Bye Week thoughts.

huevonkiller · Sep 26, 2008

Staggering Colts need jump start on offense

By MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer Sep 24, 4:01 pm EDT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)—Peyton Manning expects more from himself and the Indianapolis Colts.

He’s thrown more interceptions than touchdowns, been sacked five times in three weeks and still hasn’t seen Joseph Addai produce a 100-yard game.

So this week, it’s all about the basics.

“Our job on offense is to score more points than we have been, and my job is to execute better,” Manning said Tuesday. “That’s not something we’ve done well enough.”

Since Manning’s arrival in 1998, the Colts have built their reputation as a finely tuned scoring machine. This season, however, the Colts are uncharacteristically misfiring, and the early-season stats reveal how much has changed.

Typically, the Colts (1-2) rank among the league’s highest-scoring teams, but they’re averaging just 16.3 points per game and are third in points scored in the AFC South. The ground game that traditionally ranks among the middle of the league is 31st, and the vaunted passing game is 20th.

It’s not Colts football.

While it is too early to assess significance to numbers that are likely to improve drastically as the season progresses, some players view the stumbling offense as a wake-up call about what must be done to fix the mistakes.

“It’s a little thing here or there that gets you beat,” Manning said. “Everybody’s got to raise their level of play, and it starts with me.”

There are many explanations for what’s wrong, starting with injuries.

Manning has played behind a makeshift line that sometimes included four players in unfamiliar spots. The two-time league MVP missed the entire preseason after having surgery to remove an infected bursa sac from his left knee, and he’s still going through rehabilitation and trying to get his timing back with receivers.

Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday, the anchor of the offensive line, just returned from a knee injury after missing nearly a month, and tight end Dallas Clark, one of Manning’s favorite targets, missed 1 1/2 games with his own knee injury.

Marvin Harrison, who sat out 11 games last season, had offseason surgery on his right knee, and the overlapping injuries and surgeries prevented the Colts’ record-setting tandem from practicing together for most of the past year.

But nobody in Indy’s locker room wants to blame everything on the new faces and limited work.

Pass rushers have put more pressure than usual on Manning, receivers have been unable to haul in passes that could have kept drives alive or led to TDs, and Addai has occasionally has struggled to get out of his own backfield.

Coach Tony Dungy insists it can all be corrected.

“You have to keep your poise, keep your focus and focus on the things that count,” Dungy said. “Whether you win or lose, you have to keep things in perspective and that’s hard when you’re used to winning a lot. But you have to zero in on just doing your job.”

Apparently, that’s what the Colts are doing with their bye week.

Manning said he’s trying to read coverages better and figure out the best places to put the ball, and Addai is trying to clean up his game, too.

“It’s just trying to fix those little things,” he said. “The big thing is staying positive.”

Yet the biggest factor in the Colts’ sluggish start has been a lack of opportunities.

In Sunday’s loss to Jacksonville, Indy ran just 48 plays. Jacksonville had 48 carries and held the ball for more than 41 minutes, something that’s been an issue since the first preseason game.

If the defense can’t get off the field, Manning can’t get the ball, and the Colts won’t score points.

“We’ve got to get back to fundamentals,” safety Antoine Bethea said. “The two games we lost, we didn’t do our job with fundamentals. We could be 3-0, but we’re 1-2, so, hopefully, we can get back to playing Colts football.”

Manning couldn’t have said it better himself.

“I think offensively we showed some flashes against Jacksonville,” Manning said. “We have to find the consistency. That’s how we’ve won in the past and we’ve got to get back to that and not just on Sunday.”
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Source: Associated Press

It has been a tough start to the season, but things will pick up. I'm actually glad the Colts have an early bye week this season, they can just chill or work on chemistry.

Vintage · Sep 29, 2008

Good time for a bye week, like you said.

Plus, it will give some guys a chance to rest up, who need it.

huevonkiller · Sep 29, 2008

Thanks for the feedback Vintage, it has been a dark NFL week for me having to deal with that silly loss and everything. :]

huevonkiller · Sep 29, 2008

Colts change minds, embrace early bye week

By MICHAEL MAROT | Monday, September 29, 2008 | 1 comment(s)

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indianapolis Colts bristled when they saw a bye in Week 4.

Nobody's complaining now.

With a sluggish offense, a struggling defense and an expanding injury list, the Colts are now thanking the schedule-makers for their brilliant foresight.

"I thought it was a little early when the schedule came out, but what are you going to do?" two-time league MVP Peyton Manning said this week. "I think now, maybe, it's a good thing. I hope it's a good thing. I hope we can turn it into a positive."

This could be the best chance Indy has to turn around its uncharacteristic season.

Traditionally, the Colts (1-2) have been one of the NFL's best starters. They opened each of the previous three seasons with at least seven straight wins, an NFL record, and built big enough leads in the division race to propel them to five straight AFC South titles.

This time, they'll need a new strategy.

The Colts are off to their worst start in a decade, falling two games behind unbeaten Tennessee. For the first time since Manning's rookie year, they've lost two September games, their first two home games and look like anything but a perennial Super Bowl contender. The running game has been grounded, the passing game is out of sync and the defense can't get off the field.

Not enough?

Safety Bob Sanders, the run-stuffing 2007 Defensive Player of the Year, is expected to miss up to six weeks with ankle and knee injuries. Manning is still recovering from knee surgery in July. Left tackle Tony Ugoh didn't play last week because of a groin injury and isn't expected to practice this week, either.

The injury situation has become so precarious that Dungy had only six offensive linemen practicing Wednesday.

As a result, seven players, including three offensive linemen, have already made their first NFL starts this season, and the Colts have been a mess.

So having a week to work out the kinks, rather than worrying about another opponent, may be the perfect remedy to get jump-started.

"For us, it's probably coming at the right time," coach Tony Dungy said. "We get a chance to do some things and concentrate on straightening some of our situations out. We get a chance to get some guys healed up, which is good."

Not long ago, the consensus around Colts headquarters was very different. Everybody from team president Bill Polian to Manning expressed reservations about the early bye.

Indy may never be fortunate to get a late one as long as Manning is calling plays because, as Polian recently noted on his weekly radio show, November is television sweeps season and the Colts typically draw some of the largest ratings.

But there may be more benefits to taking a week off now.

The bye has given Manning extra time to resolve any lingering timing issues with his receivers without spending countless hours watching game film. Sanders will miss one fewer game, and the Colts could get two key starters back in just a couple of weeks. Left guard Ryan Lilja (knee) and linebacker Tyjuan Hagler (pectoral muscle) have been on the physically unable to perform list since training camp opened and may return by mid-October.

And rookie guard Mike Pollak, Indy's top draft pick, finally returned to practice on a limited basis Wednesday. He'd been out since Aug. 24 because of two bad knees.

Plus, the break provides a welcome respite from the growing sense of frustration.

"It gives us time to reflect on what's going on and what we need to do better," running back Dominic Rhodes said. "Some people say you want to wait until later in the season, but getting it now should help us get on a roll later."

That is the hope.

The Colts insist mistakes that have put them in this early-season hole _ missed tackles, dropped passes, blown assignments _ are correctable. Clearly, they must get those problems fixed before heading to Houston next week.

So Manning, Dungy and the rest of the Colts have cast aside their early concerns and embraced a bye week that has come at the perfect time.

"We started talking about just focusing on the Colts and not necessarily preparing for an opponent or worrying about this blitz or coverage and just worrying about how the Colts can get better," Manning said. "Hopefully, we can get better this week and use it to our advantage and try to get on some kind of winning streak."
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Source: Associated Press

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Bye Week thoughts.

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