Colts' season ends in disappointment again

Updated: January 18, 2006, 5:42 PM ET

The Colts' season ended in disappointment, but that doesn't mean it's time to overhaul the roster or write off Indy's future title hopes.

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By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com

Not even 10 minutes into another prematurely begun offseason, some disappointed Indianapolis Colts fans were venting their well-stoked anger on sports-talk radio Sunday evening, suggesting that it is time to enact the improbable.

Trade quarterback Peyton Manning, a few of them implored, the displeasure palpable from Anderson to Zionsville, and all precincts in between. The Hoosier State is hot about the latest postseason pratfall, ticked off about the conclusion to a season that was fueled by a team poised on the cusp of history and ended with the Colts repeating their dismal playoff history.

Cooler heads, though, figure to prevail in a franchise that is every bit as chagrined as its ticket-buying constituents, and perhaps more so.

That the Colts have failed to win a Super Bowl title under the troika of team president Bill Polian, coach Tony Dungy and Manning will be the sobering reality that hangs over the team for the entire offseason. That the Colts have averaged a dozen regular-season wins over the last four years, qualified for the playoffs four straight times and won three consecutive division titles will also be the reality that precludes Indianapolis officials from making a knee-jerk response.

Blow up the roster? Trade Manning in what would be a swap of epic proportions? Let Dungy walk away? Refill the mammoth hole that sits just south of the RCA Dome, where a new stadium is being constructed, because the Colts didn't deliver the Super Bowl title this year that would have quieted the critics who didn't want to use public funds to give owner Jim Irsay a state-of-the-art facility? Declare that the only athletic season that counts in Indiana is one that includes sneakers and hoops?

It won't happen.

"The disappointing thing about football," said Colts guard Jake Scott, sitting in front of his locker stall on Sunday evening, surrounded by the usual tape and gauze and jockstrap remnants of another season, "is that you build six months to the climax, and you don't quite get to where you want. And all of a sudden, you're back to the start, you know? It's a cutoff. You go 100 miles per hour and you hit the wall. It's rough."

But even having failed to punch through the wall for another year, even with the clear frustrations of yet another season of unfulfilled aspirations, it's not really like the Colts have to start all over again.

There will be changes because, even for the most stable NFL franchise, offseason flux in the era of the salary cap and free agency is a given. The Colts' pending unrestricted free agents include four starters: tailback Edgerrin James, wide receiver Reggie Wayne, left defensive end Raheem Brock and strong linebacker David Thornton. Defensive tackle Larry Tripplett, a part-time starter, also can be unrestricted. Kicker Mike Vanderjagt, who was so incredibly wide right with the potential game-tying field goal Sunday, isn't a favorite of management. The fact that he is the most accurate field goal kicker in NFL history will mean about as much to Colts brass in the offseason as it did Sunday night.

So the Colts' locker room will be different next season. On Sunday, that locker room was comprised of players with heads lowered and voices barely audible, with the unmistakable reality of opportunity squandered permeating the environment. And, truth be told, this was certainly the best opportunity for Indianapolis, nearly universally regarded as the NFL's best assemblage of talent, to have quieted the critics by bringing home a Vince Lombardi trophy.

That doesn't mean, however, it was the team's last best chance.

To reinforce the notion that opportunity doesn't always pound down the door, that it sometimes creeps up to the Super Bowl portal and just raps lightly, the Colts on Sunday didn't have to look any further than a couple hundred yards of concrete corridor from where they were lamenting their season's end. Do you think, after an ugly three-game losing skid in late November and early December, that the Pittsburgh Steelers thought they'd be just one victory shy of a Super Bowl invitation right now? Do you think this is the best team that Steelers coach Bill Cowher, another guy with big numbers who doesn't own a ring, has ever had?

Uh, no and no.

The history of the playoffs is littered with superb teams that were nudged to the off ramp before ever traveling the Super Bowl highway. Yeah, the Colts have experienced more than their share of detours, and Sunday's defeat was arguably one of the darkest times in the history of sport in Hoosierdom, but none of that means Indianapolis will never find its way. It certainly doesn't mean the Colts will quit trying.

Assuming that Dungy returns -- and make no mistake, the next few days, when there is nothing for which he must prepare and when he will have quiet time to reflect on his personal loss last month, will be a difficult period -- the Colts figure to return again to the playoffs for the 2006 season. And if that's the case, it will be up to the Colts to prove they are the best team on the field for three or four straight weekends.

On Sunday afternoon, the fact is, Pittsburgh was better. Better coached and with a superb game plan on both sides of the football. Better execution. Better adjustments. When it came to the X's and O's, the Colts didn't mind their P's and Q's. Indianapolis failed to make adjustments for too long and, when it finally reacted, the Steelers' countermeasures were brilliant. And maybe there is something to the notion that Manning and the Colts don't play as well against 3-4 defensive fronts.

Most media types, this correspondent included, fully expected the Colts to ride a wave of emotion, given the events of the past month. But from the outset, with the Steelers going 84 yards on a first offensive series in which they displayed the kind of surgical precision one characteristically expects from the Colts, there was a notable dispassion. On Sunday, at least, the Steelers were the better team, by a margin much wider than the final score.

James noted that, in securing the home-field advantage this year, a holy grail of sorts for a team that had grown weary of traveling to New England every postseason, the Colts had put everything in place. "And then," James lamented quietly, "we folded."

The bet is, though, that the Colts brass isn't likely to fold when it sits down to evaluate the ruins of 2005 and to look forward to 2006. In a league in which, like poker, you've got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, look for the Colts to hold on to most of the players who brought them to this point. Overriding disappointment is not likely to prompt a wide-reaching overhaul.

In his parting words to his players, Dungy urged them Monday to use the disappointment of this season as a spark for next year. Chances are that the guys who have been around for a while were just as weary of hearing Dungy's address as the Colts' coach was having to deliver it for another season.

But not weary enough, probably, to have ignored it.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. To check out Len's chat archive, click here .