Colts Gab

Some R&R seems to be in order for some members of the Indianapolis Colts as they have locked up home field adfvantage through the AFC playoffs. More on this and more from Phil Richards of the Indianapolis Star:

* It was a much-appreciated late-season departure from the norm for Indianapolis Colts cornerback Kelvin Hayden. He didn’t spend his weekend in zone coverage.

“Spent it on the couch,” Hayden said.

The upside of having so little rest and preparation time for a Thursday game at Jacksonville last week was having three days to recuperate before the New York Jets visit Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday. The weekend felt like a mini-bye week.

“It helps out a lot. You’re always banged up this time of year,” linebacker Gary Brackett said Monday.

Linebacker Clint Session said it’s a bigger boon mentally than physically. Left tackle Charlie Johnson agreed.

“You just get away, mentally get away from football, get away from the grind,” Johnson said. “You come back on Monday and you feel refreshed; you feel ready to finish the last two weeks and however long you play.”

Colts coach Jim Caldwell said that for some players, playing Sunday and again Thursday might have compounded injury issues. So the coaches and medical staff will evaluate those cases individually this week, but Caldwell echoed his players.

“Did we need those three days? You’d better believe it,” he said. “I think they’ll help us in the long run.”

* The Colts went 6-0 in what might be the best division in the NFL, top to bottom.

The AFC South is 23-9 in interdivisional games and 11-4 against the NFC. The league’s next best interdivisional record is 21-15, compiled by the NFC East, which has gone 7-7 against the AFC.

“I think the whole division might wind up above .500,” Brackett said. “That’s pretty competitive football.”

The Colts are 14-0, Jacksonville, Tennessee and Houston all 7-7. Philadelphia leads the NFC East at 10-4, followed by Dallas at 9-5. The New York Giants were 7-6 going into a Monday night game at Washington (4-9).

* WR Anthony Gonzalez and RB Donald Brown practiced Monday, when Colts president Bill Polian said on his radio show that the club hopes Gonzalez can be ready to play against the Jets. Polian added that K Adam Vinatieri will do some kicking later this week to see if he might be ready to go. Gonzalez has been out with a right knee injury since the season opener. Vinatieri has missed the past nine games while recovering from a knee injury and Brown has been out three games with a chest injury. CB Jerraud Powers (hamstring) missed Sunday’s game and will be out this week and probably next week. . . . Peyton Manning threw four touchdown passes during the Colts’ 35-31 victory at Jacksonville to run his season total to 33 and become the only QB in NFL history other than Brett Favre with five seasons of 30 or more. Favre has done it eight times and has 27 this season. . . . Caldwell said Friday that he wouldn’t be surprised if the NFL weighed in on Chad Simpson’s post-touchdown run up the tunnel behind the end zone at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. Simpson kept going to celebrate his 93-yard kickoff return. So far, so good, he said Monday. Colts cornerback Jacob Lacey was fined $10,000 for celebrating a 35-yard interception return touchdown by sliding into the end zone at St. Louis on Oct. 25. Lacey appealed the fine and it was rescinded.

Seems like these two are always locking up on the last game of the preseason, yet here they are again. This will be the final tuneup before the regular season begins in earnest one week from Thursday as the Indianapolis Colts visit the Cincinnati Bengals.

I think it is a very safe assumption – and in concurrence by team head coach Jim Caldwell – that the first-team offense and defense will not see much playing time on Thursday. The game will definitely allow the team to work out the kinks from their loss to the Detroit Lions last week and to provide a final evaluation of the team’s younger players and reserves before making the final cuts.

According to Caldwell,

“We feel pretty good about where (the offense is) right now. Obviously, you want to be perfect. You want every drive that you take the field to culminate with a touchdown. That has not happened this preseason, but we’ve been pretty efficient.”

Performance-wise, starting quarterback Peyton Manning is his usual self (23-for-31 for 296 yards with three TD’s and no interceptions). And despite the final score last week, the team looked as sharp as they have all preseason, which should bode well as they go into Cincinnati with the vast majority of players who will make the squad already determined.

But if anything, the defensive line will bear watching Thursday as in my humble opinion, this is where the Colts’ Achilles heel has been, especially at nose tackle. so while the game is important, September 5 is even more so as that is the day that all NFL teams have to pare their roster to 53.

One would think that with the promotion of Jim Caldwell to the head coaching position that there would be a seamless transition and very little turnover in the personnel department; if you thought that, then you thought incorrectly.

Actually, there have been some coaching changes, both for real and some that are rumored; Ron Meeks, who used to run the Colts’ defense since 2002, resigned and took the same job with the Carolina Panthers. Russ Purnell, who had been in charge of the Colts’ special teams, went to Jacksonville and is now their special teams coach.

Meanwhile, wide receivers coach Clyde Christensen is rumored to be going to the San Francisco 49ers as their offensive coordinator. In a sense, I can understand why the Colts let go of Purnell; punt and kickoff coverage has been a decided weakness of the Colts for several seasons, as evidenced by their stats.

They allowed a whopping 24.3 yards on kickoff returns and 9.2 yards per punt return (ranked 24th and 15th respectively). In addition, they averaged 20.8 yards per kickoff return and 6 yards per punt return (ranked 28th and 32nd respectively), not to mention that they ranked 30th in the NFL in kickoff return differential and 27th in punt return differential. So you can see why the special teams coaching change was not a complete surprise – after all, numbers do not lie.

