how many 12 win seasons, playoff runs, and division titles do you have to win……. no doubt theres always room for improvement, but EVERY team in the league has its weaknesses. If Polian selects someone unexpected in the first round (which is usually the case) ill be disapointed, but reserved to the fact that he knows WAY more than i do about football.

Great quote. In fact, I’m going to quote a quote for truth.

“Offense Wins Games, Defense Wins Championships.”

                   -Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant Jr.

One can look at the few who have done it better than they have seemingly, and thereby be discontent with their accomplishments. But many such people need to look at the slew of others who have failed altogether, or who aren’t even a shell of the success that the discontent one is. It’s all perspective.

In the NFL, we can look at the Patriots and their three rings and let that obscure our success if we choose to do so. Others could argue about their ethics in getting them, but that isn’t my point. Let’s just credit them with a remarkable decade. Out of thirty-two teams, only one is there. Even the Steelers, who boast one more ring than us, have been comparably successful over the last decade. We have done some things they have not, and they have netted an extra ring. The head and shoulders dominant team has been the Pats only, with three rings and two of those back to back.

Take them out, and we have a lot to be excited about. Our division titles and many records. Consecutive playoff appearances and twelve wins seasons. There are a lot of teams that haven’t sniffed the playoffs or any measure of success this past decade. In this salary cap era, we have done well.

I realize there are some fans who will say that it isn’t enough, who feel that their dissatisfaction somehow makes them a better fan. But no way. We all would love to hoist the Lombardi every year, but it isn’t realistic. And how does our disdain at our accomplishments help the team at all? We don’t play the game or handle the personnel decisions. The motivation for more is for the players and leadership who actually can do something about it, and I don’t doubt that they are plenty driven in this competitive league. Every team is, but only one wins it all each year.

I wonder if such fans are that motivated and discontent with their own life’s accomplishments, over which they have at least a measure more of control. It is still a sad thing to be depressed over those doing what we do in life seemingly better than we are doing it, rather than looking at those who aren’t even as blessed as we are. Perspective is important in every area of life. However, it only makes sense to focus any dissatisfaction towards things that we can control rather than what we can not.

I am very happy to be a Colts fan. I wish we’d win it all every year, and it usually takes me a while after a playoff loss to shake it off. I have a close friend who is a Pats fan, and he struggles with that as well. After we beat them in the AFCCG, he was so down you would’ve thought that they had never won three rings already. Apparantly it is never enough. If we had three rings, the same people would be upset over not having one more. Deny it, but I guarantee it. That is human nature, and it is what I deal with in life with my career. It’s never enough.

I think the management has been remarkable for our team, and I look forward to more good leadership this season as well. Go Colts!

LOL…

and a top 8 in 2002 and 2008. The Colts have had great defenses.

I can’t believe Colts fans are buying into the stereotype that Indy’s teams have been all offense no D.

The question to me isn’t what is more important, offense or defense. It’s more like, which players in the draft can help both sides of the all. Balance. A good offense will help the defense, and vice versa. I wonder who Poilian values highly that will slip to us each round.

Im not going to argue that the Colts have had good defenses, however KR is right about the Run D. Running the ball effectively against the Colts does 2 things: 1) it limits the amount of possessions our offense has to actually do something since it consumes a ton of time. 2) it tires out our defense from doing what they do best, and thats rushing the passer. Yards dont count on the scoreboard, but it can prevent the other team with the great offense to put up points. I wont be mad at management for passing up on a defensive player in the first round, but there is no question in my mind that we have to get this run D fixed if we want to win another title.

We win 12+ games every year, because Peyton refuse to loose and Will his team to a win often. Our 2 DEs who are as good as it gets for a tandem, help out on the defense side. The rest of the team are OK, but OK is not good enough for play-offs. here are my points

We don’t have a bruising RB who can get 1st downs and wear out the other defense, and keep the offense on the field.
We don’t have a DT or DTs who is/are consistently disruptive, or run hoarding, even the ones who quit or were let go.
Peyton, and our WR and TE although are great, but are under a lot of pressure to perform because they know that our “bend but not break” defense will be on the field much longer than them (offense). hence they make mistakes under pressure in play-offs when stakes are high.
Let’s be honest that our defensive/speacial team coaches are not like Mudd (the magician). When you have vanilla defense, it does not take a rocket science to figure out to double team DF, hold Mathis just a tad, and throw short passes. That’s what SD did last 2 years.

My point:
Bend but not Break defense can and does work, but only when you have a very good or great D-Line.
Addai is a decent RB but cannot be the workhorse like EJ was.

Can anybody look up how many play-offs losses we incurred in last 5-6 years when offense was on the field longer than the defense?

I m just tired of Colts loosing to a inferior team (SD) twice in playoffs no matter how I try to justify it with salary cap, bad luck and them(SD) also being as good (cuz they were not) . I thought with SB experience in hand we may at least go deeper in the play-offs last 2 years. It just a pity that with arguably the best QB ever playing for us, we have to be content with one SB. May be I should just be content with regular season success and don’t expect much in the play-off, afterall it’s an idiocy to expect different results after doing the same thing over and over again. I guess it’s good to be a homer, shouldn’t it hurt less though?

I have been a huge big Colts fan since I was a kid. I love our organization and what we have done, we have had alot to cheer for over the years. However, I think everyone can agree that we have the best QB of all time. Make injury excuses or whatever you want, but we have only had one Super Bowl appearance with him. Dungy believed in his way of doing things too much, and didnt apapt. I really like him, but he was never the coach to sleep in his office, and live football. Its the NFL, thats what you have to do. I hate the man, but Belichick lives and breaths Patriots. Everyone has already mentioned the run defense/special teams killing us, so I wont get into that. But all excuses aside, if you look at the offenses Brady had when he won those 3 Super Bowls. They were not as good as the Colts, neither was the QB. But they had things we already mentioned. Same situation with the Steelers

I think they are gonna help bring a lot more balance to this team in the coming years.

All the Dungy bashers could well remember that the same things are said about our beloved QB all the time. He is a great stats guy and a regular season phenom, but he chokes in the post season. Doesn’t have that killer instinct. Not a winner. Even his one ring had to be greatly aided by the defense playing its best ball ever. Manning may have it regular season, but he is no Tom Brady when it comes to performing when it counts. Peyton even has the liberty to make his calls at the line, but he has done less with more weapons than others like Brady and Big Ben in the postseason. Blah, blah blah.

I don’t buy that crap anymore than the rest of us do, and we readily defend Manning for it. But some sure don’t mind dumping the same on Dungy. Oh, but he’s “a great guy.” “Like him lots and all”. We’ll just dump all the same crap on him that we get mad at others for doing to Peyton, though. Whatever.

We have had a great team, with a great coach, great QB, and great success. It has been great to be a Colts fan for quite a while now. And I remember cheering for them when it wasn’t so exciting back in the day. I hope Caldwell can take Tony’s foundation and bring us to new heights. Adversity will be the challenge for him. I won’t forget the pressure Dungy and company felt after that humiliation to the Jags in ‘06. The coach kept his cool, didn’t ditch the baby with the bathwater, and we won the super bowl that year. His adjustments were enough without the overhaul. Oh, wait. That isn’t his credit, I forgot. Only his blame.

Over just how hard it is to win Superbowls these days. People look at the Patriots and don’t think “they’re an exception” – they think, “we should win as many as they do”. Or look at the Steelers and go “wow, two Superbowls in a decade, Peyton’s better so we should have three” instead of going “what an extraordinary mix of skill and good fortune they have had”.