Was it in fact Addai, or the lousy blocking the O-Line was giving him?
I agree totally with Bullard47 . . .I thought Addai ran hard, but half the times he had the ball the line looked like turnstiles. That 45 yarder by Brown was through a hole I could have run through. . .Well, maybe not.

1st play of game, stretch play LEFT:

Amazingly good read/react from Dahl. He moves so fast that Saturday is unable to get to him before he’s past him and into the backfield. Charlie Johnson, I’m assuming, is responsible for either the CB, whom he takes. Reggie blocks the safety downfield. If Joe could have avoided the LB it would have been a big gain, but hard to do that when a LB has a perfect angle on you and you’re going NW.

Run 2:

Stretch play right. Good blocking by the OL. Clark kind of Ole’s his man (LDE), but gets just enough of him that Addai is able to avoid him by leveling out his run. He immediately cuts up the hole, with a little more burst/speed he would have avoided the tackle that got him, but there were 3 guys waiting to greet him 3 yards down the field.

Run 3:

2nd and 1, stretch to the right. This one is weird. the line is blocking, everything is sealed, Garcon gets his block on the LB on the outside. The CB was there, but 5 yards deep. If Addai keeps it going left, he has a 1 on 1 with a CB, and if he beats the CB, its a TD. Instead, Addai cuts it up into the mass of humanity, gain of 0. Now, here would be my first issue with Addai. Yes, there was an unblocked man to the north, but a 1st round RB needs to be able to make ONE person miss.

Run 4:

Third and 1: Full back lead. Addai gets his 3 yards and the first down. If this were a video game, he clearly should have cut it to the left, and gone 50 yards for the score, but in real life, he took what was there and moved the chains.

Run 5:

Stretch to the right. I think this would be one of those runs where people are sort of impatient with Joe. He waits. And waits. And waits. and waits. And waits. And then is out of bounds. There was a DL that went unblocked, but Addai should be able to use the laws of physics to cut up and have big tub of lard running fast in straight line go past him. Gain of 2, but he just runs to the sidelines way too much. He’s looking like a better version of Laurence Maroney.

Run 6:

Belly right: Pollak or Devan’s man disengages and makes the tackle for a 3 yard gain.

Run 7:

Sweep left out of the shotgun. Addai chooses to go left of Johnson, instead of right, and can’t make the CB miss, gain of 4. Even when Addai is getting decent blocking, he’s not making anyone miss when he has a full of head steam and they are standing there. I think Addai maybe should have cut it up, but it wouldnt have been much more than a yard or 2 more.

Run 8:

Sweep left out of shot gun. Funny, I think Austin Collie got the play call wrong. Addai sees that Collie isnt blocking anyone and is instead waiting for a pass, Collie realizes the errors of his ways and immediately blocks his man, but its too late, Addai has cut up into the arms of a LB or safety. If Collie makes his block immediately, Addai might continue left where he has tons of green.

Run 9:

Toss right. Addai fumbles the toss which slows him down. If he catches it clean, the blocking is fine and he runs a long way. Still think he should have made some decent yardage, but he cuts to the left behind his outside block into a LB, instead of going to the outside of his block where there was no one (and he may have gotten a screen on the crossing LB if he goes to the oustside.)

Run 10:

Same exact play (only flipped) that Brown ran the play before (and hurt his shoulder). Same scenario plays out, the hole that Addai wants is clogged, but instead of making that read immediately, Addai runs into a mass of humanity, THEN makes his jump cut, which avoids a gain of 0 and turns it into a gain of 3, but his inability to read/react quicker prevented him from having his speed built up to blow by the tacklers as brown did on his previous run.

Run 11:

3rd and 1: Misdirection play that they used in the 06 AFCCG. Addai hits the hole hard and fast, gets 6 yards. At this point Addai has 11 carries for 31 yards.

Run 12:

Stretch right. Addais only hope to gain 1 single solitary yard was to immediately cut it up when he got outside the seal block. One he chose not to do that, there were 4 defenders at the LOS spread out to prevent any sort of cut. Dont think you can really fault him on this one, though. Like I said, best case scenario is a gain of 1 or 2.

Run 13:

Belly right on 3rd and 1. Pollak has his best play of his career (only slight exaggeration) when he not only knocks back the DT, but then quickly moves to the 2nd level and seals the LB. Addai follows his hole and strolls into the end zone untouched.

13 carries for 37 yards and a TD.

Look, I’ve liked Addai this year. His pass blocking and his ability to catch everything thrown at him has really saved this offense from having many negative plays. But you cannot sell me this ‘sample size’ nonsense. If its sample size, then Addai has had MORE chances for big plays, and hasn’t had them. It works both ways. Yes, Brown isnt a 30 ypc back, thats the only thing that is skewed by sample size. The fact that Addai is a 3ypc back ISNT skewed by sample size. Are there runs where he’s not getting blocking? Yes, there are. Are there runs where he’s not getting great blocking, but he’s also not hitting holes quickly? Yes, there are. Also not really advocating a change in touches, because I’m not sure Brown can handle a full load.

So in summary:

Sample size with regards to brown? truth
Sample size with regards to addai? untruth
Polian bitching about OL? this is the quote from Kravitz:

I particularly enjoyed listening to team president Bill Polian as he sat in the press box and broke the time-honored “no cheering in the press box” rule, blurting out “Turn it up!” and “Run!” when Addai carried the ball

I don’t think those are things you say when bitching about OL. Kravitz and Phil B (and you can decide whether or not to believe them) both seem pretty convinced that Addai is losing favour with Polian.

in the past, there has been some criticism that the colts aren’t being creative enough or mixing it up enough for the running game.. well, thats not the case anymore. They are running on passing downs, they are running out of passing formations, using misdirection, everything they can to get the running game going. At some point the RBs need to make lemons out of small holes.

questionable from probable

Could Addai play the same role Faulk plays for the Pats?

Addai’s blocking is awesome, his pass catching skills are great.

Give Brown the go on 1st and 2nd, Addai on 3rd! This will also keep both fresh!

Addai is a pretty good blocker, although I’ve seen him make some major mistakes in the past where he has allowed the guy he was blocking to get around him and sack Peyton.

Addai just seems to lack the speed that Brown does. Addai won’t get through the holes before they close. Brown will. Addai is pretty good for short yardage, but he never gets big yardage. His choices for where to punch through the line also seem kind of bad. He seems to try punching through where there is just a large buildup of guys and there’s no chance of going anywhere, then he just pushes up against them and falls down. It would be nice to actually see him hit the weak hole in the line and punch through for at least 2-3 more yards.

Last year I was really upset with him. He just seemed like the starting position was absolutely his, no question. His performance was really poor and between that and all his injuries it made me wonder whether they should really keep him. In some ways Dominic Rhodes appeared to be doing a better job.

Addai just isn’t a big yardage threat. Donald Brown is. I bet if you compared Brown’s average for carries of over 20 yards vs. Addai’s average. Brown probably has a much much better stat.

Brown can become better at catching and blocking, but I don’t really see Addai getting any faster. Hopefully we get to see what Mike Hart can do sometime this year. I’d really like to see the Colts have two runningbacks that can break past the O-line and get some big yardage like the Chargers were able to do with Sproules and like Jacksonville used to be able to do with Fred Taylor and company. With two runningbacks like that and the passing threat of Peyton Manning and company, the Colts offense would be pretty much unstoppable.