty frowny-face at my “cancer” comment. He’s folding his fat arms, shaking his triple chin, and is so insulted that I would use Colts head coach Chuck Pagano’s cancer diagnosis as a way to make fun of Indiana that he flipping his Netscape browser window over to FOX News online. This fellow Hoosier likely doesn’t want to hear how it took the head coach getting leukemia for a fanbase to reconnect to a sports franchise that, for the better part of 15 years, did nothing but win lots and lots of football games.
In case you tuned out anything and everything that involved Indianapolis last season, head coach Chuck Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia in late-September of 2012. He left the team so that he could get treatment, and the players responded by going 9-3 without him. The story, and the winning of football games as a result of the coach getting cancer, made the local residents of Indianapolis happy again.
See! All it takes is cancer for Indiana fans to come back! Well, that, and winning, because if the Colts had gone 3-9 after Pagano’s cancer diagnosis, there’d have been several local TV blackouts in “Naptown.”
But, hey, all that is last season, and I’m sorry if my cold, heartless observations about the fanbase I’m part of injury and/or anger you. I’d offer you a pint of some of Indiana’s great local ale as a gesture of good faith, but chances are you don’t drink pints, and “local ale” to you is Budweiser (which is owned by a German company) or Coors (which is owned by a Nazi, which means it might as well be owned by a German company).
This season, the Colts enter with much higher expectations than they did in 2012. So high, in fact, that the owner completely lost his shit on Twitter when the team looked like crap in their first preseason game of 2013!
As it turned out, that Luck kid from Stanford was pretty good in 2012, and so far the preseason results show me that he’s gotten even better. As angry and red-faced as Hoosiers likely are with me for making fun of their penchant for trans fats and fair-weather fandom, that’s nothing to how completely pissed off Vikings, Lions, Titans, Jaguars, Bucs, Browns, Dolphins, and Bills fans are at this Indianapolis Colts franchise that has transitioned from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck in just one year.
If that isn’t a giant F*CK YOU from the football gods to those other franchises, I don’t know what is.
As much as Indianapolis fans hate me, everyone else hates Indianapolis fans even more. I’m sure more than a few of them said “I hope the Colts get cancer” after Indy was awarded the first overall pick in 2012. The irony drips like milk gravy off a biscuit.
Keys to the 2013 season for the Colts are all these mercenaries that general manager Ryan Grigson brought in during the off-season. Some will make an impact (Greg Toler) while others will piss us off because they won’t stay healthy (Ahmad Bradshaw).
Chuck Pagano is now back on the sideline and looking happy and healthy. Fun-loving fan bashing and satirical Hoosier hating aside, it’s actually quite cool to see him active and coaching again. Stay healthy, coach. Avoid the buffet at any local Indianapolis chain restaurant.
Now, back to fan bashing! I think the Colts are going 11-5 this season, but I see a Lucas Oil Stadium full of overweight white people with bad skin cheering more for the Denver Broncos on October 20th than for the home team. Especially this asshole.
Nice rat tail, ya dickbag.
God, I love Indiana.
