INDIANAPOLIS (AP)

Bill Polian used his first draft pick in Indianapolis on Peyton Manning.

Not getting an adequate backup for Manning at some point over the next 13 years cost Polian and his son, Chris, their jobs.

Less than 24 hours after finishing a 2-14 season with Manning on the bench, team owner Jim Irsay started the housecleaning by firing the architect of the Colts’ success and his hand-picked successor. Coach Jim Caldwell is safe, for now, though the evaluation continues.

The moves caught Colts players off-guard.

”Shock, man, just shock,” safety Antoine Bethea said after finding out the Polians were gone. ”I knew there were going to be some things happening, but I didn’t expect them to come so soon.”

While swift moves are common right after the season for struggling NFL teams, stability has been a key part of the Polian regime.

Since making Manning the top overall pick in 1998, the Colts have celebrated 141 regular-season wins, 11 playoff appearances, six division titles, two AFC championships and one Super Bowl title. During that span, there have been only three head coaches, two offensive coordinators and one family making the personnel moves.

The problem in Indianapolis was losing, which came in bunches this season.

”I felt that it was time for a change, that there was a need for a change,” Irsay said, flanked by his three daughters. ”Bill had entered a role where he was less involved, but still quite a bit involved because of the lockout and Peyton’s injury and the losing streak. He was around a lot more than he probably anticipated or I did. But it really was a question about both situations. I thought that it was time to change the personnel department on the football side of things that wasn’t involved with the coaching.”

Bill Polian declined to comment when The Associated Press contacted him by phone, but did issue a statement through the team.

”I’m grateful for all the support the fans have shown us in good times and bad,” Polian said. ”Indianapolis has been a wonderful place to live and work. Most of all, I would like to thank the players coaches and staff who have played the pivotal role in this magnificent journey. I will miss them all.”

Those players became increasingly dismayed with Polian’s comments, particularly those made on his weekly radio show. And the most vocal critic was Manning, probably the only person in the organization with more leverage than the team’s vice chairman.

Manning missed the entire season with a neck injury after signing a five-year, $90 million deal in July, about six weeks before he needed his third neck surgery in 19 months.

When Polian told listeners to his show that he and Manning had discussed drafting his eventual successor and that Manning was ”OK” with it, the four-time league MVP later said he and Polian had never discussed the 2012 draft and it would be inappropriate for him to have those discussions. And just before Christmas, Polian told reporters that Manning would fail his season-ending physical. Following Sunday’s 19-13 loss at Jacksonville, Manning said: ”That’s news to me.”

An even bigger problem was that the lack of a backup plan.

With Manning struggling to come back from May surgery on his neck, Indy brought 17-year veteran Kerry Collins out of retirement in late August with a $4 million contract. He didn’t last a month.

Collins was replaced by Curtis Painter, who started well but struggled badly after Bill Polian said he felt ”vindicated” by Painter’s success.

The Colts lost their first 13 games, finished with the second-fewest victories since the team moved to Indianapolis in 1984 and wound up with the No. 1 draft pick.

Bill Polian repeatedly said he should be blamed if there was a talent deficiency.

Chris Polian, who was named the team’s GM four years ago but didn’t start making the day-to-day decisions until this season, got caught in the crossfire. He was seen leaving the team complex Monday afternoon, just about the time word leaked of the firings.

”To think that just less than less than two years ago we were getting ready to go to Miami and play in a Super Bowl, and we were cleaning off the confetti from the turf in Lucas Oil Stadium, it has been a very sharp decline,” Irsay said. ”Even after going 10-6 last year, if people had said you would have the No. 1 draft pick and go 2-14, nobody would have believed it.”

Irsay has not established a timeline for finding a new general manager, though he said he would start contacting other GMs and teams Monday night.

No decision on Caldwell is expected to be made until after the GM is hired, though players have overwhelmingly supported him.

”One thing about Jim is that he’s a stand-up guy, and guys respect that,” cornerback Jerraud Powers said. ”He’s a great coach, a good guy, and it was unfortunate situation this year. But he never lost the locker room.”

In fact, Irsay said, there’s a good chance Caldwell will be back.

Whoever replaces Polian faces an abundance of decisions in a major rebuilding effort.

Manning never played after undergoing his third neck surgery in 19 months, a fusion of two vertebrae to fix a damaged nerve that was causing weakness in his throwing arm.

