Revisiting The Trick Play Laughed At ‘Round The World
That ill-fated, humiliating fake-punt/trick-play thing was on October 18, 2015. Even then, on that night, we recognized it for what it was: an utterly baffling and yet darkly amusing sequence of events—an enigma wrapped in ineptness wrapped in a raw sewage fire of poor decisions. But it was an outlier of sorts at that time. An aberration. Certainly not the norm. It was half #WTF?/half #LOL! among Colts fans on Twitter that night, if memory serves. There was no panic.
That was two years ago. Looking back on that debacle now, though, it doesn’t feel like an outlier at all. It doesn’t seem amusing, either. Quite the opposite, really. Two years later, re-watching The Trick Play now feels like a quick, terrifying glimpse into the dim-witted soul of this Colts Era that has apparently festered just below the shiny exterior of Andrew Luck’s playoff wins and general brilliance. October 18, 2015 wasn’t an outlier. It was an MRI scan.
The competence-saving façade is gone now, of course, and it has been for quite some time—its shoulder rotted to the bone, murdered by friendly-fire and poisonous mismanagement. Only the open sores of football negligence remain. (Ewww, it’s all infected and Kamir Aiken-y!) We are now in the Upside Down, gang, and we will be for the foreseeable future. Griff Whalen is your new center, so to speak, Colt Anderson your quarterback. Your defense is a herd of nearsighted squirrels. Buckle up.
Seriously, go back and soak it all in again. Relive the magic! Let the poorly designed, poorly executed foulness of it all wash over you! Take special notice of the half-ass attempt of deception the Colts were selling that NOBODY was buying, not even from the beginning. Doesn’t matter! The Colts had made their unorthodox decision and they were sticking to it, consequences be damned. Even when it becomes very, very apparent that this is a cataclysmic, moronic call that will literally endanger the physical health of the poor bastard under center—while in no feasible way increasing the Colts’ likelihood of succeeding in the long run—they do not relent. They do not reassess. They march on, undeterred and unhinged, right off the goddamn cliff. It is, on the whole, a stunningly, incomprehensibly inept chain of events.
And that is precisely how the Colts ruined a hundred years of Andrew Luck’s prime, starting in Week 3 of 2015—against the Titans—and essentially how they ruin everything else these days.
Oh, and go back and watch the fake-punt/trick-play thing too. Its ugly incompetence is only surpassed by its eerie foreshadowing.
