First off, that one ripped my heart out. Encouraging loss, but equally heart-breaking. I'll break down the positives I saw first: Ronnie Brown- Now there's the Ronnie I've been waiting to see! Plowing over the Colts front 7. Ronnie was the main reason we were able to control the clock like we did. I'm still a little annoyed he isn't being utilized as a receiver, but when he's running for 136yds on 24 attempts (5.7ypc), I really can't complain. I was curious why he wasn't out there initially on that one TD drive. But, you saw his number was called when it was our last shot at putting 7 on the board. I hope this performance persuades Sparano to throw a lot more work his way against weaker run D teams. Jake Long- Anymore "did we make the right pick with Jake?" threads? I didn't think so. Jake took on Freeny by himself for 90% of the game and looked damn good. That nasty twist that Freeny tried to put on Jake which he promptly shut down is the lasting image I was left with. The sky is the limit for Jake. He def has some room for improvement, but with the physical skills and work ethic he has, he's going to be down-right scary a year from now. Ted Ginn- I know some are going to bring up his 2 drops. The last one which would of been a game winner was tough to watch. Catchable? Definitely. Easy catch? Def not. I won't make excuses for those drops, but I def don't put this loss anywhere near Ginn. 11 rec for 108 yards are number 1 WR stats. He converted a few key 1st downs for us and def stepped his game up, gaining Pennington's trust. Porter- Joey is as advertised. Sacks, tackles behind the line of scrimage, and pretty consistant pressure. I only wish he had someone to ****ing help him. Talk about being on an island. And now the guys who deserve Sparano's foot in their ***: Channing Crowder- Overpursuing, lack of coverage skills, poor play diagnosing. Pretty much every criticism we had for him last season. From what I've seen, he hasn't improved at all from last year and I'm annoyed we paid him anything more than a burritto and a beer. Ayodele is pretty much interchangable with Crowder in this one. The fact that he was dealing with a back injury may have something to do with it (I hope). He looked solid in preseason so I'm hoping that was the case. I decided to blast Crowder bc he's the guy being paid to be the man at MLB. Gibril Wilson- Ouch. He looks just as bad as he did in preseason and clearly has all of us scratching our heads as why he paid this guy and rescued him from the black hole. Yeremiah Bell had his miscues as well, but Wilson was consistantly painful to watch. Dallas Clark just completely annihilated our safeties and MLB's. Do you sense a trend after watching the 1st 2 weeks? Dan Henning- His playcalling in week 1 was completely awful. Now, this week was much better, for about 75% of the game. My main question/complaint, and pretty much the main problem I have with our offense, is Pat White in the Wildcat. Now first of all, Pat White himself is not to blame. I hated that pick (and still do) bc the defense really needed/needs more help and it was way too much of a luxury that we can't afford. That being said, Pat White has no business being on the field, or active at all for that matter. It's pretty obvious he isn't game ready and nothing looks smooth at all when he enters the game. You could tell the Colts D was giddy whenever he walked on the field. He's just not ready to make an impact, and more importantly, backup Pennington if he gets hurt (god forbid). He needs to be inactive. Period. Get Cam Wake on the field to help our passrush or Henne to insure we have a chance to win the game if Pennington goes down. The Pat White plays were really at the worst possible time, IMO. Ronnie was killing it inside and out of the Wildcat. If ain't broke, don't **** with it, Dan. This looked like another case of our OC trying to get a little too smart with our offense (which is why we ended up with White to begin with, Dan). We needed TDs, not field goals (cough Carpenter cough) to beat a team like Indy. In closing, let's not brace for the sky landing on our heads just yet. We lead the Colts for 55 minutes of football. Our division is still completely up for grabs at this point and if I recall correctly, we did pretty well after starting 0-2 last year. Either way, we're still rebuilding and going through growing pains. But damn, I'm very excited for the future and the rest of this season. __________________