He did, however, start throwing to teammates in mid-December and received good reviews from both Bill Polian, who was watching, and running back Joseph Addai, who was catching balls. Doctors familiar with the procedure who did not treat Manning say he should return to a high level of play now that the fusion has healed.

If he is healthy, Irsay has promised to bring back Manning regardless of the $28 million bonus he is owed in March, potentially putting two franchise quarterbacks — Manning and Andrew Luck — on the same roster.

”I think I can co-exist with any player I’ve ever played with,” Manning said Sunday. ”I think I’ve always been a good teammate in that way.”

If Manning returns, Irsay might be more likely to bring back former Pro Bowlers Robert Mathis, Jeff Saturday and Reggie Wayne, all of whom are now in their 30s, and keep other key high-priced cogs in the Colts’ success such as Brackett and safety Melvin Bullitt.

But the Polians will no longer be making those decisions.

”Bill and I had a chance to have a second meeting and to have some tears and a hug, and that was good,” Irsay said. ”It’s extremely difficult. Walking out of the locker room in Jacksonville that was a hard walk, and it’s hard because my affection for them is deep.”

INDIANAPOLIS — Colts defensive end Robert Mathis couldn’t care less about the No. 1 draft pick. All he wants is another win.

Some of Indianapolis’ die-hard fans are urging the team’s brain trust to take a different tack, benching starters and losing Sunday’s season finale at Jacksonville so it can get the top pick.

“It’s better not to respond to that at all,” Mathis said when asked about the fans’ plea. “We play to win.”

The stakes are high.

Since moving to Indianapolis in 1984, only the 1991 Colts (1-15) produced fewer than three wins.

The Colts (2-13) have never finished with a losing record in AFC South play, and the last time anybody beat the Colts twice in the same season was 2007 when San Diego won at home in the regular season and in Indianapolis in the second round of the playoffs.

A victory over the Jags (4-11) would keep all of those streaks intact and allow the Colts to take a three-game winning string into next season, something they haven’t done since the 2006 Super Bowl-winning run.

The message coming from the top is simple: Keep on winning.

“We’re not going after anything but a win in Jacksonville, look at the last half century of SupBowl winners — how many had 1st pick,” Jim Irsay wrote on Twitter late Tuesday night.

Fans have a different view.

A win, coupled with a loss by St. Louis (2-13), would drop the Colts from the No. 1 overall slot down to No. 2, and likely out of the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. Most expect the Stanford quarterback to go in that top slot, whether the Colts or Rams have the pick or trade it.

The possibility of losing the No. 1 pick didn’t even seem plausible three weeks ago when the Colts were still winless. Two wins in five days, over division rivals Tennessee and Houston, and an extended break after last Thursday’s win have suddenly created doubts.

It’s not the first time the Colts have faced such a predicament. After going 0-10 in 1997, Indy won three of its next five, then needed a loss at Minnesota in the season finale to secure the No. 1 pick. It worked out with the selection of Peyton Manning, and the die-hards believe it would all work the same way again this year.

The Jags have a hand to play in this, too.

With Maurice Jones-Drew a near lock to win the league’s rushing title and an interim coach running the team, a Jags loss would not just help their draft position but could also prevent the Colts from taking another franchise quarterback they’d have to face twice a year for more than a decade.

“That’s not a part of my thinking at all,” Jaguars interim coach Mel Tucker said.

Indy’s players and coaches are saying the same thing.

Still, Colts fans point to 2009 when the team benched most of its key players early in the second half of Game 15, throwing away a chance at a perfect season. In the regular-season finale, most of the starters were yanked early at Buffalo. Back then, Bill Polian, now the team’s vice chairman, said the perfect season was not a goal but winning the Super Bowl was.

The Colts also lost to New Orleans in the title game.

Now, with seemingly nothing to gain and everything to lose, those who covet the No. 1 pick argue Indy should do the same thing.

Don’t count on it.

“In this locker room, everyone wants to be in there,” said Curtis Painter, who replaced Manning against the Jets in 2009. “Back then, I think the guys wanted to play then, too. Every guy wants to play and there’s certainly no difference this year.”

Notes: The Colts practiced Wednesday without starting quarterback Dan Orlovsky after his wife delivered triplets. That temporarily put Curtis Painter back in the charge of the starting offense, a tradeoff some Colts fans are willing to make given the circumstances. To their dismay, coach Jim Caldwell said Orlovsky, who has won two straight, should return to practice Thursday and should play Sunday.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled in 2011. The opened the season 0-13 and looked as if they had a possibility of going winless on the season. Then the team dug in and won two games in a row to move to 2-13 on the season. Through the ups and downs, Reggie Wayne has always been there and has had a very good season.

