With that being said, here is the “State of the Colts,” mid-season edition!

The Record

While I’ve always had complete faith in this team, I didn’t think they’d be undefeated at this point. I mean c’mon, they replace was one of the best coaches of all-time in Tony Dungy, they’re still 7-0? That speaks volumes to this entire organization. They kept the pieces in place to make this season a success, and so far, so good.

I was a little worried about back-to-back road trips to Miami and Arizona, and really thought that the first loss of the season could come to the Cardinals. However, Dwight Freeney was in beast mode that game, and they completely decimated the Cards. None of the other games on the schedule made me that worried, though in past years, games at Tennessee haven’t gone entirely well. But luckily, the Titans are 1-6 this year, so there was no way the Colts were losing that one.

The Coaching

What more can you say about Jim Caldwell? The guy is the first rookie head coach to start the season 7-0 since 1931. That’s right, he’s this era’s Potsy Clark.

The transition has been very smooth from Dungy to Caldwell, and though Caldwell really hasn’t had to face much adversity whatsoever this season, he’s simply done his job and got the team wins. Of course, we’ll know more about Caldwell’s coaching if the Colts hit a rough patch at some point, but the apple obviously doesn’t fall far from the tree, as Caldwell has picked up right where Coach Dungy left off. Kudos to the entire coaching staff for a job well done up until this point.

The Offense

When the year started, I never thought I’d say that Peyton Manning would have one of his best seasons yet. Of course, you expect Peyton to get better, but I didn’t think he would actually be playing the best football of his career. And even with the injury to Anthony Gonzalez, he’s had no trouble finding his receivers. He’s made Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon household names now, and that’s simply what he does. He makes his receivers better.

Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark have both had awesome seasons as well, as both are like Peyton and fine win. They get better with age. As for the running game, it hasn’t hit it’s stride yet, but it’s continually getting better. Joseph Addai hasn’t been a force on the ground, but rookie Donald Brown clearly has the potential to be a great back in this league. I feel good any time that guy touches the ball.

The Defense

Now while the pass defense has played exceptionally well, the rush defense is where we find the Colts’ biggest problem thus far. However, the problem isn’t as big as you might think. They let Ronnie Brown run all over the place in Miami. They still won the game. They let Steven Jackson run all over the place in St. Louis. They still won the game. And they let Frank Gore take a long run to the house on Sunday, but once again, the Colts came out on top.

So while the rush defense is clearly the biggest weakness up until this point, it hasn’t exactly cost the Colts anything. They’ve made the plays when they’ve needed to, and that’s all that really matters in the end. Even on days where the offense hasn’t looked particularly fantastic (vs. SF, for example), the rush defense has contained backs enough to where it didn’t hurt them in the win/loss category. With the excellent pass rush and excellent secondary, there’s some room for error for this defense when it comes to stopping the opposition’s rush offense.

The Special Teams

No problems here whatsoever, except for the fact that Adam Vinatieri is out with an injury. The Colts have picked up Matt Stover though, and they’ll be fine until the most clutch kicker in the NFL returns to action.

We expected this to be a strong point of this team, and it hasn’t disappointed so far. Great teams have great special teams. The Colts fit that category.

The Upcoming Schedule

The Colts didn’t play their best game on Sunday against the 49ers, and they’ll need to get back to playing excellent since they have a tough stretch coming up here. The next four games are:

vs. Houston
vs. New England
at Baltimore
at Houston

That’s easily their toughest stretch of the season since the Texans are playing well as of late. The showdown against New England in a few weeks will go a long way in determining who the best team in the AFC is. But, that’s pretty much the case every single year these two teams play. We’ll really see just how good this team is in the next four games, because if they come out of that 4-0, then we could be seriously talking about a perfect season.

But, we’ll let things play out before we start discussing that scenario.

