While some of us are still ranting about having 59 points dropped on us by the Packers, it's important to (once again) stress that this is preseason. Teams are evaluating talent, not trying to win football games. And if you took a gander around the NFL landscape last night, you saw many, many other supposedly 'good' teams look utterly miserable in their 'dress rehearsal' preseason game:
- Mark Sanchez looked pitiful against the Redskins. I know because I was there, watching the game at the new Meadowlands Stadium. When Sanchez threw the interception to DeAngelo Hall, the crowd booed him. They actually booed him... in preseason. Welcome to New York... er, New Jersey.
- Small side note: Lucas Oil Stadium is nicer.
- The Chiefs continue to look like dog meat in preseason as do the Eagles. Kevin Kolb looks worse than Matt Cassel, and that's saying something.
- Speaking of injuries, a Chiefs player got carted off the field with an apparent spine injury. Thoughts are with him.
- The Patriots got smacked around by the Rams. The Rams! Rookie quarterback Sam Bradford was carving up the Pats first unit defense. If not for Ben Tate's kick-off return in the first quarter, the Pats would have had a 20-7 halftime lead.
My point here is this is preseason. Calm down. I'll throw in a quote from Jim Caldwell after the jump that puts a few more things into perspective. Bottom line, the Colts are still very good. In two weeks, no one will care about these preseason scores.
Colts coach Jim Caldwell (8/26/2010)
On Thursday night's game:
I think oftentimes, and I made this statement last night and I think it does indeed hold true – You’re never as good as you think you are when you win, and you’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose. After having an opportunity to take a look at the film, you certainly look at things a little differently. Take our situation, we take the ball (the) first drive and in two plays we’re in the end zone. That’s a pretty good start. You have to be pleased with that. From a defensive standpoint, they came out and took the ball down and scored. The next time they had the ball it was a three-and-out. Our offense went down and we got a field goal. The next time we go down our offense scores a touchdown. That first quarter was a pretty good quarter that looks about the way we play. The turnaround was right at the end of the second quarter. That’s where we fumbled a punt, muffed it, and they got a touchdown. Then we get a situation where they take it down the field and a penalty stops the clock when the clock is running and they get a shot at the end zone and score another touchdown. But in-between that time, our defense did a great job on a fourth-down stop after a turnover, so there were a lot of good things in that first half. Those are the things that get lost, such a thing as getting lost in the translation of a game, that gets lost in the evaluation of a ballgame until you actually have an opportunity to go back and look at the film and digest what happens. So there were a lot of good things in that regard. DB-Bob Sanders came back and played well. He looks a lot more settled than he did the week before, knocked the ball loose on a caused fumble. I can go on and on and on. DB-Antoine (Bethea) played well. There were a lot of guys that did nice jobs out there, but some because of the fact that the second half had all the miscues and penalties and etc., things got a little bit out of hand. That’s what happens if you have an inordinate amount of penalties, you turn the ball over, you’re going to get some scores like that, that get a little bit out of hand. But overall, when you look at the meat of what we were trying to get accomplished, there were a lot of good things in there, but also some things we need to get straightened out.