Colts made the transition of power official on Tuesday, formally introducing Jim Caldwell as the club’s new head coach. Caldwell was named Tony Dungy’s eventual successor last January and took over the reins on Tuesday, a day after Dungy announced his retirement.

“From this day forward I’ll thrive in the quality environment Jim Irsay, Bill Polian and Tony Dungy have created,” Caldwell stated. “I want to thank each one of them for the confidence they have placed in me and what a privilege it is to direct one of the great organizations in the National Football League.”

Caldwell had been a member of Dungy’s staff for each of the past eight years, starting in 2001 with Tampa Bay and for each of the last seven years with the Colts. He served as quarterbacks coach for the first three seasons with Indianapolis before earning the title of assistant head coach before the 2005 campaign.

“I want to thank Tony for what he has done for me over the years,” Caldwell added. “He set a great example for all of us in this profession.”

Caldwell’s lone head-coaching experience came on the collegiate level with Wake Forest from 1993-2000, guiding the Demon Deacons to a record of 26-63 with one winning season and one bowl appearance. He was also a college assistant at Iowa, Southern Illinois, Northwestern, Colorado, Louisville and Penn State.

Colts head coach Tony Dungy moved on to phase two of his life on Monday, calling it quits after a Hall of Fame NFL coaching career.  After a 31-year NFL career, Dungy has decided it was time to move on and get set for the second part of his life, one that will involve doing what he enjoys most – ministering to others.  “We just felt this was the right time,” Dungy said. “Don’t shed any tears for me. I got to live a dream most people don’t get to live.”

The 53-year-old Dungy told team owner Jim Irsay of the decision to retire on Sunday, and then talked to his staff and some of his players and told them that he would no longer be their coach.  Instead, he will give way to Jim Caldwell, another man that will come right in and make a seamless transition from NFL assistant head coach of the Colts to being the head man on the sideline.

“I think I’ve got a responsibility to be home a little bit more, be available to my family a little bit more and do some things to help make our country better,” Dungy said. “I don’t know what that is right now, but we’ll see.”  Dungy set league records for most consecutive playoff seasons (10) and consecutive 12-win seasons (six), and leaves with the highest average of regular-season victories of any coach in league history (10.7).

“I knew this day would come some time, it always does in life,” Irsay said, tearing up. “It’s been an incredible journey, and as an owner, I think, you dream of having the kind of relationship with a head coach that I’ve had with Tony.”  Dungy finished his six-year tenure in Tampa and his seven-year stint in Indy as the career leader in victories for both franchises, finishing with an overall record of 148-79.

The future of Colts head coach Tony Dungy is expected to come within the next 24 hours according to ESPN.  The Colts coach said that he was going to take some time once the season ended to make a decision on if he would or would not come back to coach the team next year, and apparently that decision has been reached.

If Dungy does not come back, the teams associate head coach, Jim Calwell, will be the teams next head coach.  That was decided upon before last season began when many felt that Dungy would hang it up.  Dungy and the Colts season ended last weekend with a playoff loss to the Chargers.

Dungy has been a head coach since he took over the Tampa Bay Bucs back in 1996, and coached there for six seasons before being fired.  The Colts snatched him up right away, and he’s been with them since the 2002 season, and has led them to a 85-28 record, 7-6 in the postseason.  He has led the Colts to the playoffs each season as head coach, and the team won the Super Bowl, beating the Bears three seasons ago in Super Bowl XLI.

From: Pro Football Weekly

Colts associate head coach Jim Caldwell’s name has been thrown around in connection with some of the coaching vacancies throughout the league. Just don’t expect Caldwell to have the slightest interest in any of them. Already in line to become the Colts’ new skipper whenever Tony Dungy decides to retire, we hear that Caldwell has every intention and desire to remain in Indianapolis.

While no one has heard from Colts current coach Tony Dungy for the past few days, there are more indications that he might be ready to hang it up as coach of the Colts. The team has signed current assistant head coach Jim Caldwell to a multiyear extension that will pay him about $2.5 million this upcoming season – head coaching money. The team would pay about $7.5 mil between both Dungy and Caldwell if they are both on the staff, leading one to believe the team is starting to think that Dungy will NOT be coming back in 2008.

If Tony Dungy does what a lot of people expect him to do, which is step down as the Colts head coach, their new head coach is already in place. Owner Jim Irsay confirmed on Thursday night that Jim Caldwell will be the teams new head coach when/if Dungy calls it quits. That could be as early as Monday as Dungy said after the teams playoff loss to the Chargers he would talk with his family in Tampa Bay and then make his decision known.

Caldwell, the teams current assistant head coach, may already know Dungy’s decision, as he has taken himself out of consideration for head coaching jobs in Atlanta and Baltimore. He was thought to be in the final running for the job with the Falcons, who also were turned down by Jason Garrett who instead decided to return to Dallas. Irsay stated directly that “Jim Caldwell would be the guy” if Dungy walks away.

The only head coaching experience that Caldwell has was when he was at Wake Forest. He spent eight seasons as the coach of the Demon Deacons. He did though coach the Colts through the tough stretch when Dungy missed a game when his 18-year-old son died back in 2005. It seems with him taking himself out of the running for two other jobs that its a “for sure” that Dungy is walking away and Caldwell is going to be the next head coach of the Colts.