“It’s a big change for the franchise.”

– Colts owner Jim Irsay

And now you wonder, unavoidably, if it is the last change.

You wonder, as the Colts showed Bill and Chris Polian the door and coach Jim Caldwell got the same directions, if the clean break is fully made or not. There’s one domino still standing, after all. And it’s the biggest domino.

Whither No. 18?

If this is truly the closing of The Era That Was, then you have to wonder how much longer quarterback Peyton Manning, its primary architect, will remain the face and soul and beating heart of the franchise. Is he the one sliver of the past with which owner Jim Irsay will never bring himself to part? Or was there something more than coincidence Tuesday in the way he kept bringing up 1998, which happens to be the year Manning arrived from Tennessee to breathe life into a corpse?

“We’re not even there with anything involving Peyton Manning yet,” new general manager Ryan Grigson said.

And of course that’s true, and in as many ways as you can possibly imagine. To begin with, no one yet knows whether Manning will even be able to play (or, should it come to that, have market value) after three neck surgeries in 19 months. And if he can play, no one yet knows who the new coach will be, or if whatever system he brings with him will be as wedded to Manning’s particular skills as the Tony Dungy/Jim Caldwell system.

The smart bet is it won’t be. Whoever the Colts bring in as coach, you have to think he’s not only going to want to put his own stamp on things, he’s going to be expected to. And that’s the smart play, because whether Manning can summon his old skills or not, he’s not the future. Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck is the future. And so whatever symbiosis occurs between coach and quarterback, it’s going to occur between coach and Luck, not coach and Manning.

And so, again: Whither No. 18?

When he comes back – if he comes back – it will be to a team he scarcely recognizes. His GM is gone. Ditto his offensive coordinator, Tom Moore. Ditto the head coach who got him a ring, Tony Dungy, and Dungy’s handpicked successor, Caldwell.

The departure of the last, Caldwell, seemed as inevitable as sunrise once the Polians got the gate. And yet there was a sense the last few days that he might survive.

Certain things you could pin on Caldwell, like the deer-in-the-headlights game management and his refusal to bail on a out-of-his-depth Curtis Painter. So much of what’s backfired on his watch, though, he’s been able to deflect, because the perception was that the Colts were Bill Polian’s franchise, particularly after Dungy left.

And so the 2-14 season had more to do with the Peyton-centric culture created by the front office than with Caldwell, or so went the narrative. As it turned out, that narrative was less accurate than it seemed, because Caldwell, according to those who were around every day, wielded much more influence than was perceived.

And now he’s gone, trailing farewell bouquets (“He’s a tremendous man,” Grigson said), and little ill will, because, at bottom, he deserved none. A good man and a good football man, he simply got caught on the business end of onrushing history.

“This was the direction we needed to go,” Irsay said.

Whether No. 18’s compass points that direction or not.