Indianapolis Colts
Mora served as a color analyst for NBC in 1997, and in 1998 he replaced Lindy Infante as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. The team struggled to a 3–13 mark in his first year with a rookie Peyton Manning learning the ropes at quarterback, but had an amazing turnaround to 13-3 in 1999, thanks in large part to the addition of rookie running back Edgerrin James. At the time, this turnaround was the "largest" in NFL history. The Colts lost their first playoff game in the AFC Divisional Playoffs (the team received a first-round bye to advance to the Divisional Playoffs) to the Tennessee Titans, which dropped Mora's all-time NFL postseason record to 0-5.
The Colts finished 10–6 in 2000 and made the playoffs once again, but the team lost a wild-card round playoff game to the Miami Dolphins by a score of 23-17 in overtime. This defeat dropped Mora's overall postseason record to 0-6. Coincidentally, just hours after Mora lost what would be the sixth and final playoff game of his career, his former team, the New Orleans Saints, won their first-ever playoff game.
On November 25, 2001, after a loss to the San Francisco 49ers that dropped the Colts to 4–6, Mora made his famous "Playoffs?" tirade. Of the Colts' performance, Mora said:
"Well, I'll start off by saying this: do not blame that game on the defense, OK? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team; when you turn the ball over five times -- four interceptions, one for a touchdown, three others in field position to set up touchdowns -- you ain't going to beat anybody I just talked about. Anybody. All right? And that was a disgraceful performance, in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked. Ah. You know? You can't turn the ball over five times like that. Holy crap! I don't know who the hell we think we are when we do something like that! Unbelievable...five turnovers. One of them for -- We've thrown four interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record! Hell, we've still got six games -- five? Five, five. Um. We've still got six games to play, no telling what might happen. That's pitiful! I mean, it's absolutely pitiful to perform like that. Pitiful! If our defense hadn't played halfway decent against a great offensive football team, they might have scored 60! That's it, the name of the game, end of story. It was horrible, horrible five interceptions -- five turnovers. Horrible! And we couldn't cover the kickoffs the first half. Shit, our defense played pretty damn good, considering. That's all I got to say. That's the story of the game right there, the story of the game."
Later in the press conference, in response to Tim Bragg, a reporter for WRTV, who asked a question about the Colts' chances for making the playoffs, Mora said in a high-pitched, incredulous tone:
"What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs?! You kidding me?! Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"
His "Playoffs" sound byte is regularly played back as a joke on a number of sports radio talk shows when discussing mediocre NFL teams or playoffs of other sports. The tirade would go on to be featured in a Coors Light commercial in 2006 as part of an ad campaign that recreated NFL coaches' infamous press conferences with twenty-something male actors asking the coaches inane and unrelated non-football questions about the beer. In an appearance on the Best Damn Sports Show in 2003, Mora talked about going to autograph signings and having a kid come up to him and ask him to say "playoffs" in lieu of an autograph. He's also had some fun with the remark, saying the Playoffs? line during a media session to the New York Giants in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLII in Arizona. More fun was had during 2007 training camp when he talked to his son Jim L. Mora, then an assistant with the Seattle Seahawks, via satellite feed on the NFL Network and Marcus Pollard, a former member of Mora's Colts, spoofed Mora Sr's "Playoffs?" rant.
Hampered by a defense that allowed the most points in the league (30.4 per game), Indianapolis only won two more games that year. Some sources believed that Mora could have saved his job if he fired one (or more) of his coordinators (especially defensive coordinator Vic Fangio) but he refused to do so. Mora was fired after the season and replaced by Tony Dungy who led the Colts to win the Super Bowl in 2006 before leaving the Colts after the 2008 season.
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