"A month ago, I would have bet the other way. There's no way I could have imagined that Bill Polian would be on the street today, and that his former Bills protege, A.J. Smith, would still be on the job in San Diego.

Good thing I'm not a betting man. Colts owner Jim Irsay shocked the NFL on Monday by firing Bill and Chris Polian, his vice chairman and general manager. A day later, Chargers owner Dean Spanos bucked public opinion by retaining Smith as GM and keeping embattled coach Norv Turner on board as well.

But once I had a few days to mull it over, Polian's firing began to make sense. We lived through this in Buffalo, remember. Early in 1993, a few days after the Bills' third Super Bowl loss, Ralph Wilson fired Polian, who built those teams."