Colt Owner Enjoying Perfect Season so Far

Jim Irsay would rather spend his time making the Indianapolis Colts a winner than become a spectacle.

The Colts’ owner avoids late-game sideline appearances, gladly delegates football authority to team President Bill Polian and Coach Tony Dungy, and refuses to question any decisions about how to finish the regular season. Thirteen straight wins have reinforced Irsay’s belief he has the right men to make the right calls.

Even now, Irsay finds it difficult to get enamored with chasing history. But as long as it comes with a Super Bowl trophy, Irsay will accept the questions, the distractions and the inescapable publicity associated with chasing perfection.

“We’d love to go 16-0 and follow that up with 19-0 and accomplish what people really thought was unthinkable in the salary cap era,” Irsay said Friday. “Who wouldn’t want to do that?”

The Colts’ success has created some big changes.

Phones are ringing more frequently, and the pressure and demands continue to increase with each successive win -- yet the low-profile Irsay still seems to be enjoying himself.

Experience has taught the 46-year-old Irsay how to cope with this.

Since his father, Bob, swapped teams with Carroll Rosenbloom 33 years ago, Jim Irsay has seen and done just about everything in the NFL. He grew up around players, spending Sunday afternoons as a team ballboy. In college, he thrived on a steady diet of golf and weight training. After graduating in 1982, he joined the family business and two years later -- after the Colts’ famed midnight move -- became vice president and general manager of the Colts. In 1997, he took over as team owner when his father died.

What Irsay has done since then has been masterful: He brought in a football man, Polian, to rebuild the Colts’ once-proud tradition and needed less than a decade to turn Indianapolis from an NFL also-ran into a Super Bowl contender.

This year, Irsay’s team finds itself on the cusp of history. A victory today over San Diego would make Indianapolis and the 1972 Miami Dolphins the only teams in league history to go 14-0.

“To go 11-2 or 10-3 in this league is incredible,” he said. “To be 13-0 is something really special. But I think that [the comparisons] are premature because I think you have to be a championship team. The only thing we’ve done is position ourselves for the postseason.”

Irsay was there, on the sideline at Miami, when the Dolphins won their 14th straight game. It was Dec. 16, 1972, and Irsay was a ballboy as Don Shula’s squad closed out the season with a 16-0 victory over the Colts. All he has from that day are memories of the Dolphins and Jackie Gleason calling him to the stands.

But Irsay would rather focus on the one item still missing from an office adorned with prized possessions ranging from signed Colts posters to game balls to original notes from Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon.

What’s missing? The elusive Lombardi Trophy that still seems too far off for Irsay to contemplate.

“I think it was [Broncos owner] Pat Bowlen who told me that when he won his first Super Bowl, he slept with the trophy in his bed because it took so much work,” Irsay said, laughing. “I’ve not really thought about sleeping with the trophy because it’s too far down the road and too many things can happen.”