A Colts Fan Apologizes

Written by Nate Dunlevy | 27 December 2011

This landed in my inbox last week and it cracked me up. Enjoy.

An Open Letter to Colts Nation

There’s no getting around it.

It’s my fault.

Clearly, indisputably, my fault.

Forget Manning’s neck injury.  Forget the subsequent revolving door at QB.  Forget the injuries to Dallas Clark, Joe Addai, Drake Nevis, Melvin Bullitt, Gary Brackett, et al.  Forget allowing Clint Session and Kelvin Hayden to sign with other teams.  Forget Anthony Gonzalez’ and Jerry Hughes’ disappearing acts. Forget Jim Caldwell’s elan, Bill Polian’s hubris, Jim Irsay’s inscrutability.

It’s all about me.
For the first 14 weeks of this NFL season, I sat in suburban Indianapolis, following the Colts’ fortunes – or, rather misfortunes.  I think I went through all five stages of grief within the first couple of weeks.  I even attended the Steelers’ game on that Sunday night long ago, when the team played just well enough against the defending AFC champs to offer a glimmer of hope...only to get dashed against the rocks time and time again, game after game after game.

But like a masterpiece painting that you can’t fully appreciate until you step away from it and take it all in, the real cause wasn’t obvious to me until this weekend.

It is all my fault.  And for that I apologize.  Mea culpa, as the Romans would have said a couple of millennia ago.  My bad, as most of us say today, much less elegantly.

This past weekend, unlike the 14 before it, I was out of town, visiting my daughter in New York City.  It was an early Christmas for our family, and a wonderful time to be together and see the city.  On Sunday afternoon, we also made a little time to watch some football.

That’s when it started to sink in – when the Colts won, in my absence.  Not only that, but both the Giants and Jets lost, in rather spectacular fashion.  Then, on our way home, we stayed overnight in metropolitan Pittsburgh, just in time to watch the Monday-nighter.

Saw a lot of Steeler fans when we went out to dinner.  I guess I should have told them what to expect.  Although, for safety’s sake, I’m glad I didn’t.

Those who know me are aware that I’m a pretty data-driven guy.  And here’s the cold, hard, data: there is no getting around the fact that of the 16 times this season when I was physically present in a city which had an NFL team who was playing a game (count ‘em up – 13 Colts games, the Giants, Jets, and Steelers), that team lost.

So there’s your “perfect” season.  I’m 0-16.

I think I will not mention this little “trend” to my friends in Chicago, whom I will be visiting over New Year’s.  We’ve always had such a good relationship, even despite the Colts-Bears Super Bowl of a few years ago, and I would hate to get unceremoniously thrown out of their home before we have a chance to ring in 2012 (and week 17) together.

All is not lost, though.  My mother-in-law, always thinking ahead, asked my wife to make sure I stay home for this Thursday’s game against the Texans, so the Colts won’t lose their first-pick-in-the-draft status.  I plan to comply, happily.

But there is so much more that I could do.  And there is really only one thing to do which will set things right with the team, the city, and the fans that I so care about.

Before next season, I’m going to move to Foxborough.

-Steve G