Indianapolis Colts: Shouldn't Wait Until Season's End to Fire Jim Caldwell

It's always a tough decision to fire the head coach of a football team.  It's even tougher to decide to fire the coach before season's end.

The Colts' Jim Irsay, Bill Polian and Chris Polian are facing that tough decision now.

With the Colts off to their worst start since 1997, I think it's time to get a new voice in the locker room.

Since 1995, history shows that if a Colts coach has a losing record during the regular season, then he is fired.

In 1997, under head coach Lindy Infante, the Colts had a 3-13 record.  He was fired after the season and replaced by Jim Mora.

Mora ran the ship from 1998 to 2001.  He was fired after the 2001 season, when the Colts failed to make the playoffs with a 6-10 record.  Mora did a horrible job coaching the team that year in which Peyton Manning threw 23 interceptions and was sacked 29 times.

Irsay saw that Mora lost the team and fired him.  I think he sees that now with head coach Jim Caldwell. 

My question is: Why delay the inevitable?

This season doesn't fall on the shoulders or arm of Peyton Manning.  There's no excuses to be winless and last in a weak division. 

The Colts still have playmakers in Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie, Jeff Saturday, Robert Mathis, Dwight Freeney and Antoine Bethea.  How can you not compete with those guys?

How do you lose 62-7—the worst loss in franchise history—with those guys?

The answer is coaching.

Week in and week out, all I see on the sidelines is Jim Caldwell standing there silent, looking like a scared deer in the headlights.  I never see him do any coaching or make any adjustments.

Players are underperforming right now, and it's clear.  They need someone to light a fire under them and coach them to victories.

It was obvious on Sunday night against New Orleans that Jim Caldwell isn't that guy.

Caldwell isn't Tony Dungy, either.  I know Dungy chose Caldwell as his successor, but no one can be someone else.  Caldwell is just riding it out with Dungy's system, but he doesn't know what to do in it.

In Caldwell's first year as head coach, the Colts started off 14-0 and finished the regular season 14-2 after sitting their starters.  The Colts made their second Super Bowl in three seasons, but got outcoached and came home runner-up. 

In the first year of a new head coach's tenure, I consider it to be the previous head coach's team and system, and the new guy just rides his coattails.

The second year is when a new head coach gets to show a little more of what he's got.  Last year, Caldwell didn't show me much.

The Colts won the division but had a disappointing 10-7 season that ended with a home loss to the Jets in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.  The Colts had every weakness exposed.  Caldwell didn't do a good enough job of hiding the weaknesses and coaching around them.

A head coach's third year is when I consider it to be his team.  He has full control of what happens and makes all the calls.  He has to make adjustments and mold the team.

The Colts are 0-7 and, as stated earlier, are off to their worst start since 1997.  That tells me everything I need to know.

In the two years under Caldwell, the Colts' record (including playoffs) is 10-14.

Disappointing and inexcusable.

That's why I'd fire him now.  Why wait all year and lose more?

It only causes friction in the locker room and pulls the team further apart after each loss.

I usually judge a coach, not just by wins and losses, but on whether the team is improving or not.  In Caldwell's case, not only is this team digressing, but it's getting worse than it's ever been in franchise history.

He's entirely lost this team—62-7 is not even trying.

And, this team won't even get Andrew Luck.  Miami is by far the worst team in the league and will finish with one to two wins tops.  The Dolphins are a lock for the No. 1 pick in next year's draft.

Let's build toward next season and get some wins and momentum going forward.  This team just needs a new voice.

Now, I'm not saying that the Colts will find their next long-term coach in mid-season, but they do need something new.  This clearly isn't working.

Everyone always says the definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results. 

How many times do they have to punt on 4th-and-2 instead of going for it?  How many times do they have to run the ball up the middle and get stuffed for them to see that it doesn't work? 

How bad does the game have to get before you make adjustments?

How many times at the end of a half do they run the ball three straight times to try and kill the clock instead of scoring before halftime?  THEY HAD THE BEST OFFENSE IN THE LEAGUE. 

Wake up, coach.  Why are you so scared to run the score up on someone and beat them early?

New Orleans wasn't on Sunday.

A prime example is the Super Bowl XLIV loss to, of all teams, New Orleans.  At the end of the first half, the Colts were pinned inside New Orleans' 20-yard line.  The Saints couldn't stop the Colts at all at this point. 

The genius Caldwell decided to try and go into the half up seven points.  He called for three straight running plays with Peyton Manning at quarterback.  Why not air it out with timeouts left and score to bury the Saints before halftime?

Instead, the Saints used their timeouts wisely and stopped he Colts on three straight plays.  They got the ball back and scored a field goal before the half to make the score 10-6 Colts instead of 17-3.

I said after that moment of the game that it would haunt Caldwell and eventually cost him not just the game, but his job.

Unfortunately, I was right about the game.

The momentum changed, an onside kick to start the second half buried the Colts, and the rest is history.

That is the kind of coach Jim Caldwell is.

Look at what happened to the Cowboys last year after head coach Wade Phillips was fired.  Jason Garrett revitalized the team with a back-up quarterback and ended with a lot of momentum.

This team is just too good to be this bad. 

All the Colts need is a new voice to get them fired up, so they can win some games to close out the year.