Has a team with 4 rookie starters ever made the NFL playoffs?

[oldunclemark]

Dwayne Allen/ Coby Fleener - TE

Vic Ballard - HB

Andrew Luck - QB

TY Hilton - WR/KR

Has a team with 4 rookie starters on offense ever made the NFL (or AFL) playoffs

I honestly dont know.. Does anybody???

[betheafan41]

Dwayne Allen/ Coby Fleener - TE

Vic Ballard - HB

Andrew Luck - QB

TY Hilton - WR/KR

Has a team with 4 rookie starters on offense ever made the NFL (or AFL) playoffs

I honestly dont know.. Does anybody???

i know the 96' jaguars had 3 starters who were rookies 2 on the offensive line and 1 as the slot WR. was the year both them and the panthers went to their conference championships. the bengals had 3 last year and made the playoffs, but had 4 starters starting overall (carlos dunlap, AJ Green, Andy Dalton, and OG clint boling)

but to answer your question and after looking up the question for the last hour lol, the most i have seen is 3. but in a way wouldnt we have 5 rookie starters?? because both allen and fleener usually start. they normaly come out with allen in at FB or run a two TE formation then again that was when Fleener was healthy at the beginning of the year.

[ColtsBlueFL]

I think the better question is 4-5 starting rookies at offensive skill positions making the playoffs?

[oldunclemark]

I think the better question is 4-5 starting rookies at offensive skill positions making the playoffs?

Lets try the first one first....Mr. question topper!!!

[oldunclemark]

i know the 96' jaguars had 3 starters who were rookies 2 on the offensive line and 1 as the slot WR. was the year both them and the panthers went to their conference championships. the bengals had 3 last year and made the playoffs, but had 4 starters starting overall (carlos dunlap, AJ Green, Andy Dalton, and OG clint boling)

but to answer your question and after looking up the question for the last hour lol, the most i have seen is 3. but in a way wouldnt we have 5 rookie starters?? because both allen and fleener usually start. they normaly come out with allen in at FB or run a two TE formation then again that was when Fleener was healthy at the beginning of the year.

41..If you count the Colts defense......Freeman is technically a rookie....as well

Cant call TY Hilton a starter but he's now certainly a regular contributor

..But overall if you consider both TEs starters (and there's some validity there)...we starts 6 rookies.of the 22 positions

I think you'd have to go back to the 1960s and the AFL to find a playoff team with that many rookies starting.....

Our MVP may be Ryan Grigson

[Old Colt]

Dwayne Allen/ Coby Fleener - TE

Vic Ballard - HB

Andrew Luck - QB

TY Hilton - WR/KR

Has a team with 4 rookie starters on offense ever made the NFL (or AFL) playoffs

I honestly dont know.. Does anybody???

add a few more rookies:

Rookie GM

Rookie Head Coach

Rookie Interim Head Coach..

Guaranteed no one with all these rookies has ever made the playoffs.....another Colts Record coming to a field near near you soon!

[betheafan41]

41..If you count the Colts defense......Freeman is technically a rookie....as well

Cant call TY Hilton a starter but he's now certainly a regular contributor

..But overall if you consider both TEs starters (and there's some validity there)...we starts 6 rookies.of the 22 positions

I think you'd have to go back to the 1960s and the AFL to find a playoff team with that many rookies starting.....

Our MVP may be Ryan Grigson

I went as far back as it would let me go, and no team has ever made the playoffs with as many starting rookies on offense as we have.

[oldunclemark]

add a few more rookies:

Rookie GM

Rookie Head Coach

Rookie Interim Head Coach..

Guaranteed no one with all these rookies has ever made the playoffs.....another Colts Record coming to a field near near you soon!

OC this is the story everyone outside of Indy is missing...not that not matters..

We didnt have much of anything at times in January and February...No coach....No GM....There was a time we had no QBs under contract at all

I think 7 of our offensive starters last week were not even in the organziation in February

We lost to Jacksonville and were down 18 at the half to the reigning MVP and our coach was in the hospital watching on TV..

.....Andrew Luck is getting a lot of the talk and I wish he'd get even more....

..but the 2012 Colts is a story that's never happened before...not in the NFL..not like this

[FanFromtheWasteland]

OC this is the story everyone outside of Indy is missing...not that not matters..

We didnt have much of anything at times in January and February...No coach....No GM....There was a time we had no QBs under contract at all

I think 7 of our offensive starters last week were not even in the organziation in February

We lost to Jacksonville and were down 18 at the half to the reigning MVP and our coach was in the hospital watching on TV..

.....Andrew Luck is getting a lot of the talk and I wish he'd get even more....

..but the 2012 Colts is a story that's never happened before...not in the NFL..not like this

We make the playoffs and i bet that they will be talking about all that stuff. The football shows will have

a lof of time to fill with a lot less teams to cover

[oldunclemark]

We make the playoffs and i bet that they will be talking about all that stuff. The football shows will have

a lof of time to fill with a lot less teams to cover

That's true./...and just one more reason why we need to get there..even if its just as the No. 6 seed..

