Luck was never contacted

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by Oldcolt

As an aside that 1988 trade was made by none other than Jim Irsay in his stint aa owner/gm. Man those were depressing times.

Actually Jim was just the GM at the time. He didn't inherent ownership of the team until his dad Robert passed away in Jan. 1997, which was when Tobin was in charge. Of course Jim upgraded the GM position to Polian as soon as he could, and the rest is history.

In October of 1987, Jim Irsay pulled off a blockbuster trade for Eric Dickerson to immediately give the franchise respectability, and a much-needed shot in the arm......with the best running back in the game on board, the Colts immediately won the AFC East in 1987 with a record of 9-6 (they only played 15 games that season), and followed that up with a winning season in 1988 (9-7), and a .500 season in 1989 (8-8.) At that time, the notion of the Indianapolis Colts having 3 consecutive non-losing seasons was unheard of, as that had not happened since their days in Baltimore from 1975 through 1977.

After bottoming out in 1991 with a record of 1-15 after Dickerson was passed his prime, the Colts attained a similar 3-year run of respectability when Jim Harbaugh came on board as the starting quarterback ....... they went 8-8 in 1994, 9-7 in 1995, and 9-7 in 1996 while twice qualifying for the playoffs as a Wildcard.

Yes, Irsay made a couple of decent moves that brought the Colts up to respectable from the cellar, which included the Dickerson trade. But then the Young and George trades pretty much drove the Colts back to being a laughingstock.

Credit for the '94-'96 teams goes to Tobin as he was hired as the GM in '94 and brought in/drafted Harbaugh, Faulk, Bennett, etc.