Kravitz on what we learned

Kravitz writes up the game.

He takes some things more seriously than I would:

We know that if the defense doesn’t do a better job of getting off the field than it did here Saturday, Peyton Manning is going to get moldy and maybe a little ornery.

Yeah, it’s preseason. Yeah, the defense didn’t have Ed Johnson, Gary Brackett or its starting secondary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Still, that first half was startling, even by the Colts’ humble preseason standards. The Lions out-gained them on the ground 103 yards to 2. Detroit made 6-of-8 third-down conversions. Detroit had 16 first downs to six. The Lions had the ball 21 minutes, 32 seconds to the Colts’ 8:28, including drives of 11 plays, 12, 14 and eight.

Colts president Bill Polian has said that time of possession is an overrated statistic, but I’m not sure Manning and the offensive coaches would agree as they’re filing their nails and reading Russian literature on the bench all half. Manning and this offense had fewer possessions than anybody else in the league last year, and you have to be a little bit concerned.

“Don’t panic,” said linebacker Clint Session, who currently sports the Kimbo Slice look. “There are some communication issues we’ve got to get straightened out, but we’ll be OK.”

Pardon me for being concerned, but it’s hard to learn a new defense when half the starters haven’t had a chance to play together as a unit. This is going to be a work in progress.

Yeah, for one, this isn’t really a “new defense”. It’s the same defense with a few tweaks.  Secondly, the fact that the team was missing more than half its starters is significant.  I don’t think we learned anything about the D at all.  As for the rest of the article, he’s more or less right on.  I have to agree that it certainly looks like Johnson will be the LT.  I’m learning to accept it.