i think dungy is just as much a liability. he's conservative, and indecisive, to boot.
for example, there's nothing wrong with bringing a rookie along slowly, and working him in, but when a guy looks ready, you should use him. it shouldn't have taken dungy this long to get joseph addai more carries than rhodes. and if rhodes' back wasn't bothering him, we'd STILL be looking at a 50 50 split, which doesn't benefit either back, because they can't get a rhythm going. in the games they almost lost to the jets and the titans, dungy couldn't figure out who to go with, and wouldn't keep either one in there once he got any sort of momentum. it was pathetic.
that kind of lack of decision will bite him on the a$$ in the playoffs.
I live in Indy and get more then my share of Manning-worship. The D, particularly the run D, will prove fatal. The small/fast defense is great when they are playing ahead and forcing the other team to throw, but get up on them and grind it out and you're sure to prove once again the whole 'Manning can't win the big one' argument (when in fact its more of a 'your run defense can't force outs when you need them').
Addai is a good back, but having never played a 16 game schedule before - easing him into the workload isn't a bad approach when you're planning on playing into January. Too many rookie runners hit 'the wall' after 14 or so games. Especially in Tom Moore's offense, fully grasping the playbook can take a season or two.
DawgPound wrote: Addai is a good back, but having never played a 16 game schedule before - easing him into the workload isn't a bad approach when you're planning on playing into January. Too many rookie runners hit 'the wall' after 14 or so games. Especially in Tom Moore's offense, fully grasping the playbook can take a season or two.
good point, dawg.
i'd be willing to bet, however, that if rhodes returns to health, their run game will return to an awkward 50 50 split. it will lack direction and identity all the way through, and when it becomes crucial to sustain drives in the playoffs, the running game won't be there for them. d's will be able to key on manning, dungy won't know how to make game time adjustments, manning won't play well as a result, and then we'll all be hearing about about peyton the choker again.
there are many different ways this could play out, but i think that's how it will go.
Size is an indicator, for the Colts sacrafice size for speed to the tune of 167 rushing yard per game. The Falcons give up 94 yards per game, 73 yards per game difference (which is huge), but in this case its not about the linebackers - run D starts up front.
The Colts have 1 300lber (Boogar, acquired recently) at DT, the Falcons have 3. The Colts started DEs are both < 6'2", the Falcons are > 6'4
There is a reason pro personnel directors use height and weight to filter prospects. Of course, heart - determination - skill play a huge role in a player's success, but if they lack the necessary size to compete or their bodies are too fragile to sustain the punishment...
i wanna bring this back to dungy one more time, but in the context of his team's d.
i remember that when he took the indy job, the thinking was: he's a good / great defensive coach who had just turned tampa's defense into one of the best in the league, but he can't get it done on offense. he's therefore a perfect fit in Indy, because they already have an offense, but their d is soft.
in other words, dungy was brought in by Indy to fix their d.
we all know he's not the x's and o's guy on offense, and here we are, years later, and we're still talking about how soft indy's d is.
Well, lets see, the Colts have had 12 or more wins in the regular season the past 3 years, Indy had a top 10 defense last year, and he made the Colts a perrenial SB contender...Id say he is earning his paycheck, and as soon as he wins a SB he will be considered one of the best coaches in the league...
of course, we all know about indy's record, burgh...
you're right...it's not irrelevant...but you took my question out of context and answered it in a more general sense than what it was asking:
as i said, he was brought in to improve the d. has he done that? okay, so their d top 10 last year? i had no idea. even so, they're back to being soft this year. i don't think he's really done the one thing he was brought in to do above all else.
saturn11 wrote: i wanna bring this back to dungy one more time, but in the context of his team's d.
i remember that when he took the indy job, the thinking was: he's a good / great defensive coach who had just turned tampa's defense into one of the best in the league, but he can't get it done on offense. he's therefore a perfect fit in Indy, because they already have an offense, but their d is soft.
in other words, dungy was brought in by Indy to fix their d.
we all know he's not the x's and o's guy on offense, and here we are, years later, and we're still talking about how soft indy's d is.
what, exactly, has dungy done for that team?
