Jim Irsay Is Still Sending Late Night Tweets About Andrew Luck, This Time After The Commanders Reportedly Reached Out To See If Luck Wanted To Play Football Again
Quick timeline of events:
- Colts draft Anthony Richardson with the 4th overall pick in the draft.
- The next day, Jim Irsay asks Twitter (as all good owners do), if he should draft Will Levis and go "Montana - Young for franchise", whatever the hell that means.
- 10 days later, Jim Irsay reminds everyone (on Twitter, of course) that the Colts still have the rights to Andrew Luck
Jim Irsay is a loose cannon on the internet, so my first thought was, "My guy, can you stop talking about other quarterbacks? We just drafted Anthony Richardson who is supposed to be the future of our franchise. Can we just give him our support and stop acting like a meme."
Can't we just give our full attention to Anthony Richardson right now? I know he's not a slam dunk or anything, but at least let him start rookie camp before you start publicly worrying about your backup plan. Anthony Richardson probably has thick enough that this doesn't bother him. I don't want to imply that he's too mentally weak to handle a crazy owner, but idk.. I'd imagine he'd prefer his owner not be talking about a new quarterback every week.
But whatever. It's probably not even fair to say that's what he's doing, or to imply that he's undermining Anthony Richardson. That was just my initial reaction. To be fair to Irsay, he's absolutely right. When Andrew Luck retired he had 3 years remaining on his contract. In the NFL, when a player retires, his rights are retained by the team he was under contract with at the time of retirement. Meaning that if Andrew Luck ever decides to come back to the league, in laymen's terms, the Colts have "first dibs".
It's the same rule that got the Miami Dolphins 1st round draft pick forfeited this year, along with next year's 3rd round pick, for illegally contacting both Tom Brady & now Broncos Head Coach Sean Payton. So theoretically, if a team is contacting Luck, they're subject to a similar fate.
The general consensus is that Irsay is directing his tweet at the Washington Commanders. According to a report by ESPN, the Commanders were quite literally cold calling any and all quarterbacks who they thought could be interested in playing football for them. Reportedly, Andrew Luck was one of those quarterbacks.
I don't know what Irsay's angle is here. We know he hates Dan Snyder, who technically still owns the Commanders, so maybe he's just sticking it to him. Maybe he thinks if he makes a big enough stink somehow the Colts will be compensated (although I think that would be unprecedented). But one thing I truly believe is that Jim Irsay is still not over Andrew Luck. Andrew Luck broke him. There was a whole article in The Athletic, that broke down how Jim Irsay essentially lost his mind ever since Luck up and quit on the team. I can't help but think in the back of his brain he stills thinks about the possibility of getting him back someday, despite the fact that he's 33 years old and about 100 pounds below his playing weight.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking this entire thing, and Irsay's tweet was nothing more than the aftermath of a pint of whisky and a few extra Vicodin on a lazy Sunday evening. I certainly can't read into the mind of a fucking mad man. But moving forward, I would prefer Jim Irsay stop fawning over quarterbacks other than Anthony Richardson. At least until we have a chance to see what he's made of.
However, I will say what I always say when Jim Irsay does Jim Irsay things. I love having him as an owner. Overall, the Colts have been a fine franchise to cheer for over the course of my life, and he's far from boring. Having a crazy owner is fun, and he cares DEEPLY about the on-field success of the Colts. That's the #1 thing you can ask for.