Former Indianapolis City-County Council President Beurt SerVaas apparently wasn’t too happy that the Colts decided to rest key starters in the second half of their loss to the Jets on Sunday.  The Colts led the Jets 15-10 with about 10 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter when Colts’ coach Jim Caldwell, who had led the Colts to a 14-0 start to the season, decided to pull them.

The Jets came back to win 29-15, and Caldwell and the Colts have been taking heat ever since, including a Yahoo! Sports reporter ridiculously calling it a bigger mistake than Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind rather than the ball to start overtime.

But none of the criticism appears to be more ridiculous than that of SerVaas, who has said he will petition the council to ask for refunds for all fans upset about the loss (he hasn’t found anyone on the council to sponsor his proposal).

“They came to see a game played honestly. It was not played honestly, ” he said.

Umm, you may not like it–some fans may not like it–even some sports reporters may not like it–but it most certainly was played honestly.  While Curtis Painter is definitely not Peyton Manning–hell, I didn’t even realize he was the Colts’ backup–he is an NFL player, with an NFL contract, that goes to NFL practices every day, meaning he was out there playing honestly, doing his best to win the game (even if his best isn’t very good).

Would you ask for a refund if Manning got hurt, forcing Painter into a game?

Should Vikings fans get a refund for games earlier in the season when Tarvaris Jackson replaced Brett Favre in several lopsided wins earlier this season?  Surely some fans would have liked to see the scores run up even more.

Do baseball fans get refunds when they find out that Joe Mauer or Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols aren’t playing?

Do basketball fans get a refund when LeBron James comes off the court for a breather?  Maybe Pittsburgh Penguin fans should get a pro-rated refund for every minute that Sid Crosby isn’t on the ice?

Peter King even addressed it in his weekly column:

Tweet of the Week

“How would we look at a team that threw away a game to get a higher draft pick? How is that dif than the Colts game today?”
— alvaradoangel, Angel Alvarado, late in the Colts’ 29-15 loss to the Jets, ruining Indy’s chance for a perfect season.

Good question, Angel. Very good question.

No, it isn’t a very good question–there’s a big difference between tanking entire portions of a season to get a better draft pick (common in the NBA, very rare in the NFL in my opinion) and resting (and protecting from injury) several star players for the last third of a game as you prepare for a run at the Super Bowl–the much bigger objective for the Colts season.

Does it suck for the fans not to get to see Peyton Manning for the whole game?

Sure.

Would those fans trade missing him for the last part of a game and losing to the Jets for a Super Bowl victory?

I’m guessing most would–even if there’s no guarantee that resting him means winning the Super Bowl, nor that he would have gotten hurt playing the last quarter of the game (just like there’s no guarantee that they would have beaten the Jets if he had stayed in).

Just a thought, but maybe SerVaas should stick to politics–heck, unless I’ve missed an update, the city has even bigger fish to fry even with the Colts–maybe SerVaas can come up with a way for the Capital Improvement Board to actually afford to run Lucas Oil Stadium for the Colts’ 2010 season.