Running back Frank Gore came to Indianapolis with Super Bowl aspirations.

Three years later http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/anthony-zettel-jersey , he’s leaving without a ring or an assurance he’ll ever play another football game.

General manager Chris Ballard announced Wednesday the Colts do not intend to re-sign the 34-year-old, soon-to-be free agent, who is ranked No. 5 in career rushing.

”Frank is at a point where he knows we need to get younger,” Ballard said during the first day of the NFL’s annual scouting combine in Indianapolis. ”And I wanted to give Frank a chance to finish his career where he wants to.”

Not much followed the script after Gore opted to reunite with college teammate Andre Johnson with the Colts.

After quarterback Andrew Luck reached three consecutive Pro Bowls and made three straight playoff appearances, taking Indy one step deeper each season, Gore and others thought the Colts were on the verge of a breakout.

Instead, Luck hurt his throwing shoulder three weeks into the 2015 season and everything has gone south.

He has missed 26 of 48 games over the past three seasons, each of which ended with Indy missing the postseason. General manager Ryan Grigson, who signed Gore, was fired following the 2016 season and coach Chuck Pagano was fired in December.

Now, with Luck apparently on the road back to Indy, Gore is on his way out.

Ballard said Luck is expected to return to team headquarters in early April to continue rehabbing.

Getting Luck back in town would be a welcome change for the Colts, who monitored Luck’s recovery for the nearly six weeks he spent in Europe and the eight weeks he has spent in California since the end of the season.

”Is it going to help having Andrew back in the building? Absolutely,” Ballard said. ”But I think it will be good for Andrew to be around the locker room and among his guys, and I think he’d tell you the same thing.”

He and just about everyone else, though, will miss Gore’s leadership and optimism.

Despite playing behind a struggling, ineffective offensive line each season in Indy, he never complained. He simply kept working, talking positive and plugging ahead.

The results were impressive.

After falling 33 yards short of his ninth 1,000-yard season in 2015, he rebounded with 1,025 yards at age 33 in 2016 – making him the oldest 1,000-yard rusher since 35-year-old John Riggins in 1982. Then in December, the ageless Gore had a career-high 36 carries for 130 yards in an overtime loss in a Buffalo blizzard.

He even made passing some of the league’s best runners look routine.

Ballard said Gore actually broke his thumb during that Buffalo game and doctors told him they could repair it by inserting a pin. While Gore never hinted publicly he was hurt, it was a different story behind closed doors.

”Frank said `I’m a football player, I’m playing http://www.detroitlionsteamonline.com/jahlani-tavai-jersey ,”’ Ballard said.

Four days later, Gore was back on the field against Denver. Three weeks later, Gore played in his 48th and final game with the Colts – a 24-carry, 100-yard performance that left him just 76 yards short of passing Curtis Martin for No. 4.

The only other players ahead of Gore are Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton and Barry Sanders.

His nine 1,000-yard seasons are fifth behind Smith (11), Payton, Sanders and Martin (10), and he holds the league record with 12 consecutive seasons with 1,200 yards from scrimmage.

But he was always about more than numbers.

”He’s a legend in my mind,” new coach Frank Reich said. ”He set the standard for on what backs did in (pass) protection.”

And even though, he still wants a ring, he’s not willing to sacrifice his principles to get one.

”I know I still can play, and I know I want to help a team,” he said in late December. ”I don’t want to just be part of a team, I want to help a team, and I don’t want anyone to say I rode the bench to get a ring.”

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If Cam Heyward’s being honest, he’s lost count of distractions the Pittsburgh Steelers have dealt with this season, be they self-created, overblown or otherwise.

The weeks would pass and something that had nothing to do with Pittsburgh’s relatively easy push to a second straight AFC North title and third in four years would pop up. There was running back Le’Veon Bell’s decision to skip training camp . Antonio Brown’s one-sided bout with a water cooler in Baltimore in October. Or rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster’s stolen bike . Or Martavis Bryant’s ill-timed and ultimately ignored trade request.

