Good Bye Aaron and SeatGate

Aaron Moorehead has almost assuredly played his last game for the Colts. A preseason stalwart who had a good radio show, he was unproductive the last few weeks and has been placed on IR by the club, ending his season and likely his career with this club. He finally got his chance to play, and it was evident to everyone with two eyes that he couldn't cut it. On the bright side, Dan Klecko is back.

I want to mention a couple of things I've seen around the web in various places. Several sites have mentioned that Manning "only lost one weapon" over the past few weeks. These people would count Anthony Gonzalez as a back up and think that offensive line play is an afterthought. We've been saying for weeks that the loss of Tony Ugoh is responsible for the slow start in Carolina and the losses to NE and SD and crap fest that was KC. The losses of Diem and Ugoh are ENORMOUS and can't be overemphasized. There is almost no elite offense in football that could adequately function with back ups at both tackle slots. Manning could have survived with the WRs (as bad as they were), but the O line play made it impossible. One site suggested Manning ditch his pride and call run plays. Uh, don't you need holes for run plays to work? Colts running backs have had more -5 and -3 yard carries in the last three weeks than at any time in the last couple of years. Addai has played better than I've ever seen a running back play and barely chalked up 70 yards a game the last two weeks. I'm not trying to apologize for Manning; I'm just trying to give the ACTUAL source of the trouble as opposed to simplistic minds who blame all losses and all wins on the quarterback.

There is other stuff that is bugging me, but it's more NE related crap that won't go away until January (when it will dissipate in a cloud of inevitable hilarity) so there is no point in getting worked up over it.

The seating assignments for the new stadium are out and not everyone is happy. Rob has informed us that the Star is doing a piece on this issue tomorrow, so we are going to hold off commenting too much until it comes out, and it becomes clear how many fans are affected, but I thought you all would appreciate his thoughts and the team's response. Our tickets are in a different section, and it appears that our new seats are basically in the same (as much as is possible) spot as the old ones. It's unclear if this issue affected only the endzones or other blocks of seats as well. If you have had a similar experience to Rob, let us know.

Demond Sanders: You make a good point about the number of run plays that have resulted in negative yardage. It's like Dominic Rhodes is in the backfield again. The Colts were one of the best rushing teams in the league through the first 8 weeks of the season. Now Addai has to dodge three guys to get back to the line of scrimmage. Kenton Keith gets stoned for a loss every time he enters the game. Something is amiss and it has nothing to do with Manning.

I would like to share my experience with the ticket conversion. Our current tickets are in Section 343 on the aisle. Our new tickets will be in Section 616 on the aisle. We will still be located in the upper level on about the ten yard line. The only real difference is that we got moved two rows backwards, which is not a huge deal. It would appear they did a very good job of matching our current seats. Of course until we actually sit in the new building we won't have any idea whether or not we were jobbed. Who is to say Section 616 is the same distance from the field?

I think one of the factors that hurt Rob is the end zone seats are drastically cheaper than the seats on the sides, like ours. A single ticket for Section 616 was tentatively scheduled to cost $640 per season, while a ticket in the upper end zone was scheduled to cost $240. Not only are there fewer of those seats, according to the Colts, but they are likely in very high demand because of the affordability factor. Rob's current tickets are in the $640 range so I guess the Colts moved him over to what they feel corresponds to that price range in Lucas Oil. What I don't understand, however, is why they wouldn't honor his clear request to stay in the end zone? He has had first row end zone seats for 20 years. If anyone should get priority it should be those ticket holders.

Update: Here's the link to the Phil B. piece. It seems that this is an isolated and not wide spread problem. What had really infuriated him was the thought that the team was jacking over the whole fanbase. Rob writes:

DZ, Thanks having you guys and Phil to share this with has helped more then anything else. I'm trying to keep this all in perspective, but every person I talk to about it just keeps raising my Blood Pressure. I'll keep you guys in the loop. I'm glad that you didn't get screwed, I'm really hoping that our situation is fairly isolated, that would actually help in some way. For some reason, it would be better in my mind if some weird concoction of circumstances led us to getting such bad placement while the vast majority of ticket holders were given fair treatment. It wouldn't change our situation but = this isn't a feeling I want to be sharing with a ton of people. It will be very interesting at the next home game to find out where others in our area were moved to.Thanks for letting me vent to you and via your blog. You guys are great, at this point I want to stay connected about the Colts mostly just to keep sharing with you and the other bloggers out there. Thanks

No problem man. If other people out there aren't happy, let us know, but for now, we'll call it a bad break and let it go.