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.

As for the Niners, they’ve hit a rough stretch the past few weeks, after starting the season 3-1. But you can bet that they’ll be ready when they roll into Lucas Oil Stadium this weekend, so let’s take a look at some things that you need to know about this week’s opponent.

Record: 3-3

Last Game: L 24-21 at Houston

Strengths

Defensively, this team is pretty tough. Now, you wouldn’t know that from their performances the last few weeks, as they gave up 45 to the Falcons and 24 to the Texans, but they’re still pretty solid overall. You can bet that Mike Singletary has worked on disguising some coverages in order to try and fool Peyton Manning, which is much easier said than done. But with Singletary at the helm, while the defense may not always execute properly, they are at least going to be prepared.

The Niners’ rushing attack is something to be concerned about if you’re a Colts’ fan. If there’s been one concern throughout the entire year for Indy, it’s been the rush defense. We can all remember back to the game in Miami where Ronnie Brown was running all over the place and causing major trouble for the defensive line. And despite the blowout win last week, the Colts still allowed Steven Jackson to have a nice day on the ground.

So priority number one will be stopping Frank Gore this week.

Weaknesses

Well, we all know where this one starts. The Niners placed Alex Smith at quarterback at halftime of last week’s game, so there’s definitely some problems at that position. And with the way the Indianapolis secondary has been playing as of late, that’s trouble for San Fran. The Colts have been good at forcing turnovers, and well, Smith has sort of made a career out of that.

So this weakness leads to another significant weakness. And that is that the Niners are going to struggle to come back if they get down early. Yes, I know that they were down 21-0 last week and still managed to come back. But that’s not going to happen week in and week out. I just don’t have the confidence in Smith to believe that is going to be the case.

The Colts need to jump out early on this team, and then force them to throw the ball. A lot. Because then that takes away the Niners’ ability to attack the Colts’ weakness, which is the rush defense. They’ll have to put the ball in the air if they want to get back in the game.

Well there’s a small focus on the Niners. Tomorrow, we’ll have a full preview here at Naptown’s Finest, and we’ll get you ready for the big game on Sunday.