Polian sees a way he could have stayed
Peter King spoke with Bill Polian regarding the new trade deadline. Polian thinks if they had two more weeks the Colts would have made a different decision at QB in 2011:
"I think the deadline being moved last year would have made a difference for us,'' said Bill Polian, the Colts president until owner Jim Irsay fired him in January. "We would have rekindled our interest in Orton. In Week 6, we knew our quarterback situation wasn't great, but after a couple more weeks, we realized the situation was bad. We probably would have called Denver, who'd gone to [Tim] Tebow by then, and said, 'Hey, we'll give you a three [a third-round draft choice] for Orton.' ''
It's a pretty remarkable admission actually. With Orton under center could the Colts had won another game? It's hard to look back and know but given the fact that Colts quarterbacks actually netted a negative DVOA it isn't hard to imagine Orton contributing enough for a single win.
if the colts won even 1 more game or at least 2 more (they definitely would have with orton or orlovsky in there more) peyton would still be here to finish his career, we would have gotten 3 or 4 high picks for rgIII...
also polian saying this is BS because he had an opportunity to get orton for free when he was released and didn't even put in a waiver claim. so, whatever, polian is lying again to protect his ego. shocking.
@jimfix Orton was waived by Denver two days after week 11. KC claimed him on 11/23 and he wasn't ready to play on week 12. So KC paid $2.5MM for five weeks of Orton.
Assuming he had played for the Colts (and not gotten injured like he did on his first pass attempt for KC), Orton's first two games would have been @NE and @BAL. It's safe to say he had little chance to win either of those so soon after joining the team. Of the last three games, Orlovsky won two of them. Could Orton have won all three? Maybe, but not "definitely".
Now assume that the trade deadline had been week 8 instead of week 6. Week 7 is when Curtis Painter melted down against the Saints. It's safe to assume Polian would have traded for Orton shortly after. Orton wouldn't have been ready for week 8 @TEN but the next three games were at home and two of them (JAX and CAR) were very winnable. Had we got him in week 8, Orton had a decent chance to go 3-5 in those last eight games, maybe 4-4 or even 5-3.
So no, Polian isn't talking BS. Trading for Orton in week 8 might have made sense. Paying $2.5MM to get him in week 12 would have been a waste. That makes a difference to a guy who is an actual GM, not just a sports fan playing imaginary games with other people's money.
@jimfix 1 RGIII 2 would have replaced the Vikings, also it would not have been for free, they still would have had to pay him some salary, and after the Kerry Collins incident, I think they were more cautious when thinking about bringing in a QB.
@paulcareyjr but that still doesn't make sense. if polian was considering adding orton after week 6 as he claims, and orton was released in week 11, what changed in those five games? at what point was he considering adding orton after week 6 but before week 11? the only thing i can think of is that not only did they give up on collins but they should have realized painter couldn't play (they should have realized that a couple of years ago but that is another story).
long story short, polian is lying.
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Yeah that would have been not so good for us, we were way off of doing anything in the division, I think it would have been doing too much, the best we could have did was be 8-8 at that point.
