By Tom James
Tribune-Star Correspondent
INDIANAPOLIS
October 28, 2008 10:58 pm
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Coming off a 31-21 AFC South loss to the Tennessee Titans, the Indianapolis Colts certainly don’t have a lot of time to sit back and contemplate their performance in the nationally televised game.
Indianapolis’ players and coaches have a short week ahead of them heading into Sunday night’s nationally televised matchup with the New England Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts have now lost two in a row and will take a 3-4 mark into the New England game.
After sitting down with his coaching staff and watching a tape of the Tennessee game early Tuesday morning, Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy said that playing hard or his team’s effort wasn’t the problem.
“Probably the disappointing thing is that I thought we played with a lot of energy and emotion. [The Colts] played very hard. It was that type of atmosphere that you’re going to have to do that.
“But when the game got to the point where you had to win it, we didn’t play well enough. We didn’t really stop them in the second half defensively. Had some chances, but we didn’t convert offensively. [Tennessee] outplayed us down the stretch in crunch time. That was disappointing,” Dungy said Tuesday afternoon.
“So we’ll have to go back and go to work on, again, just fundamentally playing well and making those things happen in key situations. That’s where we are. Obviously a tough game coming up this week with New England. I had a chance to watch them. They’ve played pretty well since they [lost] the San Diego game. It’s going to be a game that we’ve got to improve because they do that. They force you into mistakes. They try to get you to beat yourself. They capitalize on your mistakes. And we can’t afford to make as many as we made in the [Titans] game.”
Getting an emotional Tennessee loss out of his players minds and getting their attention directed towards this week’s Patriots game is paramount.
“It’s a short week and it is tough. You invest a lot into it and don’t have the results that you need. You’ve got to be able to bounce back. You don’t have as long to bounce back. We’re not going to practice in pads this week, working on our techniques. We’ve got to get a lot of mental work and we’ve got to do it. But knowing this group, I think we will,” the Indianapolis coach said.
• Manning is fine physically — Colts team president Bill Polian responded Tuesday evening to comments made by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young regarding the health of Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning.
Young, a member of ESPN’s Monday Night Football pregame and postgame show crew, questioned whether Manning was still having health issues.
“I know that Steve Young mentioned that on the broadcast or postgame show [Monday] night. I just want to put an end to that speculation. There’s no one in the game I respect more than Steve Young. And I understand that observation is a good thing. But people can be right and wrong in observations,” Polian said during his weekly radio show.
“But I can assure that Peyton is not hurt. He has no injuries to speak of. There’s nothing wrong with his arm. There’s nothing wrong with his knee. So to put those kinds of conjecture to rest, he has not appeared on the injury list and won’t because he doesn’t have an injury. We made some throws [Monday] night that we’d rather have back, I’m sure. It had nothing to do with injury.”
• Trying to figure it out — Dungy is still trying to find out how to get the Colts fortunes turned around as quickly as possible.
“I really don’t know why [the mistakes keep cropping up]. It’s a lot of the same guys in the same situations. We’ve just continued to have a lot of penalties, untimely penalties, a lot of situations where it’s just doing things a little bit sharper are going to make the difference. We’ve had it offensively and defensively. And to be honest, I really don’t know why,” he said.
“The only thing I know is that we’ve got to continue to practice and work and see if we can get those cleaned up. See if we can execute when the game’s on the line.”
So now it’s time to get ready for New England.
“Well, we’re in the second quarter [of the regular season]. We’re 1-2 right now. We’ve got to win this one to get to 2-2. It’ll be the same way where we were at after the first quarter. So that’s important. There’s still a long ways to go,” Dungy said.
“We’re at the halfway point. There’s a lot of teams in the three, four win area — right where we are — and we’re going to start playing a lot of those guys as we come on. We’ve got to start. We’ve got to get a home win. And you can’t get a winning streak until you get that first one.”
• Offensive line play coming along — The Colts got left offensive tackle Tony Ugoh back into the starting lineup against Tennessee, with Charlie Johnson moving back inside to left offensive guard.
Johnson, who had started the last four games at left offensive tackle with Ugoh recovering from a strained groin, replaced rookie Jamey Richard at offensive guard. Rookie Mike Pollak started at right offensive guard.
“I thought we did some good things in the [Titans] game. We got Tony back and that was good to see. We [pass] protected. They didn’t have probably their best rusher [defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch was inactive due to injury] in the lineup and that obviously helped us, but we protected well against a tough group and did some good things. I think we are making progress and our young guys are continuing to play better,” Dungy said.
• Injury list — It looks like the Colts will be getting some help this week with the possible return of running back Joseph Addai (hamstring), strong safety Bob Sanders (ankle/knee) and cornerback Kelvin Hayden (knee).
All three are in line to resume practicing with the team and have a chance to play against the Patriots on Sunday night.
“I think we’ve got a chance to get Bob, Kelvin and Joseph back this week,” Dungy said.
Polian said that offensive guard Ryan Lilja may begin doing more work in the next week or so. Lilja (knee) is on the Colts’ physically unable to perform list after undergoing surgery in the offseason.
“The clock [for Lilja to resume practicing] must begin by Nov. 4. We either have to start the clock on him and allow him to begin practicing by Nov. 4 or he remains on reserve injured or returns to reserved injured for the season,” he said.
“My anticipation is that we will start the clock on the third or fourth [of November] and then we have three weeks from there to make a decision as to whether or not to activate him or he reverts to reserve injured at that point. We would anticipate, unless there’s some sort of a setback, that he would be pretty much ready to be in practice again.”
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