INDIANAPOLIS COLTS 2009 PREVIEW
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS 2009 PREVIEW
By Andy Benoit, www.NFLTouchdown.com
Change? You call this change? Ha! This ain’t change! Change is going from a Republican white president to a Democratic black one. Change is landline phones to cell phones. Or cell phones to PDA’s. It’s going from fat 1980s Oprah to sleek 2000s Oprah (minus this past year, apparently). Or, on the flip side, going from 1980s Kirstie Alley to current day Kirstie Alley. Now that’s change.
What’s happening with the Indianapolis Colts is not change. At most, it’s some form of multifaceted tweak. Like a Peyton Manning audible, if you will. Now, granted, for perhaps 31 other NFL teams, replacing a Hall of Fame-worthy head coach like Tony Dungy with a former quarterbacks coach who has zero head coaching experience like Jim Caldwell would constitute change. And so would temporarily replacing your offensive coordinator (Tom Moore on hold, Clyde Christensen filling in), defensive coordinator (goodbye Ron Meeks, hello Larry Coyer) and special teams coordinator (Russ Purnell out, Ray Rychelski in). But not for this franchise. Not as long as Jim Irsay is the owner, Bill Polian the president and Peyton Manning the quarterback.
The Colts are still operating within the same general premise of their unshakable system. It’s a system that first focuses on having the right skill position players offensively––something Polian aims to do with first-round investments (see Manning, running back Joseph Addai, wide receivers Reggie Wayne and Anthony Gonzalez and tight end Dallas Clark). Polian has never once in his 12-year tenure whiffed on a first-round offensive player. (Fantasy geeks take note, first-round rookie running back Donald Brown could be a sleeper!) Part of this is due to the fact that his first one in ’98, the aforementioned non-Ryan Leaf quarterback, was a bull’s-eye.
As long as Manning is under center, the Colts offense will be proficient. Of course, there’s still areas to improve in ’09. As Irsay said over the offseason, “Our ability to rush the football was completely unacceptable last year. It was more of a miracle that we were able to disguise the problem so much and go so far and do so much with it being such a problem.” He’s exactly right. The Colts run offense ranked 31st and averaged a wretched 3.4 yards per carry. This offense needs balance (if for no other reason than a strong ground game fosters the lethal play action pass). The selection of Brown, a highly productive, versatile all-around tailback from Connecticut, should provide the necessary rushing boost (as well as a fertile trickle-down effect).
We can elaborate in greater detail later––the general point is that the Colts will have a Super Bowl-caliber offense again in 2009. This is especially true considering that Tom Moore, while technically no longer the offensive coordinator, will return in an influential consultant role (he had to retire, on paper, in order to protect his pension). Same goes for venerated offensive line coach Howard Mudd.
Defensively, Indy will present a slightly different look under Larry Coyer, though not one glaring enough to make spectators squint. Coyer will spice up Dungy’s vanilla Tampa Two scheme with a few more blitzes and a greater emphasis on stopping the run. Polian supported these changes by drafting a 300-pound defensive tackle for the first time in his tenure. In fact, he did it twice: Fili Moala in Round Two and Terrance Taylor in Round Four. But in the big picture these are still minor changes; scrutinizing them is not unlike studying the modicum of difference between the Colts’ throwback uniforms and current digs. Overall, this will still be a speedy, finesse zone defense.
So given that change has not really hit the Colts, it’s fair to ask the same questions that have been asked for years. Like, is this team tough enough to win in January? Can the offense handle the wrath of physical 3-4 defenses like those found in Pittsburgh, San Diego, Baltimore, New England and New York? Can the defense stop the run when it counts?
As most remember, the answer to all these questions in 2006 was Yes. But that leads to another question: was Indy’s Super Bowl title merely a case of the stars aligning; or was it only the first piece of hardware for one of this era’s elite organizations? For the longest time, a question like this would have been decided by your opinion of Number 18. But the Lombardi trophy and NFL record-tying three MVP awards have cemented the 33-year-old’s Canton-bound legacy. So now, we apply the skeptical questions to the men blocking for Number 18.