The list goes on and on. Yet at nearly every turn, the outside noise would be drowned out for three hours every week while the Steelers put together a 13-3 record, a fourth consecutive playoff appearance and a first-round postseason bye. Even a well-deserved week off didn’t pass quietly, with offensive coordinator Todd Haley limping around after getting hurt during an incident at a bar near Heinz Field shortly after Pittsburgh wrapped up the regular season with a victory over Cleveland.

Yawn.

”I think we’ve shunned it to an extent to where it doesn’t really faze us,” Heyward said. ”I couldn’t even tell you all the drama that goes on. I think we’re so focused and goal-oriented when it comes to certain things, we haven’t had time to think about the little stuff. We make fun of the petty stuff. We’ll laugh at the stuff that happens.”

Maybe, but not all chaos is created equal. For a locker room that describes itself as close-knit, there was a moment of doubt. It came in the tunnel at brutally hot Soldier Field on Sept. 24. President Donald Trump’s provocative suggestion that NFL players who protest the national anthem should be fired put the Steelers in a tight spot.

Head coach Mike Tomlin told his players they could do what they wanted http://www.houstontexansteamonline.com/kahale-warring-jersey , so long as they were united. After failing to reach a consensus, they tried to sit it out by remaining in the tunnel as ”The Star-Spangled Banner” played.

One problem: left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger, ducked onto the field to get a glimpse of the flag. The opening notes began before Villanueva could get back to the tunnel. He turned to face the flag, standing alone and unintentionally providing a stark visual symbol of an issue that in many ways defined the NFL’s season.

Linebacker Arthur Moats called the aftermath, which left some fans burning their jerseys and included Villanueva, Heyward and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger trying to explain how they ”botched” the whole thing, the ”lowest point you could get.”

”It was just a lot of factors that went into it,” Moats said. ”It made it stressful.”

Ultimately, though, it didn’t divide the Steelers.

”That was something no one had ever experienced,” Heyward said. ”That’s something that no one could have prepared for. I thought we handled it good internally after the situation. We got some stuff cleared out and understood it wasn’t the right way to approach it. But we learned. We lived through it.”

And they thrived. The Steelers fell to 2-1 after getting steamrolled in overtime by the Bears that afternoon. Pittsburgh lost just two games the rest of the way. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger emerged from an early funk to reach his sixth Pro Bowl. Brown led the NFL in yards receiving despite missing the final 2 + games with a left calf injury the team hopes will be healed in time for the conference semifinals. Bell’s decision to skip camp ended up saving his legs. A year after watching most of an AFC title game loss to New England with a groin worn down by a heavy workload, Bell is fresh.

Just as important, Pittsburgh has built up an immunity to what Tomlin calls ”outside noise,” even if it’s not outside at all.

Last January, Tomlin spent the week between a road playoff win in Kansas City and a visit to New England for the AFC championship game dealing with Brown’s decision to stream video from the victorious locker room on Facebook. Don’t expect that to happen this time around.

”We treat things that happen like anybody else should,” wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey said. ”You get pulled over for speeding, you get the ticket. You hopefully learn. That’s kind of like that. It’s different tickets but once that ticket happens, it’s like, `Oh, don’t do that one. I got you.’ I know it sounds crazy, but it works for us. Everybody knows, `Don’t bring your phone out.’ We almost laugh at it knowing, `Don’t do that.’ It’s just the personality of our team.”

One that’s been pointing to the 2018 Super Bowl from the minute it walked off the field in Foxborough 12 months ago.

”We have a lot of guys primed for this moment,” Heyward said. ”We don’t know what our team is going to look like next year. We’ve got to make the most out of this situation. The urgency has to be felt from here on out.”

Is the urgency strong enough to make sure the turmoil of the fall will disappear in January?

”Ask me in three weeks,” Heyward said. ”We’re still fighting off some demons right now.”

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