Less than 24 hours after a season-ending loss at Jacksonville gave Indianapolis the No. 1 pick in April’s draft, Irsay fired the team’s vice chairman and general manager and decided to keep coach Jim Caldwell at least until he finds a replacement for the father-and-son team.

“It was a very tough decision for me,” the Colts owner said Monday. “I had a chance to talk to them both, I had a chance to express to them, and Bill in particular. You know how hard it was and the appreciation the franchise has for all that has been done by Bill, and obviously, him and I go back 30 years. So this is difficult, this is the tough part of this business.”

For more than a decade, the Polians and Irsays seemed to operate in lock step.

Irsay sided with Polian after the 2001 season when the then team president and coach Jim Mora clashed. He thought enough of Chris Polian to begin the transition from father to son and he repeatedly supported Polian publicly even when fans were unhappy with Polian’s decisions and reactions.

But after 13 straight losses, a 2-14 record without Peyton Manning and the second-fewest wins in the franchise’s Indianapolis era, Irsay had no choice.

“I’m grateful for all the support the fans have shown us in good times and bad,” Polian said in a statement issued by the team. “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.”

Nobody ever doubted how much influence the elder Polian had on the game or the Colts.

He helped create the league’s salary cap structure and was a longtime member of the league’s rule-making competition committee.

He was the architect of four Super Bowl teams in Buffalo, the rapid ascension of Carolina’s expansion team and the Colts’ resurgence. Six times, he was named NFL executive of the year by The Sporting News. He drafted the Colts’ career leaders in passing (Manning), rushing (Edgerrin James) and sacks (Dwight Freeney), and the No. 2 receiver in franchise history (Reggie Wayne). His teams won two Grey Cups in the Canadian Football League, played in eight NFL championship games and five Super Bowls, and the 10-game improvement from 1998 to 1999 set a league record. In 2006, Polian finally got his elusive Super Bowl ring.

The cornerstone for all that success in Indy, though, was Manning, and the inability to find an adequate backup proved Polian’s undoing.

Manning missed the entire season with a neck injury after signing a five-year, $90 million deal in July. The Sept. 8 procedure was his third neck surgery in 19 months, and the Colts went through three different quarterbacks before getting their first win.

Players also became increasingly dismayed by the comments Polian made on his weekly radio show. The most vocal critic was Manning, probably the only person in the organization with more leverage than the team’s vice chairman.

 

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.”

The Indianapolis Colts finished their dismal 2011 season the same way that they began it, which was by losing to a division rival on the road. Thanks to all that happened in between the opening loss to the Houston Texans and the closing loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, though, the two games had a distinctively different feel. By the time the Colts took the field in Florida on January 1, fans had long since lost all hopes of Peyton Manning’s return this season, another playoff appearance or virtually anything else positive. In fact, for the first time that I can remember, I found myself rooting hard for the Colts to lose a game so that they could hold onto the first pick in the 2012 NFL draft and the chance to groom another franchise quarterback. The Colts and Jags made it interesting but, in the end, Indianapolis was no match for running back Maurice Jones-Drew and granted me my wish, falling by a final score of 19-13.

The story of this game featured many of the same chapters that the Colts wrote throughout the season. In particular, Jones-Drew rode Indianapolis’s weak run defense to a 169-yard performance that gave him the NFL rushing title with 1606 yards. That total also gave him the Jacksonville franchise record, eclipsing the 1572 yards that Fred Taylor racked up in 2003, and it further cemented the Colts defense as a breeding ground for big running days by the opposition. On the other side of the ball, the Colts couldn’t get their own running game moving, crafting just 56 yards on 22 carries. In a bit of symmetry, Jones-Drew broke Taylor’s mark on a 56-yard carry in the third quarter, matching Indy’s ground output for the day on one glorious play.

On the plus side, quarterback Dan Orlovsky threw for 264 yards and a touchdown, though he did throw two interceptions and was sacked three times. Austin Collie grabbed nine balls for 96 yards and also scored a touchdown, while Reggie Wayne picked up 73 yards in what could be his last game as a Colt. Linebacker Pat Angerer finished his breakout year with another strong performance that included 11 tackles, six of which were solo jobs. Antoine Bethea threw in 10 tackles for good measure (eight solo).

