NFL News: Colts Owner Shows Disdain For Carson Wentz's Time With Team

The Indianapolis Colts failed to make the NFL postseason a year after they were narrowly defeated by the Buffalo Bills in the Wild Card round and Colts owner Jim Irsay is having some buyer’s remorse about quarterback Carson Wentz.

Speaking during the NFL’s Annual League Meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, Irsay explained why the Colts decided to move the former Philadelphia Eagles play-caller.

“I think the worst thing you can do is have a mistake and try to keep living with it going forward. For us, it was something we had to move away from as a franchise. It was very obvious,” Irsay stated as quoted by Indy Star.

The Colts’ troubles during the 2021-22 season came to a head when they lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars 26-11 in their final game of the year.

For Irsay, this loss was something that triggered inside of him and he came to the conclusion that it was Wentz’s leadership, or lack thereof, on the field that led to their surprising loss to the Jaguars.

A quarterback’s level play, as Irsay put it, has a “profound effect” on the players around him.

“In football, it [team chemistry] is as important as any sport that there is. If that chemistry is off, if it isn’t there, it can be extremely detrimental and lower performance to a degree that is stunning and shocking,” the 62-year-old owner said.

In mid-March, the Colts general manager Chris Ballard was able to extract a second and third-round pick in the upcoming draft plus a conditional third-rounder in next year’s draft.

“I don’t lose the fact that it was a pretty big blessing from the football gods, where we were and where we could be if things don’t materialize to that level. You end up cutting Carson [Wentz], and we’d get nothing,” Irsay remarked about the trade.

The Colts are now in the same boat as franchises such as the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns who made massive changes to the quarterback position as Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson went to their new teams.

14-year NFL veteran Matt Ryan was then brought to the Colts to help bring some stability this season.

Irsay’s comments about their former quarterback make it seem like he regretted the decision to bring him to Indianapolis in the first place, and while Ryan is a solid piece to hold it down for them, the Colts will surely be on the lookout for their next long-term quarterback.