That has been Dungy and the Colts motto for the past several years now, and you know what? It sucks...

I'm a strong believer in Dungy.  I think he's a good coach, but he's a little too patient for my taste.  That motto can only take us so far.  "Doing what we do" isn't good enough.  I'm sick of sitting back in deep zones and giving up plays to the offense.  Our hope is that if we make the opposing offense drive all the way down the field, then they'll make mistakes.  Instead of trying to force mistakes like other teams do, we just hope.  Well it works a lot of times, but when it doesn't, we sure look like we're getting our asses beat out there.  

Our defense works great when we A.) Play with a lead, and B.) Have Freeney and Mathis to rush the passer.  When we play against a good offensive team, we need to pressure the QB.  I saw one Blitz that worked effectively, and any other attempt was just pathetic.  We gave Phillip Rivers enough time to cook freakin breakfast back there in between throwing to wide open receivers.  If we're going to sit back in soft zones all day, then we need to generate pressure.  If we can't generate pressure, you would think someone would realize that it's time to man up and pressure him.  We didn't adjust to losing Freeney.  Josh Thomas couldn't rush the counter at dunkin' doughnuts.  

As far as the offense goes, sometimes I just don't know what the hell is going on out there.  I think Peyton is too analytical sometimes.  He is so smart before the snap, that he already "knows" who is going to be open prior to snapping the ball.  When something doesn't work out, he gets happy feet and doesn't complete the pass.  When you watch Tom Brady, he sits back there calm, flat footed and scans the field for the open guy.  I think Peyton needs to be a little more patient and look for the open guy instead of predetermining who to throw it to.

While I'm on the topic of offense, WTF happened to the running game?  There were several posts prior to the game about this, but honestly I wasn't really concerned.  Did we just forget to run the ball?  It wasn't like we were playing from behind.  Last year we won the Super Bowl because we ran when we needed to, and we stopped the run.  Today we didn't do particularly well at either.  And what was the deal with all of those weird formations, especially at the goal line towards the end of the game?  Why did we have a Trips-Left formation.  Why a 5 wide with Amorasho (Ahmad Rashad is what we call him) and Addai?  I don't think that was the time to start trying new formations.  We could have used a little pass protection in that situation.  What happened to the 2 tight end set that Peyton was so good at?  At least we were a little deceiving when we used that because you didn't know who would stay in and block and who would release to run routes.  Lining up 5 wide at the goal-line is stupid.  It's a perfect time to blitz because you're not going to give up a big play, and you limit the amount of time Peyton has to throw the ball.

On a side note... does anyone else get the feeling that Marvin is done?  Maybe all of those "career threatening" reports were true.  He hasn't been the same, and I think it's safe to say that Wayne is the new #1 in Indy.  

Sorry for the rambling post, but I'll try to sum it up.  We don't gameplan very well for opposing teams.  We have all of the talent in the world, but when teams stop us from "Doing what we do", we don't have anything else to fall back on.  San Diego came up with a plan to attack us, and they executed.  They couldn't run very well, so they threw the ball. We couldn't stop them on 3rd down, and we couldn't convert our own 3rd downs.  This game wasn't Peyton's fault, and it wasn't the defenses fault... it was the coaching staffs.

Now it's on to an uncertain off-season.  Do we resign Jake Scott and/or Lilja?  Does Marvin come back next year as the same player he was in the past?  Do we cut McFarland? Does Rob Morris return? Do we re-sign Dallas? Does Dungy retire? Do I cut Kenton Keith's hands off since he doesn't need them???

Lucas Oil Stadium... here we come.