All in all, there wasn’t much positive to take from this game or this season, but at least it’s over now. We can turn our attention in earnest to the rebuilding that lies ahead and the fun of speculating about what the Colts will do with the number-one pick. Should be an interesting 2012.

Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Colts fans since the team arrived in Indianapolis on a snowy morning in 1984. The Blue and White eventually replaced the Chicago Bears as his #1 team, and Super Bowl XLI was a dream come true.

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

The career backup has an expiring contract, and it’s unclear whether he’ll be back with the Colts or another team next season. For Orlovsky, and all those other potential free agents, the season finale Sunday at Jacksonville is about more than draft position. It’s one last chance to make an impression.

“Every week is an audition in this league,” Orlovsky said Thursday, one day after the arrival of his three sons. “There are 32 teams that watch, so it’s important to have a good body of work and Sunday’s game is the last piece of that body of work for this season.”

Things might be looking up for the seven-year veteran, who was unemployed until re-signing with the Colts on Sept. 29.

After losing his first nine NFL starts, Orlovsky helped Indianapolis (2-13) avoid a winless season by winning twice in five days. Another victory would give Indy its first season-ending, three-game winning streak since the Super Bowl-title season of 2006.

Orvlosky isn’t the only one facing an uncertain future in Indy.

More than a dozen players are set to become restricted or unrestricted free agents in March, including a small cadre of 30-something former Pro Bowl players — Robert Mathis, Jeff Saturday and Reggie Wayne.

The Colts also must decide whether to pay four-time league MVP Peyton Manning a $28 million bonus, let him become a free agent or work out a new deal with the franchise quarterback. Team owner Jim Irsay has said that if Manning recovers from neck surgery, he will be back in Indy, no matter the cost.

Questions also surround coach Jim Caldwell, team vice chairman Bill Polian and general manager Chris Polian.

Caldwell went 24-8, won two division titles and an AFC championship in his first two seasons with the Colts but without these last two wins, he could have seen his record slip to .500 this weekend.

After an 0-13 start, some fans openly criticized Caldwell for everything from his style to game management and called for a change. Finishing strong would be evidence that Caldwell did not quit on the season and that the players, who are in his corner, did not quit on him.

“I think Coach Caldwell has done a very good job this season. He has gotten the most out of his players,” Saturday said. “There have just been times that we haven’t played well, so from that standpoint that will be up to Mr. Irsay and whatever he decides to do. But I think Coach Caldwell did a good job, and you’ve just got to keep battling and playing. You just go in, play as hard as you can and hope you get a win.”

Caldwell, who was fired in 2000 at Wake Forest and lost his job again the next season when the Buccaneers got rid of Tony Dungy, already has seen defensive coordinator Larry Coyer fired. More changes could be coming in the offseason or Irsay could bring in a whole new staff.

“Whether you are coaching or playing, it is always the same, and that doesn’t matter if it is in Week 10 and you’re 9-1 or whatever it might be,” Caldwell said. “Nothing is promised to you and there are no guarantees. So I think everybody that has played the game understands that, particularly at this level, and everybody that has coached it, we all coach on one-year contracts for (our) entire career.”

The Polians aren’t entirely safe, either, not with concerns about the inability to groom an adequate backup to Manning. On his weekly radio show, Bill Polian acknowledged the front office was to blame for the lack of talent.

“Should we have done a better job? You bet,” Polian said in October. “But we have to make sure we do a better job going forward.”

Who will be around for the rebuilding project? Nobody knows..

Some contend the Colts should lose Sunday, thereby winning the Andrew Luck sweepstakes rather than winning the game and losing the No. 1 overall pick to St. Louis.

But for players and coaches fighting for their jobs, that’s not the issue.

Playing well enough to win Sunday could make all the difference between getting a job, keeping a job or being out of work in 2012.

“Honestly, I think you’re fighting for your job every single week in this league and it should be that way,” Orlovsky said. “It’s a very privileged job. But you can’t think about it that way. You just have to go out and prepare for each game and do the best you can.”

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.