(PhatzRadio / USA Today) — INDIANAPOLIS — Colts owner Jim Irsay let QB Peyton Manning know last week that he didn’t want his franchise’s image tarnished despite the ongoing question as to whether the four-time MVP will continue to be a part of it a few weeks from now.

“I don’t think it’s in a good interest to paint the horseshoe in a negative light,” Irsay said. “He’s such a big part of that and everything else, but the horseshoe always comes first.”

NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin thinks Irsay needs a reminder of where the horseshoe (a reference to the Colts’ logo) was before Manning’s arrival as the No. 1 overall pick of the 1998 draft.

“Whatever understanding we have of what Irsay called ‘the horseshoe’ is Peyton Manning,” said Irvin. “The horseshoe is first? The horseshoe is nothing before Peyton got here. You could’ve taken that horseshoe, and you couldn’t have given it away. It wasn’t lucky, it was killing you.”

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The Colts had been in Indianapolis 14 years prior to Manning’s arrival. They reached postseason three times, had five winning seasons but never won as many as 10 regular-season games. With Manning over the next 14 seasons, including 2011 when he didn’t play a down due to his neck injury? Eleven playoff trips (all coming in seasons with a minimum of 10 victories), two Super Bowl appearances and one title. The team last reached the Super Bowl following the 1970 season, back in the Baltimore days when Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas was the man under center.

“This horseshoe was garbage without Peyton — it was garbage when he got here and garbage when he left here this season,” said Irvin.

The franchise’s success during the Manning era — which helped pave the way for the construction of Lucas Oil Stadium — makes his roots in this city even deeper says Irvin and differentiates it from Brett Favre’s highly publicized divorce from Green Bay in 2008 after 16 seasons with the Packers.

“We try to compare it to what Brett went through in Green Bay. That was different. They had such tradition when Brett got there. Green Bay was established — (Vince) Lombardi’s name is on the trophy,” says Irvin.

Fellow NFL Network analyst Warren Sapp agrees with Irvin.

“What Peyton’s going through is so personal. To hear those comments that the place you know and love, went to work every day for the last, what, 12-13 years? What’d he call it? An unhealthy environment? Holy Toledo,” says Sapp. “That’s his house. To be in a place that’s yours, you built it. And now to have to turn and walk away?

“I was just looking out my window in my hotel, and I was looking at the Indiana state museum. He’s not from here, and his jersey’s up there. I’ll give you that French Lick up there, you know, Larry Bird. … (Manning’s) not from here. (But) he made it a great place. It’s like, (fans say), ‘Our stadium is one of the toughest places to play.’ Not without (Manning).”