No more Saturday?

Indianapolis Colts fans have grown accustomed to what many, by and far, deem good decisions regarding players.

Edgerrin James left town in 2006 after completing two straight 1,500-yard seasons, and the Indianapolis football world didn’t come to an end. Eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Marvin Harrison seems to be headed out of town, but the receiving corps isn’t going to suffer.

However, the time of questionable Colts personnel moves leading to unexpectedly positive results might have ended this weekend in the form of center Jeff Saturday.

Simply, the Colts gave the veteran offensive lineman – he’s completed his previous contract and is up for a new one – an offer that was apparently so underwhelming that Saturday, a huge fan of playing and living in Indianapolis and being a part of the community, had to walk away.

An offer he could refuse, they say.

Now, Saturday is determined to test out the NFL’s free agent market starting Friday to gauge what other offers he could find around the league as a three-time Pro Bowl selection and the anchor of quarterback Peyton Manning’s illustrious offense.

Such a plan wasn’t really expected for the longtime lineman, who had grown fond of his time in Indy. Saturday told the Indianapolis Star this past weekend that a “perfect world” would mean he stays in Indianapolis “for good,” but the offer “just wasn’t there.”

Saturday has done a lot more for the perennially high-ranked Colts offense than just call the huddle, snap the ball and push around the opposing defenders. In fact, statistics show that with Saturday in the lineup, the Colts are a better team.

The North Carolina grad missed four games in 2008, but those were the first times Saturday didn’t appear in the starting lineup since he sat out two games in the 2004 season – a stretch of 60 straight games, including playoffs and regular season, that he lined up in front of Manning. 

Furthermore, in the ’04 and ’08 seasons combined, Manning’s passer rating was a lofty 107.0 when Saturday played and 97.0 when he didn’t. 

Sure, you’re thinking 10 points on a rating scale isn’t a notable difference, but in 2008, Manning’s fifth-best rating of 95.0 put him 10.3 points higher than Carolina’s 18th-ranked Jake Delhomme in a ranking of just 32 quarterbacks.

In a league where only 12 teams make the postseason and only two play for the Super Bowl, such a difference could be what truly makes or breaks a team’s season.

The Colts believe Saturday won’t be an extremely needed asset as the team moves forward for two reasons: recent draft selections and Saturday’s age.

If those recent draft picks work out, they’ll have to make a marked improvement over 2008’s four Saturday-less games that saw Manning’s passer rating drop to a paltry 83.8.

I’ll partially concede that Saturday’s age – he’s currently 33 – means the sun is setting on his career, but in 2009’s Pro Bowl the average age of the five selected centers was 32.

Saturday’s got a few good years left, and the Colts determining that a guy of high caliber on the field and high leadership off it isn’t a valuable asset leaves me quite puzzled.

We’ve been down this road before, but this time it doesn’t seem to be leading in the
right direction.