2011 NFL Week 2 Recap: Browns 27, Colts 19

that’s all i can say. totally agree with everything you said. if i could find a suitable picture of a dumpster fire on Google images, i would insert it here.

I totally agree. GO COLTS! It’s not about one person. I don’t really like Irsay. I don’t care too much for Polian right now either. Your last couple of paragraphs are perfect. They say it all. We were blessed to have Manning and get that one superbowl. But this team is nothing like the Pats or Steelers who can keep winning when their QB goes down because they have good defenses and better lines. As much as I don’t want to say it, I think it is Suck for Luck time. But I’ll keep watching and cheering on my Colts. I hope they just go ahead and give Painter a shot. It won’t hurt anything.

If we as fans remain ‘diehard’ and ‘loyal’ and just accept a poorly run franchise because Polian says so, then we become the Cincinnati Bengals.

As a loyal colts fan, i am insluted by your comment “the 2011 Colts are done”.

That is a bunch of crap, and quite frankly, as of today I will not visit your blog for daily Colts info. We are 0-2, and are in fact struggling. However, being Debbie Downer in mid-September is a joke.

Don’t need to say more than that.

Not only are you correct in your opinions about who is footing the bill AND its the front office job to make the Colts good so people will turn out and fill the stadium and not need a Manning attraction to keep them in their jewels and $$$!

If anyone says that Manning gets TOO much credit, they are crazy! He deserves a part of the Irsay’s, the Polian’s and the coaching staffs pay because without him they obviously don’t deserve it based on the product on the field without him…

In terms of fair-weather fans, I think it is similar to what we went through out here in Ann Arbor the past two years. The confidence in Rich Rodriguez was at zero, the fans were angry about the team and wanted to see changes – and are willing to undergo a not great season under Brady Hoke to get it. The attitude around here is a lot different this year, the fans seem happy that the AD made a change rather than the usual “we know better than you” approach. I think that’s what a lot of Colts fans (myself included) are feeling. Loyal to the team, but screwed-over by obvious bad decisions in the front office that nobody is accountable for.

Anyone else find it really weird how every Colts highlight on Sportcenter/CBS/FOX etc is just a clip of them getting scored on and an “expert” yelling “Peyton Manning doesn’t play defense!!” That is going to be one of the worst things to deal with all season.

As a Browns fan I’ve got a lot of experience rooting for a losing team. My one word of advice is that you can be a loyal fan and not accept incompetence at the same time.

There are positives and negatives. Castanza was a great pick and the entire 2011 draft was right on the money if you ask me.

However, I do believe that the past 4-5 previous drafts were mostly busts for a couple of reasons. 1 is that the Colts made some pretty bad picks. 2 is that we seem to have a coaching staff that hasn’t been able to get the most out of players, especially defensively. When you have so many picks that bomb like they have for us, it has to be a problem with coaching.

and like Electra (Greek tragedy, and Daredevil’s girlfriend’s movie) our warnings were ignored

Put a fork in them. These 2011 Colts are done.

I think it gives you pleasure to write that, as its a way to stick it to Polian, Irsay, and the Colts organization.

For 40 years I’ve been a COLTS fan. Didn’t matter who played what position. Some players were obviously better and some were much worse. Watching the sideline yesterday showed that there is no confidence on this team and especially with this coaching staff. I’m disappointed that this team fails to adapt and overcome. At what point does someone say we screwed up, lets try to fix these glaring problems? It’s apparent Polian and Caldwell and the rest of this staff are blinded by their incompetence to fix the problems!

Yesterday it was clear that this team is still trying to find its identity without Manning. It’s not over yet, but in the extremely competitive AFC it’s getting dark. I wouldn’t say they’re done. They could find their way. Look at the Titans over Baltimore over Pittsburg. Teams find a way to win at odd times. Cleveland had a lot of drive last night and played really well. Hats off to them. Keep on chugging Colts. I still expect 5 wins at a minimum. This team will look much different in week 17 than they did yesterday. Keep in mind that it takes time to recover from losing the overwhelmingly clear leader of a team.