Indianapolis’ statistics are down across the board on offense from what fans are used to seeing. Peyton Manning has not played this season and the quarterback play has been just awful. Kerry Collins and Curtis Painter were downright awful for the first 11 games of the season. Dan Orlovsky has been a big improvement and has the team playing better football lately.

Even with the poor quarterback play, Reggie Wayne has hung in there and is quietly having a very good season at 33 years old. A lot of talk has been made recently about Wayne’s upcoming free agency and that the December 22 matchup against the Houston Texans could have been his last game at Lucas Oil Stadium. If it was, Wayne didn’t disappoint. He didn’t disappoint this entire season when you factor in what he’s had to play through.

With one game left to play, Wayne has 67 receptions for 887 yards and four touchdowns on the season. Wayne has an average of 13.2 yards per catch which is higher than his averages of the last two seasons. You can’t fault Wayne for the fact that his quarterbacks have been awful and have not been able to get him the ball.

Indianapolis has two wins on the season and both wins were clinched with touchdown catches by Reggie Wayne. This is no coincidence.

Reggie needs 113 yards in the finale against the Jacksonville Jaguars on January 1 to finish off his eighth straight season with over 1,000 yards receiving. This would be an amazing feat when fans look back on this seasons Indianapolis Colt team.

Wide receiver Pierre Garcon currently has one more catch and 37 more yards on the season than Wayne. Garcon has been the beneficiary of several deep balls early in the season and yardage that has been added on late in blowout losses. Wayne has consistently made the big plays and catches in key situations. Anyone who argues that Garcon has become the better player is simply not watching the games.

It’s impossible to say what would have been in Indianapolis if Peyton Manning had not missed the season. What I do know is that Reggie Wayne has not lost a step and deserves to be re-signed in Indianapolis to complete his career there. If anything, he needs to be rewarded for the work he has put in over the last 11 seasons. Fans have to appreciate the work Reggie Wayne has put in all season in 2011.

Kyle Rapoza is a Featured Contributor for the Yahoo! Contributor Network and has been a lifelong fan of the Indianapolis Colts. He attended Super Bowl XLIV in Miami and follows the team closely. Follow him on Twitter @kyler11.

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The Indianapolis Colts are still in search of their first victory of the season in week 15. This is not what I expected to be writing about at the beginning of the season, but here we are. Indianapolis has only three games remaining to avoid finishing the season winless. This week they will face the Tennessee Titans at home on December 18.

This game will be the best chance for Dan Orlovsky to show what he can do against an average team. In his first two starts, Orlovsky faced the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens and was not terrible. He was clearly better than Curtis Painter and he actually moved the ball and helped the team score points on offense. There is no reason why he should not do significantly better against the Tennessee Titans.

Indianapolis needs to try to air it out downfield to Pierre Garcon and Reggie Wayne in this game. They have nothing to lose and need to be more aggressive in this game. As a fan of the team, it remains frustrating that the coaching staff refuses to do anything unconventional in an attempt to win. Why not go for it on every fourth down? There is no downside to it at all at this point. There is no reason why fans should expect anything different from Jim Caldwell this week though. It’s as if he has no idea that he is coaching for his job.

Colt fans early in the week appeared lucky enough to be facing rookie quarterback Jake Locker. Matt Hasselbeck now looks like he is on pace to start against the Colts. Whichever quarterback gets the start, they should have no trouble moving the ball against the Colt defense. One sign of hope is that Indianapolis generally does a very good job defending against running back Chris Johnson. If they can slow Johnson down, they may even stand a chance in this game. Tennessee does not have an explosive offense and should not be able to run away in this game.

I think this is a game where Indianapolis remains competitive and can put themselves in a position to win the game. They will likely fall short like every other game this year. At this point, fans can only hope that Dan Orlvosky will pull off his fourth quarter magic and make the game appear closer than it really is again. Orlovsky has shown that he is great at scoring points in the fourth quarter when the game is out of hand. Luckily, I think he’ll be able to do that and give fans hope that the game was actually closer than it really was.

Prediction: Titans 24, Colts 17

Kyle Rapoza is a Featured Contributor for the Yahoo! Contributor Network and has been a lifelong fan of the Indianapolis Colts. He attended Super Bowl XLIV in Miami and follows the team closely. Follow him on Twitter @kyler11.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.