Here’s a real shocker folks, Tony Dungy likes the Colts chances in the playoffs. Good thing he isn’t biased or anything, huh? In a twist on the old “Nobody believed in us!” motivational ploy that damn near every football team on the planet, from pee wees to pros, currently employs at some point during a given season, Dungy thinks that all the negative talk about the Colts resting starters instead of going for perfection will push them to play harder in their upcoming playoff game. He even goes so far as comparing the criticism aimed at Indy’s management and coaching staff to the media frenzy over Spygate.
“The fallout may actually help them,” Dungy said on ESPN Radio of the way the Colts will react to the criticism. “It may be kind of a Spygate thing where everybody says, ‘Hey, they’re ripping our boss, they’re ripping our owner, they’re ripping our coach. We need to go out and play and show people this was the right decision.’”
I can just here it now in the Colts lockerroom… Yeah! Nobody believed in us, nobody thought we could do it! They thought we could go undefeated and then got upset because we let up to rest out players and… wait, how did they not believe in us again coach? It isn’t quite Knute Rockne’s “Win one for the Gipper” speech, but what really is?
The point here is that the Colts had a legit chance to make history, pulled their starters at an ill-advised point in a still-close game against an opponent who had all the motivation in the world to win the game. In Jim Caldwell’s defense, the odds were in their favor that The Sanchezeption would manage to throw the game away somehow down the stretch, but it still doesn’t look good. Combine that with Indy trotting out their starters in the midst of a blizzard in Buffalo one week later so a handful of players could get their individual milestone stats under conditions that were much more likely to get someone broken in several pieces, and the whole thing starts looking real shady.
Of course Dungy is defending the Colts and pushing this rather ludicrous angle – he used to coach the team, and they happen to be employing a method he is somewhat infamous for. There were several times during his tenure that the Colts had their division and homefield locked up with a game or two left on the schedule, and every time he rested his guys. In fact, these rather unfortunate swarming clusterfrak games are the only reason you’d know that Jim Sorgi used to play in the NFL at all. They’d lose or win weakly, then limp into the playoffs and get their asses handed to them in two rounds or less. Was it because those Colts teams rested their guys down the stretch, lost momentum, and got rusty at the worst possible time? Or could it be that they couldn’t stop the run to save their lives and ran into bad matchups? More than likely it’s the second reason, but it’s worth noting the one year they won the Super Bowl, Indy had to keep playing up to the end of the regular season and somehow discovered a run defense.
The goal of every team in the NFL each year is to win a Super Bowl (well, unless you’re the Browns or the Raiders… then you’re just hoping to not get pantsed every week). Maybe the best way to do that is by resting some players and avoiding injuries, maybe it’s by keeping your players motivated and focused right up until the last whistle of Game 19. Either way, bringing home a perfect season is an achievement that only one team has accomplished and would be a crowning moment for any career. Considering all they had to do was score one more touchdown on the Jets and then sleepwalk over the Bills, that goal was very reachable. If the Colts want to blame anyone for not getting respect, perhaps they need to look in the mirror.
