Colts' Irsay: 'No Way' I Would've Dealt Elway 40 Years Ago

(EDITOR'S NOTE: To listen to the Jim Irsay interview, click on the following link: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/eyetestfortwo?selected=BRCM1847319131)

When Colts’ owner Robert Irsay traded John Elway to Denver in 1983, he made the move without consulting his general manager or head coach. Unfortunately for the city of Baltimore, he didn't consider consulting his son, Jim. If he had, history might have taken a dramatic right-hand turn.

For Elway and the Colts.

That’s because Jim Irsay, now owner of the Indianapolis Colts, said he never would have let Elway walk. Granted, hindsight is 20-20, but Irsay was adamant when he appeared on a recent “Eye Test for Two” podcast and asked what would’ve happened with Elway had he … and not his Dad … owned the team four decades ago.

“There’s no way I would’ve traded him,” he said. “Are you kidding me?”

No, we’re not.

Remember: Elway threatened to sit out the season if the Colts drafted him and urged then-GM Ernie Accorsi to trade him before and during the draft. But Accorsi held firm. Sadly for Colts' fans, so did Irsay. Within a week of the draft, he swung a deal with then-Denver owner Edgar Kaiser -- trading Elway for the Broncos’ first-round pick (Chris Hinton), backup quarterback Mark Herrmann and Denver’s first pick of the 1984 draft.

The rest you know.

Hinton went on to become a decorated offensive lineman with Hall-of-Fame credentials, but offensive linemen don’t take you to Super Bowls. Quarterbacks do, and the results speak for themselves: Elway went to five of them before retiring in 1999, while the Colts went to none until the 2006 season, or two years after Elway was a first-ballot choice for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“My Dad and I disagreed on a lot of things,” said Irsay, “I loved my Dad, (but) his lawyer, Mike Chernoff, was still alive, and he sometimes influenced him the wrong way. That was just the wrong way to go.

“What people don’t realize is that we were stuck in that old stadium (Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium), and my Dad, literally, was broke. I mean, honest to God, that was a $5 million contract back then when he bought the team. He wasn’t planning on owning the entire team. Back then, there were no restrictions on owners’ debt.

“He put up $5 million and borrowed the rest, and we had 17,000 fans the last game with the Houston Oilers (actually, 16,941, the smallest turnout in modern NFL history). It probably worked out best, maybe for John and us.”

It certainly worked out best for Elway. He won two Lombardi Trophies and retired as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. But for Baltimore? Not so much. Within a year, the Colts relocated to Indianapolis, and Baltimore was left without an NFL franchise until the Browns moved there in 1996 and became the Baltimore Ravens.

“(With my Dad), we were a father-and-son team,” said Jim Irsay. “But he wasn’t blessed to be in the business. And then alcoholism affected him a lot because he was like Jekyll and Hyde a lot of ways. He really was a bright, brilliant, sensitive man … actually kind of shy. But when he drank it was like an opposite thing would happen.

“It was tough. I just tried to support him the best I could … I could advise him some, and he would listen sometimes. But in the end, he did what he wanted to do. and I couldn’t stop him many times.

"There were so many outrageous things that happened in those years, especially with coaches getting fired. Of course, you’re sitting there with John (Elway), and there’s absolutely no way you trade him. It’s just unfortunate.”

Irsay's respect for Elway runs so deep that when he put together a list last month of his five greatest NFL players, he included Elway and not Peyton Manning. As you might expect, that produced an immediate pushback from Colts' fans, causing Irsay to revise his Top Five -- this time including Manning and Jerry Rice and excluding Elway and Reggie White.

To this day, some people who were then in and around the Colts believe that, had Irsay not made the trade, Elway would have relented, played for the Colts and led them to success in front of a packed Memorial Stadium. But Jim Irsay is not one of those people. He insisted that, no matter what happened with Elway, the Colts would’ve picked up and moved.

“A lot of people think (that) with my Dad, it was, ‘Oh, he moved in the middle of the night. That’s so sneaky’,“ said Irsay.”(But) that’s not true at all. They were going to pass an eminent domain law, and they were forcing his hand. He had no chance.

“I loved (then-Baltimore mayor) Donald Schaefer. He was a really good guy. He could’ve come up with $10 million and kept the Colts for 25 years. But there was just nothing in the negotiations.”

And keeping Elway wouldn’t have changed that?

“It’s an interesting scenario,” said Irsay, “but I think, quite frankly, he couldn’t have done very much … with that team we had instantly. And I think it would’ve heightened the need to move more … not less. Because to pay his contract, now my Dad is under a lot more duress to come up with money.

“I mean, you don’t understand. I’m talking about making payroll and stuff. People don’t realize these days that some of the older owners like my Dad … it was real difficult times for the owners and with the strikes that started happening. Honestly, I don’t think (Elway) would’ve saved us … If we had taken him, we probably would’ve still moved.”