In three parts:
Polian also said Addai – often maligned by media and fans – in the last two weeks “has in my opinion had his two best games in a long, long time.” Addai threw a touchdown pass two weeks ago in a victory over San Francisco, ran for a touchdown and caught one last week and ran for another and caught another against New England.
“It’s all Joseph,” Polian said. “There’s not a lot of running room there. We know we don’t have an offensive line where everybody is designed to be 325 pounds and knock the opposing team off the football. That’s not what we do. When there has been room, he has made big plays and when there hasn’t been room, he has put those pads down and gained four yards and five carries. It has been fine.
*The crowd noise in second-year Lucas Oil Stadium. “I took my own scientific survey in the locker room. The feeling generally is with the roof closed, it’s only slightly – just very slightly – less noisy than the [RCA] Dome was, which is perfectly good enough. [On Sunday] night, it was as loud as loud can be. It’s fine. I don’t need to take a scientific measurement, because as long as it remains at the level it was [Sunday] night and the level it was toward the end of the Texans game, we’re going to do just fine. With our fans engaged the way were [Sunday] night and the way they were in the Texans game [the week before], we’re going to have a heck of a home-field advantage.”
The defensive adjustments of coordinator Larry Coyer at halftime. “I’d say it’s probably 80 percent [Colts defensive coordinator] Larry Coyer and 20 percent execution. He does a great job of analyzing the opponent, then saying, ‘OK, this particular coverage isn’t working for us,’ or this particular coverage doesn’t deal with what they’re doing to us as well as this particular one would.’ Some of that is dictated by the front or by the number of people you have with injury. There was one point in the second quarter Sunday where Tim Jennings came out of the game and we had to play with regular people against four wides because we did not have a fourth corner who was ready to play in the game. Fortunately, Timmy came back, but under normal circumstances, Larry makes really good adjustments. He can figure out what people are trying to do to us and make the appropriate adjustments. He did that [Sunday night] and he has done it all season. That’s particularly true in terms of timing and calling the blitzes. Once again [Sunday] night, we had some blitzes that really, really paid off and the timing was exactly right. That’s more art than science and he has a lot of feel for that.”
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
