Thursday, October 30, 2008

Not excuses. Reasons.

Talking about injuries is dicey. No one wants to make excuses for why a team struggles. In the NFL, you are what you are. There are no bonus points for style or playing hurt. At the end of the day, a team's record speaks for itself. The 2007 and 2008 Colts have seen a stunning wave of injuries, and they have left the team far from elite. Would they be better if everyone was healthy? Maybe, probably, whatever. Players aren't healthy, so the team isn't elite.

What injuries do provide is a reason for the struggles. The Colts aren't struggling because of Dungy's coaching. They shouldn't radically change the way they play long term (although obviously adjustments have to be made due to changes in personnel). There is no problem with the Colts philosophies or systems. They've been crushed by injuries. That's the reason they are 3-4. That's why they are 12-8 in their last 20 games. In the modern NFL, depth is a dicey issue anyway. A team might have a good back up at a couple of positions. The Colts have Dom Rhodes and Melvin Bullitt filling in nicely. Ultimately, whenever a team loses a lot of games by key players, that team will struggle.

It's fun to try and find the imaginary complex culprit, but it's right there in front of us. If the injury wave doesn't abate, the Colts will be washed under by it. There is simply nothing to be done about it. If they get players back and healthy (starting the same offensive line in consecutive weeks will be a great start!), they'll probably play a lot better. If they don't, then no other change will help.

By the way, for those who missed it, MJax may be done for the year. Yee Haw. 9 more weeks of Tim Jennings.

Here's some video from Manning shooting a Master Card commercial



My buddy Tim sent me this. It shows just how huge soccer is here in Argentina. It's also a little creepy. Seriously...read this even if you don't give a crap about soccer. It's hilarious.

Nice work by Shake again. Just in case someone out there was down on the Jaddai Master.

Mike Tanier looks back at the history of Colts-Pats

15 comments:

Bob M. said...

RE: MJax... allow me to make one crucial, critical, analytical, well-reasoned point.

Arrrgh.

Anonymous said...

I'll second that well-stated point.

It's frustrating to be blaming (and correctly blaming, at that) something that no one can do anything about. Ugh.

My husband bought us tickets to a December game for my birthday, though, and now I can look forward to the game instead of thinking, "Well, this is a pointless game. At least I can look forward to the beer and nachos."

Demond Sanders said...

The Nachos are like 7 bucks.

Sorry, that didn't help did it?

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

Anonymous said...

westside rob - i read some of your comments in the last few posts complaining about people attacking you in the chat. I dont know who you are talking about but I know I was chatting with you a bit about manning at the end. Im not sure if you were considering that conversation an attack but if so you need to ease up a bit. I disagreed with your far end approach that Manning was playing terribly and I wanted to point out that he missed a few passes that most qb's wouldnt make, probably 8-10 qbs hit harrison with that deep pass...and that yes super human mannning of the past would have made it almost every time so we are spoiled, and clearly he isnt that super human qb this year. Hopefully he will come to that at some point but he isnt there now. Hopefully you are referring to someone else but if not just wanted to make it clear that in my opinion our conversation was a civil disagreement.

shake'n'bake said...

You want to see an attack check out the comments in the link to my story. That guy really doesn't like me and FO.

Anonymous said...

Buzz,
I don't think it was you. You had good arguments, if I recall. Even bad arguments are fine, and I would never have a problem with that. I'm never bothered by people making a reasoned argument about how I'm just plain wrong(which I'm guessing is more often than not). DZ does it every other day, and I still like him.

This was more a case of a couple people (maybe primarily one) just throwing crap like. "Learn something about football" and other such nonsense.

I'll admit that I was caught up a little in the emotion of the game and probably was throwing Manning more under the bus than he deserved. I think mostly I was frustrated because I like many thought that once he was getting time in the pocket that we'd start seeing the old Manning. Well Monday I felt like he was getting plenty of time and he still wasn't clicking, and he was still forcing throws, and staring down receivers, and throwing the ball too often (even before we got behind), and not utilizing the pump fakes, or looking off receivers to draw the safety away from the play, or really any of the things that generally speaking make Manning a Super Human QB. I think all of the emotion of defending him (all season and his whole career for that matter) spilled over and for about an hour I got tired of defending him and wanted to see him improve his play this year like the line (both sides of the ball) was clearly improving.

