Colts Aren’t Measuring Up to Snuff
For those 10 or 12 of you who follow these scribbles, you know that once in a while I wander off into sports. Sorry. As an old sportswriter who wore out several pairs of Weejuns on courts, fields and arenas, sometimes I just can’t help myself. This hot mess that is the Indianapolis Colts has a lot of us all dressed up with no playoffs to go . . . so bear with me if you don’t mind.
Oh! Let me preface this with a qualifier – from a timing perspective. As it stands at the time of these scribbles – the unholy trinity of GM Chris Ballard, Coach Shane Steichen and QB Anthony Richardson are still in place – fully employed and making thousands by the hour. This missive is also being written before the last game of the Colts’ season against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Truth to tell, I wanted to get this done before kickoff considering the recent track record between these two “juggernauts.” The Jags have won five of the last six meetings against our Colts – including the infamous 2021 game. Remember that one? The Jags were 2-14 and Indy was 9-7. All Indianapolis had to do was win and they would punch their ticket to a second-straight trip to the NFL postseason. But Carson Wentz handed 10 points to the Jags and a 26-11 loss ended another ugly season. The Jags were the worst team in the league.
Sound familiar?
So where do things go from here?
Let’s look at it from another angle. I’m a fan of Kent Sterling, the former radio guy who was a mover and shaker behind 1070 The Fan. Met him when our paper was working with Emmis Executive Tom Severino – one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Sterling was just as nice and today he has a popular twice-daily YouTube show with nearly 20,000 subscribers (a number a lot of Indiana newspapers would kill for!).
Last week, Sterling got it right – as he usually does – when addressing the situation with the Colts, and specifically Steichen. During a press conference the coach talked about “cleaning things up” . . . players needing to be “relentless” . . . “giving everything they’ve got” . . . you know, coach-speak.
Sterling rightly pointed out that none of those things are measurable – and that good teams (whether sports or business) do well with measurable items.
I could not agree more. In that past life as both an athlete and a sportswriter, I can tell you that the Hollywood-version of pep talks from coaches in locker rooms does indeed happen . . . once in a great while. MOST of the time, the vast majority, coaches are talking about game plans, specific assignments, plays, key areas of emphasis . . .
The problem with generalities and rah-rah speeches is two-fold. As Sterling said, generalities are not measurable. And rah-rah speeches are great . . . for about 10 minutes. Then they wear off.
Our daughters swam competitively in high school and college. And one of the best things I saw during the many hours sitting in bleachers during endless meets was a sign on a pool deck that said something about improving 2 percent a week.
This was a state-caliber program, so the results spoke well of the practice. It also was something that was specifically measurable. If a kid could improve just a tad week by week, think about where they would be at the end of the season. It wasn’t asking too much – and it also wasn’t so life and death that missing the goal one week would be devastating and ruin the season.
Two percent was a simple, step by step, attainable and measurable process.
Perhaps Shane Steichen has things like that in place for the Colts? He certainly would not be the first coach to say one thing to the media and do something else on the practice field. If so, then good for him. However, it is hard to see week-to-week improvement from these guys – especially when it comes to tackling.
OK, so it’s Black Monday in the NFL and perhaps owner Jim Irsay and / or his daughters have already made moves regarding staff. Whether they have or not, here’s hoping that everyone in the organization – from the GM to the head coach to the assistants – instill a system that can be measured and allows everyone to be held accountable to specifics, not just generic “play hard” platitudes.
Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically in The Times. Timmons is the chief executive officer of Sagamore News Media, the company that owns The Noblesville Times. He is also a proud Noblesville High School graduate and can be contacted at [email protected].