Click here to continue reading, or visit: http://www.nfltouchdown.com/indianapolis-colts-2009-preview/
Click here for Colts ’09 quick hits, or visit: http://www.nfltouchdown.com/indianapolis-colts-09-quick-hits/
By Andy Benoit, www.NFLTouchdown.com
Change? You call this change? Ha! This ain’t change! Change is going from a Republican white president to a Democratic black one. Change is landline phones to cell phones. Or cell phones to PDA’s. It’s going from fat 1980s Oprah to sleek 2000s Oprah (minus this past year, apparently). Or, on the flip side, going from 1980s Kirstie Alley to current day Kirstie Alley. Now that’s change.
What’s happening with the Indianapolis Colts is not change. At most, it’s some form of multifaceted tweak. Like a Peyton Manning audible, if you will. Now, granted, for perhaps 31 other NFL teams, replacing a Hall of Fame-worthy head coach like Tony Dungy with a former quarterbacks coach who has zero head coaching experience like Jim Caldwell would constitute change. And so would temporarily replacing your offensive coordinator (Tom Moore on hold, Clyde Christensen filling in), defensive coordinator (goodbye Ron Meeks, hello Larry Coyer) and special teams coordinator (Russ Purnell out, Ray Rychelski in). But not for this franchise. Not as long as Jim Irsay is the owner, Bill Polian the president and Peyton Manning the quarterback.
The Colts are still operating within the same general premise of their unshakable system. It’s a system that first focuses on having the right skill position players offensively––something Polian aims to do with first-round investments (see Manning, running back Joseph Addai, wide receivers Reggie Wayne and Anthony Gonzalez and tight end Dallas Clark). Polian has never once in his 12-year tenure whiffed on a first-round offensive player. (Fantasy geeks take note, first-round rookie running back Donald Brown could be a sleeper!) Part of this is due to the fact that his first one in ’98, the aforementioned non-Ryan Leaf quarterback, was a bull’s-eye.
As long as Manning is under center, the Colts offense will be proficient. Of course, there’s still areas to improve in ’09. As Irsay said over the offseason, “Our ability to rush the football was completely unacceptable last year. It was more of a miracle that we were able to disguise the problem so much and go so far and do so much with it being such a problem.” He’s exactly right. The Colts run offense ranked 31st and averaged a wretched 3.4 yards per carry. This offense needs balance (if for no other reason than a strong ground game fosters the lethal play action pass). The selection of Brown, a highly productive, versatile all-around tailback from Connecticut, should provide the necessary rushing boost (as well as a fertile trickle-down effect).
We can elaborate in greater detail later––the general point is that the Colts will have a Super Bowl-caliber offense again in 2009. This is especially true considering that Tom Moore, while technically no longer the offensive coordinator, will return in an influential consultant role (he had to retire, on paper, in order to protect his pension). Same goes for venerated offensive line coach Howard Mudd.
Defensively, Indy will present a slightly different look under Larry Coyer, though not one glaring enough to make spectators squint. Coyer will spice up Dungy’s vanilla Tampa Two scheme with a few more blitzes and a greater emphasis on stopping the run. Polian supported these changes by drafting a 300-pound defensive tackle for the first time in his tenure. In fact, he did it twice: Fili Moala in Round Two and Terrance Taylor in Round Four. But in the big picture these are still minor changes; scrutinizing them is not unlike studying the modicum of difference between the Colts’ throwback uniforms and current digs. Overall, this will still be a speedy, finesse zone defense.
So given that change has not really hit the Colts, it’s fair to ask the same questions that have been asked for years. Like, is this team tough enough to win in January? Can the offense handle the wrath of physical 3-4 defenses like those found in Pittsburgh, San Diego, Baltimore, New England and New York? Can the defense stop the run when it counts?
As most remember, the answer to all these questions in 2006 was Yes. But that leads to another question: was Indy’s Super Bowl title merely a case of the stars aligning; or was it only the first piece of hardware for one of this era’s elite organizations? For the longest time, a question like this would have been decided by your opinion of Number 18. But the Lombardi trophy and NFL record-tying three MVP awards have cemented the 33-year-old’s Canton-bound legacy. So now, we apply the skeptical questions to the men blocking for Number 18.
Click here to continue reading, or visit: http://www.nfltouchdown.com/indianapolis-colts-2009-preview/
Click here for Colts ’09 quick hits, or visit: http://www.nfltouchdown.com/indianapolis-colts-09-quick-hits/
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