I think those of your that regularly read know that I'm fairly opinionated like most everyone else on here. I don't claim to have a lock on the "ultimate truth" of anything. I think this whole system works best when we can all layout out in writing both our rational and irrational arguments. Personal shots are something I just don't care for. That's one of the main reasons I became so drawn to this blog and prefer it so much to other blogs, discussion boards, etc. It's all arguments, and very little if any personal attacks. Even our resident Pats fan JC is a shining example of logic, well-founded arguments (as misguided as he is), and tongue and cheek chivalry. I'm all for good natured jabs too, but that's not what I felt was coming across from a few people (or maybe it was just one). I tried to draw some of one of them into actually putting forth a rationale argument but either he didn't take the bait or he bailed out. OR maybe I'm just too sensitive and needed to go hug it out....and shut the F up.

Deshawn Zombie said...

I felt bad about the way the chat deteriorated on Monday. Fact is that I just couldn't participate with the connection I had.

Had we been around to run things, we wouldn't have let people get so abusive. I think we were all a bit pissed off that night.

FYI, we politely declined an invitation to chat with Pats fans this week. Some lines shouldn't be crossed. I'd be willing to do a mixed chat again under some circumstance, but this isn't the week for it. Some people liked it, other didn't, but from what I could tell most of the abuse was from 'our' end (which makes sense, we were the ones who were angry).

Anyway, the game is on TV for me this week, so my connection should be free to keep up with the chat. So things will be back to normal. Next week, we move into our own place (finally). So as soon as DSL and DirecTV are installed, I'll feel like I'm back to knowing what I'm talking about. No more cursing Brighthouse and bit-torrent downloading the game 4 days later.

I still have to rewatch this week's game (not looking forward to that), because on Monday I couldn't make out jersey numbers via slingbox. I'll post my observations sometime tomorrow.

coltsfanawalt said...

Just finished season four.

Never expected to see Locke in that coffin. What is the deal?

I am very curious where this is going to go.

Bob M. said...

Shake,
Very nice article on Joe and Dom. It reminded me of Dom's rookie year-- 1,104 yards in 10 starts, yet somehow the offense still sucked in that 6-10 year. His first run from scrimmage set the tone--an 80 yard TD vs KC. After that, probably a dozen 2 yard runs. Still, I am thrilled to have him back.
Always invoke Edge--success rate defines why he could be a HOFer.

Tanier's writeup... what can I say? I may move to Philly's NJ 'burbs and enroll in HS math classes just to get a daily dose of him.

Anonymous said...

I, personally, condone and encourage personal shots and ad hominem attacks.

Anything else is boring.

You declined an invite with my bretherin???

Man 3-4 turned you soft.

JC

Deshawn Zombie said...

If it could have been just Demond and I, I would have gone through with it. But since we had people that couldn't handle a civil chat with the Titans, I decided not to open it up for the chaos that would have ensued. I want to enjoy the game, not play chat room baby sitter all night.

Anonymous said...

I read that transcript bro it wasn't that bad.

Except when Rob started Dungying people and the whole room turned on him.

But even that wasn't THAT bad.

I hope everyone watches It's always sunny in Philly.

That show makes me laugh as hard as I've ever laughed since I saw DODGEBALL in the theater in 2004.

Deshawn Zombie said...

Dodgeball was insanely funny in the theater. I watched it on DVD later, and didn't laugh nearly as hard.

We went to Burn After Reading tonight. What a disaster. I love the Cohen Brothers (The Hudsucker Proxy is wildly underrated), but this was crap.

It wasn't funny. It wasn't ironic. It wasn't serious. No one in the whole movie was likable, except maybe Brad Pitt, and they shot his ass half way through. It's crap, and it pains me to say that. Don't waste your team.

Anonymous said...

Course, if you want motivation for this game, remember that Pats superfan "Fitzy", whose video of Brady's ("TFB") season ending. Well...he's back:

link

Anonymous said...

I love Fitzy.


Hey Mahhhhvin!

When Shake describes the stereotypical Boston Fan, Fitzy is who he's talking about.

www.townienews.com