But damn! I’ve been a Colts fan since the late eighties. I will be one of the fools who is a Colts fan after Manning retires and we suck for awhile. Hell, I used to drive to Ft. Wayne on Sundays to watch the Colts during the blackout years, and there were several blackout years. All that being said, I have to agree that the make up of this team is piss poor. Manning covered more than I thought he did. I always hated hearing about how awesome New Englands front office is, but they understand and our front office doesn’t. They take care of Brady with an awesome O line, and get by with serviceable receivers. A great QB can make a so-so receiver look pretty damn good. We, on the other hand, spend a buttload of money on Cadillac receivers and put together an O line that could get a QB killed. Lets not even start on our D. As vanilla as it gets and personnel to match. Sure we have a few good players on D, and one great one, but all in all they suck. The boring cover 2 scheme is painful to watch unless we have a two touchdown lead. Teams nickel and dime us all the way down the field, and this year were not stiffening up at the goal line. The coaching is bad this year! Manning is out, and they are not adjusting to it. Collins can’t do the same things as Manning, how hard can it be to design some new plays based off the personnel you have. I was sooo disgusted yesterday when we finally seemed committed to running the ball, and we were doing it well, then in the 4th with 11 plus minutes to go, down 2, we completely abandoned the run. WTF??? After pounding them the way we did, you would think the run would’ve been there for us in the fourth. They were tired, that’s the time to cram it down their throat. Instead we put Collins in the shotgun like he is Manning. We could have at least put him under center so the Browns couldn’t tell we were abandoning the run and panicking. Hell no, instead we’ll see how Collins does with a D line that’s pinning it’s ears back against an O line with one good player (Castonzo), and one decent vet (Saturday)……Just, rrrrrrrrrrrr!!! BigBlackRichard is not a happy camper today.
I really hope the front office pulls it’s head outta its ass and starts building a team around the O and D lines, a QB, and then invest the vast majority of the remaining money in to the D as a whole. If not it may take 10 years for us to be competitive after Manning retires.

Getting killed by 50 points would be a bitter pill indeed.

football until this season is over.. However, I hate to say this, but we might not win a single -ucking game.

Someone who actually knows the answer to this, please respond. Does an NFL head coach ultimately decide who starts and gets the majority of playing time or does the decision fall to the appropriate coordinator or position coach? Ex. Does Caldwell decide that Lacey should start and play most of the game at CB or does Coyer decide? Alan Williams?

BTW, I know my username is outdated, but at this point I don’t really give a shit.

Look bandwagons go both ways. Everyone on here is jumping on the Colts freaking suck bandwagon. I thought you could take a lot from yesterday’s game. As far as Kafka? Yes, he looked good, his is very smart (Northwestern) but he was running a very similar offense to what he ran in college. Maybe that’s WHY they drafted him? And he wasn’t really a barnburner in college.

Go ahead haters. Blame Polian. Blame him for putting together this big pile of stinky shit of a team. But also blame him for a decade of winning, Manning and the Super Bowl.

Want to see suck? Look at the Chiefs.

Current defensive coordinator of the Bengals. He’s done a fine job with that defense.

Mike Zimmer, defensive coordinator, Cincinnati Bengals: At some point, he will get his chance to be a head coach. Zimmer has been close, but never quite got the job. He is one of the better defensive coaches in the league. There was some talk that he was the Cowboys coach in waiting, but that turned out to be Jason Garrett. The Bengals were fourth in total defense in 2009, but slipped to 15th last season in part because of injuries. Zimmer should get them back on track this season. If he does, he will get in the mix again.

but it does feel strange being more intrigued with scoreboard watching teams like Seattle,KC, SF etc. hoping they are losing as much or more than our usual foes.

We’ve got a non-Hoosier blogger telling us what Hoosier fans are like.
We’ve got spoiled whiney crybaby fans that expect no drop-off without Manning.
We’ve got people who just want to bitch about revisiting the perfect season from years ago (get over it).
We’ve got people who want to bitch about stadium funding (methinks they’d bitch worse if the team had left). Worse still, many of these people don’t even live here, so they can just shut up.
We’ve got people who think that they’re entitled to certain things just because they buy a ticket. Circuses, theatres, orchestras … all entertainment outfits use understudies and switch up the programming at the last minute. The most ignorant and small-minded things people say often begin with "I paid good money for …."
We’ve got people that want to lynch Polian and Caldwell and yet have no alternative ideas. These people won’t acknowledge the vast majority of correct moves that these two make (for example, I believe Caldwell has won every replay challenge throughout the preseason and 2 reg season games and has made no silly timeouts.)
We’re lacking in realists that see that yesterday’s game WAS competitive. It was not an embarrassment. If you think so, you’re spoiled by the Colts’ past success. The Browns had 1 good run all day. We out rushed them. There was definite tangible improvement over week 1. We lost because of Kerry Collins’ turnovers and our drives stalling in the redzone. Those are issues directly due to the absence of Manning. Six inches of improvement at a time, as says Caldwell.

Now, if all those who stuck a fork in the Colts after the first two courses of the meal would kindly excuse yourselves from the table, we adults here still have the appetite to enjoy the next 14 dishes on the menu. Kindly don’t yuck our yum. Bon appetit!

One last comment and I’m out of here.

Don’t let the score fool you. That was a very competitive game on Sunday until about the last five minutes. The reason the Colts lost was that they couldn’t fully capitalize on red zone possessions. I am not a Colts fan, so you’ll know your team better, but from an outsider’s perspective it looks like everyone here needs to readjust their expectations. You don’t just take the best QB of all time off of a team and expect that team to stay good. Even very good overall teams that lose their starting QB take a huge step back. This team is not as bad as most of you think, trust me, I’ve watched a ton of bad football.