But when one moves from coordinator to head coach the responsibilities change. Remember the Vikings O when Billick was there? They shattered all kinds of records, he goes to Baltimore and the O has sucked pretty steadily while the D has flourished.
I think when you're a coordinator you can live inside the X's and O's and strategry, but when you're captaining the ship, its more about success.. not matter how you find it, it must be found.
The other factor is personnel, with Polian stacking the offense with talent (and cap space) the Colts are somewhat limited with personnel decisions on the D side of the ball. Letting Edge walk, I felt at the time, was a means to leave some space for acquiring some D talent. The bottom line of course is getting the most out of the talent on hand and creating schemes that showcase you're positive and limited your weaknesses.
Dungy was supposed to be a defensive wiz. The Colts already had a powerhouse dominating offense run by Tom Moore and Manning.
The DEFENSE has been the Colts weakness/liability throughout Dungys tenure.
It seems to me that Dungy is failing in his ability to put together a defense capable of surviving the playoffs.
'Burgh'......Dungy didn't put the Colts together. The Colts were assembled by Bill Polian. The success of the Colts dynamic offense has nothing to do with Dungy. Tom Moore the O-coordinator and Manning are reason for the Colts success offensively.
Dungy is the "right" coach for Bill Polian because Polian is a domineering dictator and Dungy is mild-mannered and submisive to Polians alfa-male domination. This is why Dungy remains the Colts coach.
Dungy is not a great coach. But he is a very good guy. Polian is a dick-head.
Saddle, Dungy is in fact a good coach, anyone who can turn around the former laughing stock of the league (Tampa) and turn them into a perrenial playoff team has to be given credit, also Dungy may not have put the colts team together, but he did turn around a high scoring team that was reeling after the Mora era, and their defense has made leaps and bounds since Dungy became the head coach...Dungy did in fact turn around the Colts D last year, the difference this year is the absence of Corey Simon as a run stuffer...Is Dungy a great coach, no, is he one of the top 10 coaches in the league, yes...
this stuff is always more complex, less black and white, than we like to make it.
i like dawg's point about dungy being subject to polian's personell decisions. hadn't thought of that. while i DO think dungy should have somehow gotten better play out of his d by now, polian's gm-ing is a major hindrance to that goal.
but i also like your point about dungy's personality playing into all this. he seems too vanilla to me, too.
i mean, what IS he? he's certainly not the shanahan / holmgren / reid tactician type. he's not an "intensity guy" like gruden / cowher / parcells. he's not a "player's coach" like lovie or marvin lewis. nor is he the strong silent leader type like belichick.
all of these other successful coaches are either gm's or appear to have a major role in their team's personell decisions. of course, i don't know EXACTLY how indy handles personell, but i'm not sure you can say that dungy has had a real impact there. and that's a part of coaching,too. he hasn't been good at it, and doesn't seem inclined to want to be good at.
so is it that polian is so domineering that dungy can't have a say, or is it, as saddle suggests, that dungy is too mild mannered, and is inclined to stay out of the way? it's probably a little from column 'a' and a little from column 'b', but in either case, it doesn't say much for dungy.
any of the coaches i just named would have found themselves in huge battles with polian, or they would've left for greener pastures.
burgh, one year of improvement followed by another in which the d takes two steps back is not improvement by "leaps and bound" in anyone's estimation.
also if the deciding factor is corey simon's absence, then that d's got bigger problems than any of us have suggested in this thread.
also, you argument FOR dungy actually heaps more criticism on him. the whole d goes to $hit because one fata$$ with a $hitty attitude left? isn't dungy responsible for the other ten guys, too?
By the way, Corey Simon is an out-of-shape PIG, that's why we got rid of him here in Philly!
As far as Dungy is concerned, here's how I look at him. He's a good HC, but certainly not great. I'm not particularly that big of a Dungy fan personally, and just like people who say Peyton Manning is not a BIG game QB, I don't feel that Dungy is a BIG game coach. The image that I get of him is that he's someone who can certainly turn around a football team, but I don't view him as a guy who gets teams to and/or wins Super Bowls.
