Now You See Him, Now You Don't

"I covered minor league baseball when I was a sports-writer," recalls Accorsi, now G.M. of the Browns. "Elway wasn't going to give up a chance at the Hall of Fame to play in Greensboro, North Carolina, which is exactly where he would have been sent. If we'd been patient we could have signed him."

Instead, Irsay traded him within a week, without consulting either Accorsi or Kush. Denver gave up its own No. 1 pick in 1983 (offensive lineman Chris Hinton), its first pick in the 1984 draft and quarterback Mark Herrmann. As part of the deal, Denver also agreed to schedule the Colts for preseason games in each of the next two years. "Denver preseason games are one of the richest games you can get," Irsay recently admitted. "$450,000 to $500,000 they paid us." That gives you a pretty good idea of whether Irsay cared more about winning or turning a profit.

That same year, when it came time to try to sign the Colts' second-round draft pick, linebacker Vernon Maxwell, Irsay's crude behavior temporarily ended the negotiations. Maxwell and his agent, Bob Cohen, met Irsay and Chernoff in Los Angeles. Irsay was drinking and became abusive, at one point offending Cohen, who is Jewish, sufficiently that he and Maxwell got up and left. "All I said was 'I don't want to be Jewed to death,' " Irsay recalls. "He got up, and I apologized. Mr. Cohen made a big show of it, but I didn't mean anything. It's a natural expression. Colloquial."

It is impossible to chronicle how many times Irsay told people he was not going to move the Colts. No one really believed him when he said it. One of the last times was on the Friday before the 1984 Super Bowl, after word leaked out that Irsay had a meeting scheduled with the governor of Arizona, Bruce Babbitt. Irsay, who was in Las Vegas at the time, abruptly canceled the meeting with Babbitt and flew to Baltimore. There he held an impromptu press conference with Mayor Schaefer at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, ostensibly to assure the Baltimore press that the rumored negotiations with Phoenix were false. Irsay was reported by the Baltimore News-American to have "smelled of alcohol" and showed "signs of drinking," and since the scene was captured on videotape there was plenty of supporting visual evidence. It was a stormy session in which Irsay repeatedly cursed reporters, rambled nonsensically and asked, "What are you all doing here? I don't know what in the hell this is all about. I have no intention of moving the goddamn team."

In the meantime, Baltimore, Phoenix and Indianapolis all were negotiating furiously to get, or retain, the crumbling franchise. Irsay did not attend the league meetings in Hawaii on March 18, sending in his place his son Jim. The league, having been burned in its lawsuit against Al Davis and the Raiders, made it clear that it would not try to stop Irsay from moving the Colts. It asked only that the league be notified by April 1, so that it could start making up the 1984 schedule.

As it turned out, Baltimore probably ended up making Irsay the most generous offer of the three: a reported $15 million loan at 6.5%, a guarantee of at least 43,000 tickets sold per game for six years, and the purchase of the team's Owings Mills training facility for $4 million. The Maryland legislature overplayed its hand, however, when, on March 27, one of its chambers passed legislation that would have enabled the state to seize the Colts in an eminent-domain proceeding. Irsay read about it the morning of the 28th, and called Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut with the news that the Colts were moving to Indy. "They not only threw down the gauntlet, but they put a gun to his head and cocked it and asked, 'Want to see if it's loaded?' " says Chernoff of the eminent-domain bill. "They forced him to make a decision that day. People talk all the time about how we moved under the cover of darkness, but tell me, who was laying in the weeds?"

And presto-chango, Bob Irsay has a new start. A new lease that runs until 2004 with two five-year options for renewal. A new city that guaranteed him $7 million in ticket and preseason radio and TV revenues for each of the first 12 years, plus the first $500,000 of revenue from the luxury boxes. On top of that, the city has built the Colts a new $4.4 million practice facility, which it has sold to Irsay for one dollar. He has new fans who are good-natured and, thus far, undemanding, preferring to be on the bottom of the barrel looking up rather than on the outside looking in. Even that miserable 1-13 has an upside—in the person of Vinny Testaverde. Rumors to the contrary—that the Rams would give up rookie quarterback Jim Everett, running back Barry Redden and their first pick in the '87 draft for the rights to Testaverde—Irsay says, "I will give you my word right here, we will take that first pick. I've already had seven calls, and they won't get it. No, no, no."

Irsay's supporters are quick to point out that he has opened the Colts' bulging coffers this season to sign such talented free agents as Dextor Clinkscale and All-Pro Dwight Hicks. And the salaries of the coaches, Irsay will tell you, have increased some $650,000 in the past year—and this is before Ron Meyer was hired. Mind you, the Indianapolis payroll is still among the bottom five of the league. But no longer are the Colts 28th of 28, as they were in their final years in Baltimore, where, annually, such stars as Laird, John Dutton, Bert Jones, Lydell Mitchell and Curtis Dickey were cut, traded or disgruntled because of salary disputes.

Of course, Irsay can afford to be generous. He admits that the Colts were the "second or third" most profitable team in football in 1984 and 1985, running "close to $10 million" in the black—other estimates have put the profit margin for those two years at $20 million—and even with the horrendous showing of the 1986 team, the Colts will only drop back in the pack to no worse than eighth most profitable.

"Maybe some of the things he got burned on in Baltimore, he learned from," says Indianapolis Mayor Hudnut, a Presbyterian minister who apparently believes in miracles. "He's trying to be a good citizen here, and he's off to a good start."