Doyel: Colts made right call in not bringing Reggie Wayne back

The Colts did the right thing Friday. They said goodbye to one of the greatest receivers in franchise history, one of the most productive receivers in NFL history, one of the most popular men in all of Indianapolis.

And they did the right thing.

How they did it, why they did it, those are details to parse in the coming weeks, assuming Reggie Wayne wants to talk enough to get his story across. The Reggie Wayne this city knows and loves won't do that, even if — especially if — his feelings were hurt by the Colts' decision Friday to tell him it's over. Publicly, he is proud and stoic and quiet, so quiet.

Behind closed doors, doors open only at times to the media, he was occasionally unhappy this season. Not always, not that. But there were times the Reggie Wayne we knew wasn't the Reggie Wayne we were seeing on a given day. The extent of his unhappiness, I can't tell you. But I can tell you this: He was mad at various local reporters, me included, because we noticed he wasn't as good as he used to be.

Understand, this stuff doesn't bother most of us, maybe not any of us. But when it happens it does shed some light onto a person's thought process, and this was Reggie Wayne's thought process as the 2014 season unfolded and his production plummeted and his role shrank:

You're wrong — I'm not done.

That's what he told us, behind closed doors, and not all that nicely. And like I said: That's fine. Be who you are, whoever you are. You're not happy with the media? Tell them. Honesty beats the alternative, even brooding silence, every day of the week.

My point of that is this: If Reggie Wayne, who until this season has never appeared to care what the media thinks — and damn sure never showed it — all of a sudden cares what the media thinks? And damn sure shows it?

Makes you wonder if he cared what his quarterback thought when his quarterback, Andrew Luck, stopped throwing him the ball as the season progressed and Reggie Wayne was clearly not the great player he had been.

For more than a decade he was a great player, deserving of serious Hall of Fame consideration, but his 2013 season was cut short by a torn ACL, and his 2014 season was interrupted by a torn triceps. Before the triceps injury, Luck targeted Wayne 62 times in seven games. Wayne caught 38 of those passes for 434 yards. He was a vital part of the offense, on pace for 87 catches for 992 yards, meaning he was approaching the ninth 1,000-yard season of his career.

In the first three games after Wayne's injury, Luck continued to look for him prominently — 28 targets, slightly more than Wayne was getting before the injury. But the production just wasn't there. Wayne caught less than half those passes (12 catches).

So Luck stopped looking his way. In the final five games of the season, Wayne was targeted just 26 times and had 14 catches for 174 yards. That's a pace of 45 catches for 557 yards.

That's who Reggie Wayne had become: A 45-catch guy. For 557 yards. Dropping passes and unable to get separation and, even, when he did get open and catch the ball, being caught from behind. That 80-yard catch-and-run in Week 17 at Tennessee? He's still running. He's almost to the 15, to the 14, the 13 ...

As great as he is — and he's an all-time great, all-time here and there and anywhere — the Colts are better than what Wayne was providing in the final third of last season. We're not Tennessee or Jacksonville or even Houston, an AFC South city with a team hoping to make a playoff push. This franchise reached the AFC title game last season and, with the right additions — cough, Ndamukong Suh, cough — the Colts would be a favorite to reach and even win the Super Bowl next season.

That's the future. Reggie Wayne is the past. He's the glorious past, when Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison and Edgerrin James and Tony Dungy and Bob Sanders and Dwight Freeney were leading this franchise to double-digit wins and playoff berths and the 2006 Super Bowl title. Reggie Wayne wasn't just part of that. He was a huge, vital part of that.

But that Reggie Wayne is gone, and turning 37 during the 2015 season, he's not coming back. Just nine times has a receiver in his age-37 season reached even 600 yards, and five of those nine seasons belong to the ageless Jerry Rice.

Reggie Wayne isn't ageless. Graceful, classy, smart? He's all of those things. But his knee went out in 2013. His triceps gave in 2014. By the end of last season he was dropping passes and running like a fullback, not a wideout. Reggie Wayne didn't just hit the wall last season. The wall fell on him.

The Colts recognize that and made a hard choice on Friday. The fact they had to announce it as they did — not that Reggie Wayne is retiring, but that the Colts are not going to bring him back — tells you all you need to know about who made this decision (the Colts) and who isn't happy about it (Reggie Wayne).

Understandable, if I'm Reggie Wayne.

But equally understandable, if I'm the Colts.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel