MVN - Most Valuable Network

Injured Indy and the upside of going down now (not later)

While Indy’s Week 9 game against New England was the most hyped of this NFL season, Week 13 against Jacksonville is the most important in terms of how the playoffs will shape up. New England will be the clear number one seed in the AFC, but the Jags can make a serious run for that number two spot with a victory over the Colts on Sunday. The Colts would still be in first place in the AFC South at that point due to their better divisional record, but the doubts and the questions about how good Indy really is would spring up once again, like they seem to every December, and, based on the way this injury-plagued virtually nameless squad has performed in their most recent stretch, the momentum would certainly shift to (Shooter McGavin look-a-like) Jack Del Rio’s boys if the Colts lose.

Even if they do, however, the Colts still seem to be a virtual lock for the playoffs, they are every year it seems, and the most important question then, despite Tony Dungy’s patented catchphrase, really isn’t whether they win the division or not, it’s whether or not they’ll be able to produce then, when it really matters. Sure, it’d be nice to win the division again and I think that we will, but the Colts need to recognize that they’re a squad that’s still missing some of its biggest contributors and that even if they do lose on Sunday, they’ll have done it to one of the best teams in the league and that the experience they’ll receive from it is invaluable when considering they still have a shot to make some post-season noise. They need to realize they don’t play another opponent of this caliber the rest of the regular season, so they need to milk this for all it’s worth.

So how can Indy convince the world, and itself, it’s still got what it takes to compete for a championship?

Well, it starts with Marvin Harrison.

That’s not to say it’s necessary to have him back to win this game, after all, he only caught three passes in the Colts’ victory in Jacksonville last month, but it’s going to have a huge bearing on the rapidly approaching post-season run the Colts are going to have to put together if we don’t see him on Sunday. He’s missed six of Indy’s last seven games and if he misses another it seems inevitable that what has been so frequently referred to as a “bruised knee” will be revealed to be a season, if not career ending injury to Indy’s number one receiver. Nobody wants that to happen nor does anyone want to rush him back if he really could be a healthy contributor at some point, but the mystery and suspense with which his injury has been handled is definitely not beneficial to the team and it’s driving the fans crazy. The playoffs are going to be here before we know it, so if he’s out, just say so. Let’s end this charade.

What is beneficial to the team, however, and as ridiculous as it sounds, is when all the injuries they’ve suffered have taken place. Now stay with me here, because obviously I wouldn’t try to sell you on the idea that having star players injured is going to benefit any team, in any sport for that matter. That’s ludicrous. But let’s just assume that somehow you already have the knowledge that certain injuries are going to happen, at some point during a given season, and you actually had a choice as to when those players would go down. What better scenario could there be then the one the Colts have undergone?

First of all, it wasn’t in the playoffs. That’s not to say that they won’t go down again in the playoffs, those who already have returned healthy or who will by then, but assuming you had the choice to either lose them around the time Indy did, about half-way through the season after already racking up a 7-1 record, or to lose them during the waning minutes of a close AFC Championship game, it seems clear the former is the better alternative. You might think the latter is better, because there’s no guarantee the scenario with a 7-1 record will even play out to include the post-season, let alone an AFC Championship appearance, but it still gives you the better chance to win, and the reason is experience.

Would you really rather have some unknown rookie wide receiver try to fill in for Marvin Harrison when the whole season is on the line, or do you think it’d be best if that same unknown player got to play in three or four games down the stretch before making his first playoff appearance, catching a couple passes, seeing how a route is best run, getting used to the speed of an actual game? The experience the young players on this Colts team have gained, and especially that which they’ll potentially gain against one of the best defenses in the league on Sunday, could turn out to be, in fact, a huge advantage, should they play a team later on who happens to lose one of their own star players and has to sub in a far less experienced backup.

Equally important, based on when these injuries have happened, is the rest that this has provided those fallen stars. Now we’ve all seen how rusty and discombobulating resting players can be, especially for these Colts when a couple times already the starters have sat out the last game of a season then come out playing terribly when it matters most, so you have to figure in a one or two game “hangover” at least, probably a bit longer for someone who’s been out as long as Marvin, and it also therefore does not apply to any currently injured player who doesn’t return by Week 15 or 16 at the latest, but for somebody like Dallas Clark or Joseph Addai, who was used quite seldom for the first part of last season, by the way, and we all saw how that turned out, the rest they’ve received from the game to game grind of this season might prove to be extremely beneficial when the post-season arrives. Granted there are some players who would arguably suffer from the rest, Peyton Manning probably being one of them, and some players who simply don’t need it, like Tom Brady, who barely breaks a sweat from game to game these days, but for a running back or a tight end who both inflicts and receives hard hits on virtually every play, having a few games off during the season might be more than just acceptable, it could be ideal.

So yes, having your team’s best players hurt the way the Colts have sucks, but certainly it could be worse, and if you really try to look for it, there’s definitely a silver lining here. What if Randy Moss goes out in Week 17, you know? At least the Colts have the time to deal with the losses now and learn how to adapt to them.

And that’s what Sunday’s game is all about. Indy is still in the middle of this and they’ve come awful far but they’ve still got a long way yet to go. The win against Kansas City was terrifying. The win against Atlanta was promising.

The game against Jacksonville? Of course I think they’ll win, but as long as they recognize it as the opportunity that it is, they’ll come out victors no matter the score.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Colts Chat, Colts, Super Bowl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.