Uh-oh. Do we have ourselves another cheating controversy in the NFL? That’s right folks, our good friends over at Stampede Blue are asking about potential cheating scenarios that took place yesterday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Go back to the fourth quarter. Remember when Parys Haralson had a cramp? And remember when Takeo Spikes had a cramp? Both injuries took place in critical situations during Colts’ drives. Well what if they weren’t in fact injured at all? Niners Insider Kevin Lynch didn’t seem to think they were. The Colts’ radio announcers didn’t seem to think they were. Fans in attendance at the game didn’t seem to think that they were. That’s why you heard the stream of boos in both situations. I never want to see fans boo an injured player, but if they were in fact faking the injuries, then they can boo them all they want.

In the end, it didn’t matter, because the Colts won the game. Has a player been told to fake a cramp before? No doubt about it. Did Mike Singletary advise his players to do so yesterday? Maybe. Maybe not. No one knows but the coaches and the players. So, I can’t accuse him of doing that.

But honestly, should we really be surprised if this is indeed true?

This is the NFL. A league where coaches and players play musical chairs when it comes to switching teams. And why? Because there’s always someone out there who can replace you. And when a team has gotten the most out of you, they show you the door. You see what kind of league that we’re dealing with here? It’s a win at any cost situation. And that’s the way it’ll always be.

A leg cramp isn’t exactly the most devastating way of trying to cheat your opponent. There’s been all kinds of cheating that has taken place in the league in the past. There’s Spygate. There’s the whole Jets tampering with Michael Crabtree thing. And the list goes on and on.

Let’s face it. We can believe who we want to believe, and we can accuse who we want to accuse, but, in the end, teams are finding ways to beat the system. Is faking a leg cramp cheating? Nope, technically it’s not. Is it right? Nope, not at all. So maybe we’re talking more about ethics here. But seriously, ethics went out the window a long time ago in this league. If it’s not in the rulebook, then it’s fair game for coaches whose jobs are on the line.

I know that there are coaches out there who don’t resort to this kind of stuff. I think that Jim Caldwell is one of those coaches. And I also know that there are coaches out there who will resort to anything in order to keep their job and get their team a victory. You can point fingers at whoever you think falls into that category.

Plain and simple, we can’t prove that the 49ers cheated yesterday. Because, is faking an injury cheating? We can’t prove that the players weren’t in fact injured. Is it morally right? Again, no it’s not. But again, to repeat, ethics went out the window a long time ago in this league. When you start bringing out video cameras, that’s when we can say that it is blatant cheating.

All in all, this 49ers situation will be one that goes away after today, and people won’t think much of it anymore. It bothers me that a team would do something like this, but who am I kidding. It happens all the time, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll still keep watching football.

And I’ll continue to know that somebody out there is constantly trying to get one step ahead of the competition. And for some of those, it’s by any means necessary.

I’m glad that one is over, and that’s one I won’t be going back to watch on the TiVo later tonight. So sorry Colts’ fans, I won’t be breaking down the tape Ron Jaworski-style this week.

But again, we’ve gotta remember that it was indeed a win. There are no such thing as style points in the NFL, which was certainly good on this day for the Colts.

It wasn’t a Manning-like today for Peyton Manning, even if he did throw for 347 yards. He overthrew several passes, which is something that we don’t see on a regular basis from him. Plus, Joseph Addai had more touchdown passes than he did, as Addai made the 22-yard pass to Reggie Wayne that would put the Colts in front for good. That’s right. Manning had zero touchdown passes to Addai’s one. The NFL is an interesting place.

You have to give a lot of credit to the Niner defense, as they seemed to always have an answer for Indy when they were trying to drive for a touchdown. This made Matt Stover busy on the day, as he kicked his first four field goals as a Colt. Welcome aboard, Matt.

Of course, he’s no Adam Vinatieri, but if he kicks like he did today, we may just alternate kickers in order to keep them fresh. I’ll pass the idea on to Coach Caldwell.

All in all, it’s a good victory for the Colts, especially on a day where they clearly didn’t have their best stuff. The 49ers aren’t a bad team, even though that was their third loss in a row. Frank Gore made things look a little scary early on, because after he broke that 64-yard run, I thought it may be a long day for Indy. But aside from that run, they held him to just 27 yards on 12 carries. Good job by the rush defense to pick things up in the second half.

So Colts’ fans, now I turn it over to you.

What did you think of today’s game? Just one game? Or should we be worried?