as the Manning storyline played out with Peyton and Jim Irsay fighting on Twitter and in the local media. It was very reminiscent of the elder Irsay warring with Unitas in 1973.
And then freaking Manning’s little brother shows up – and then SHOWS UP – big bro with a stunning last-minute drive to win his second Super Bowl. He also solved and avenged his bigger (and some would say) better brother’s Dr. Evil in Tom Brady.
You couldn’t write this stuff…as Charlie Eckman would say (and maybe you could pass this blog onto him as well) “It’s better than the movies!”
I don’t know if you caught any of the 80 videos we shot on Radio Row with various celebrities and football players and coaches. We had an amazing week in Indianapolis and had record web traffic to WNST.net but nothing was more of a hit than Bob Irsay, himself, who stars in all of our videos and watched from the front row of the radio set.
I didn’t originally intend to take the “Beanie Bob” dummy with me but many people amongst the Radio Row revelers were from Indianapolis and they all wanted a picture of the dummy. At one point, Jim Irsay was in the room and I was going to offer to give the dummy to him for his collection of cool artifacts. But I never got the chance and the dummy is safely back in Baltimore, resting comfortably for the next round of the Baltimore-Indianapolis wars of the future.
On Saturday morning, I shot two hours worth of NFL Films footage for some future “Top 10” shows and these are always kinda anecdotal and reflective by their very nature. And all of the stories wind up with me in Baltimore as a kid rooting for the Colts and wearing a Colts hat:
Or a Colts sweatsuit:
Or a Colts bathrobe:
And as much anger as I’ve channeled and regret I’ve swallowed in regard to losing the Colts and the angst of Indianapolis, I’ve decided that I wanna be the bigger guy – the one who has grown enough as a 43-year old with his own beautiful purple football team in Baltimore to attempt to repair this seemingly eternal damage.
Irsay’s franchise has become a rose – a blossoming beautiful “May flower” that’s about to roll into its next chapter with Andrew Luck (and that’s strange for me because his old man was a Houston Oiler – and well, if you know anything about me you know I’m a complete whore and sucker for anything Luv Ya Blue, the other love of my youth).
And the Houston Oilers are gone, too. Even the logo is gone and never to be replaced but that hasn’t stopped me from slobbering all over Dan Pastorini, Bum Phillips and shamelessly sitting on Earl Campbell’s lap in Dallas last year.
Things change.
People change. We all have memories.
Children become adults.
Even franchises move or change or die off – just like people!
And it’s very apparent that the people of Indiana have the same insecurities and “second city” status
