but what about “Colts RB”?

And who knows, if it weren’t for Brown’s carries, maybe Addai would be injured. Then we’d have no Addai and no Brown.

Sure would be nice to have Loadholt though.

I love Brown’s potential, but so far, he has been disappointing because of all those injuries. Another good observation was all the players drafted after him, including Maualuga, Britt, and someone you missed: James Laurinaitis. I always preferred James over, well, anyone. Donald started in an impressive fashion but if he ain’t gonna last, then that pick was a waste.
It’s a tough league, he has to learn how to play in the NFL and specially, as a Colts RB (just as shoein mentioned).
Hope this guy can make it, has a lot of potential.

There’s no clear picture of his talent, one way or another. He hasn’t played enough.

Bill Polian said that Mathis’ injury would now have him considered as Questionable, and that he would be a game time decision so, we have to wait.

I have no patience for stupid bloggers who make wide-ranging generalizations that lump players into two categories – fantastic or craptastic. Seriously, SB is only good for finding links to other articles written about the Colts. Big Blue Shoe lambastes journalists when they makes dumb generalizations like this, yet he can’t resist doing the same in his articles.

As a Colts fan living in the St Louis area there are way worse personal/draft pick decisions you can make then Donald Brown.

(yes, I’m Captain obvious) He showed me something in the first half of the season – a burst and a top end gear that Addai lacks. We see year after year a RB gets a shoulder injury and isnt the same the rest of the year, one hit and they are done with contact. Now its a chest. Hopefully he can get to 100%, because I’d love to see him run behind the “new” OL with their new philosophy (more up the middle, more smash mouth, less stretch). Addai is shining, but I really think that with his burst, Brown could hit some home runs.

Brown also has over 150 yards recieving to go with those rushing yards. His durability does scare me a little bit too, but I think he will be back no later than next week nd hopefully he will stick for the rest of the year. I think we will get a real gauge of him then when he comes back to our improved run blocking. He has shown ability to be a real weapon and I am not quite ready to pull the bust trigger on him yet…

Since it’s his first year and if he’s chronically injured 2 years down the road, then maybe we can call him injury prone.

Besides, say the Colts drafted those players mentioned above and they get injured like Brown. They’d be contributing just as less at this point. The comparison is moot.

what exactly have any of them done to make them better picks than Brown, other than they have not gotten hurt? Britt and Nicks would have been wasted first round picks, seeing as Garcon and Collie have been studs. Pat Chung? Not better than Sanders, not better than Bethea, not better than Bullitt, and as their second round pick, has he helped the Pats d at all? Nope. Loadholt and Britton? Two good offensive tackles that could help the run game, but Addai benefits more from having guys like Brown taking carries and him getting a little rest rather than another o-lineman. Maualuga? Good, but our crop of LBs is good and he would make no immediate impact. Would I take him over Moala? Absolutely. Brown? No.

The last guy deserves his own paragraph. Beanie Wells. Are you serious with this? First you say a first round RB must produce immediately, which is false anyway, but how is he better than Brown? He is a head case, he fumbles, and he was drafted to be the STARTER. And you wanna talk about durability issues? Did you have your head turned Wells’ entire college career? The guy was hurt through most of his career. He has done nada this year aside from a few games against crap defenses, and has gotten many more carries than Brown. Do you think the Cardinals really wanted Hightower to start most of the year when they drafted Wells? I’d take Brown, who has been productive in limited PT, over Wells, who was basically slotted as the Cardinals starter on draft day and has done very little with that opportunity.

Brown was not drafted to be the starter. If he was, I might agree w/ you to an extent that he needs to make a bigger impact. But he was drafted to make the running game stronger. He was drafted to be an explosive back who warranted 10-15 carries a game, so Addai did not have such a workload. He was not drafted to replace Addai. He has gotten injured a bit, but nothing that should worry anyone. He is a rookie. When he has played, he has played well. He will continue to grow.

What about Vinny? Is he coming back or not?

We need to get this sorted out quick because a rusty Nougatieri is going to be more of a burden than anything else IMO.

Also, I’m surprised that they haven’t put Sorgi on IR and signed Dom Rhodes or someone else yet. Sorgi is worthless if he is injured. It must be a sham injury.

          G GS Att Yds Avg Lng TD Rec Yds Avg Lng TD FUM Lost
A) 14 3 134 673 5.0 48 4 19 189 9.9 28 0 1 1

B) 13 2 121 501 4.1 31 1 33 313 9.5 41 1 1 0

C) 9 0 59 263 4.5 45 2 10 157 15.7 72 0 1 0

None of these guys lit the world on fire their rookie year. Their decent, but definitely not “good right out of the gate.” C is obviously donald brown. He has good numbers in limited game appearances. But A and B played full seasons and didn’t look all pro, so by your definition, they are “trash.” RB A is Steven Jackson and RB B is DeAngelo Williams. So it is not only ignorant and unrealistic to think that a rookie RB is trash if he is not a star out of the gate, especially when he is a freakin’ backup, but it is down right 100% wrong. If two years down the road he is not producing, then go ahead and blast away. Rookie season, though? You expect too much.

Clearly the problem isn’t lack of production, Joseph is just playing too effectively to put Brown in. You can’t fault DB for being picked by a team that already had a very good running back. Given some more time I am confident he will earn more playing time as he learns the system better and makes the physical leap between rookie and sophomore that BP is always talking about.

The Colts system is not easy for running backs. Thinking so, shows sever ignorance. Brown will be a great Colt – mark my words, copy them, paste them, write down the date when I wrote it. Donald has been doing just fine and will be a stud.

BBS, I love your articles most of the time but in this case….you are wrong.

First, the Colts O-Line is average at best, forcing our RB’s to block more than they ever have in recent years. That alone can cause injuries that normally wouldn’t occur.

Secondly, conditioning in year one is hard for many players, especially if they aren’t getting on the field often enough. As much as I hate to say it, the Colts are not playing Brown enough….

Third, we’ve all gotten spoiled by the fact that the Colts have had 3 previous RB’s come in and do very well right out the gate (Faulk, Edge, Addai). Sure, Addai’s numbers have fallen off, but that is easily explainable in the way the O-Line has played in 2007/2008. The numbers are going back up this year, as the line has solidified once more…

You are talking about a guy who has played very limited snaps in most games and even had he been healthy for the 3 he missed, again, how much time would he have actually gotten on the field? This isn’t just his fault…that can also simply be the play calling as well.

Lastly, while not a RB, Reggie Wayne was a 1st round pick and his first year was absolutely abysmal.

Both Collie and Garcon in 12 games this year have 150+ more yards than Wayne had in 13 games his rookie year. Shoot, Garcon in what really amounts to his first year….has virtually the same yards in 12 games than Wayne had in his 2nd year total (16 games).

You just cant focus on 1 year of production to label Brown a bust, especially in a year when our offense was essentially in transition via losses/injury on offense. Regardless of how we look right now, those changes alone have had an impact on how this team has played this year.

Well now you have crossed the line. I understand everyone is entitled to his own opinion but come on. How can you consider yourself a Colts fan? All this time you have been bashing Sanders, after the pretty much won the only SB in Peyton’s era. Now Brown, it’s not like he missed the whole season he missed 3 games… Get over it, injuries happen in football! He has been productive enough for a rookie that’s learning offense, which I’m sure is not easy to do.

leaning Peyton’s offense*