[Kyle]

That's true./...and just one more reason why we need to get there..even if its just as the No. 6 seed..

the best part is that once ur in, it is a whole new season and anything can happen!!! even as a 6 seed

[oldunclemark]

the best part is that once ur in, it is a whole new season and anything can happen!!! even as a 6 seed

I think we beat Baltimore if we can draw them.

[PrincetonTiger]

No

[oldunclemark]

No

Oh yes!....who do you want to face....Peyton Manning.....Tom Brady....or Joe Flacco..?

I rest my case.

[Susie Q]

No

No to what ? You don't want to face the Ravens is that it? Best draw I can see.

[Superman]

OC this is the story everyone outside of Indy is missing...not that not matters..

We didnt have much of anything at times in January and February...No coach....No GM....There was a time we had no QBs under contract at all

I think 7 of our offensive starters last week were not even in the organziation in February

We lost to Jacksonville and were down 18 at the half to the reigning MVP and our coach was in the hospital watching on TV..

.....Andrew Luck is getting a lot of the talk and I wish he'd get even more....

..but the 2012 Colts is a story that's never happened before...not in the NFL..not like this

Our season has been fantastic so far, and we're definitely overachieving. It could get even better.

But the only thing that's really unique about what we've done to this point is Coach Pagano's absence. I said this during the offseason several times: teams with a rookie GM, and rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback, and lots of roster turnover, have had success, even making the playoffs. The Falcons did it in 2008, and the Dolphins also went from worst to first that year (1-15 to 11-5, greatest one-season win differential), but with Pennington at quarterback.

The odds certainly weren't in our favor, but it wasn't totally unprecedented. However, throw in the Pagano/Arians wrinkle, and now it's extra special. I would love to see us make the playoffs and actually win a game.

[oldunclemark]

Our season has been fantastic so far, and we're definitely overachieving. It could get even better.

But the only thing that's really unique about what we've done to this point is Coach Pagano's absence. I said this during the offseason several times: teams with a rookie GM, and rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback, and lots of roster turnover, have had success, even making the playoffs. The Falcons did it in 2008, and the Dolphins also went from worst to first that year (1-15 to 11-5, greatest one-season win differential), but with Pennington at quarterback.

The odds certainly weren't in our favor, but it wasn't totally unprecedented. However, throw in the Pagano/Arians wrinkle, and now it's extra special. I would love to see us make the playoffs and actually win a game.

Lord no...its way beyond that....You're misisng it..

This is not a worst-to-first story...

It is almost total revival .... under unprecedented circumstances.....Atlanta (2008) and Miami didnt have their MVP quarterback miss the entire previous season......with a career threatening injury..

Atlanta and Miami didnt fire that icon (who recovered and came back to be MVP again someplace else) and get nothing in return in the hope that an untested rookie would excel (as he has) and eb rookie-of-the-year (bet on it)

...Those two teams you cited didnt gut their roster including 1/2 dozen well-liked veterans.....many on defense

and draft ZERO defensive players to replace them..

We really didnt have enough players under contract to field a 45-man game roster in january.

....7 of our offensive starters last week were not in the organization in February....

...No one has ever started the four rookies and made the NFL playoffs (it may have happened in the AFL)

with an offensive line that changes every week

No No. 1 overall QB has ever led his team to the playoffs.. or thrown for 4,500 (eventually 5,000) yards

Those two teams you mentioned also didnt go 8-4 with something like a minus-15 turnover ratio and neither allowed far more points (306) than they have scored (265).

I've watched pro football for 50 years and there's never been anything like this..

[Superman]

Lord no...its way beyond that....You're misisng it..

This is not a worst-to-first story...

It is almost total revival .... under unprecedented circumstances.....Atlanta (2008) and Miami didnt have their MVP quarterback miss the entire previous season......with a career threatening injury.. Atlanta and Miami didnt fire that icon (who recovered and came back to be MVP again someplace else) and get nothing in return in the hope that an untested rookie would excel (as he has) and eb rookie-of-the-year (bet on it)

None of that really matters. Losing your MVP quarterback doesn't preclude you from being able to replace him. And in the Falcons case, they did lose their prolific (if controversial) quarterback a season before. But really, the Manning situation doesn't have very much bearing on what the team is doing right now. Losing Manning actually helped us get to where we are now.

...Those two teams you cited didnt gut their roster including 1/2 dozen well-liked veterans.....many on defense

and draft ZERO defensive players to replace them..

We didn't gut our roster. This is so overstated that I don't think anyone who is still saying this in December will ever get it.

Well-liked doesn't = relevant. Outside of Manning, we released four "name players": Clark, Addai, Bullitt, Brackett. That's only two on defense, and neither of those two have played in the NFL this season. I don't think they even got camp invites. Neither of them had contributed in two seasons. We didn't LOSE anything by releasing them.

The same applies for Addai. Clark has done a little this season, but not anything worth his $7m base salary that he would have been due in 2012. These were common sense moves that helped us reshape our roster. We didn't GUT anything.

Wheeler left in free agency. That was probably the most meaningful defection we had, especially on defense. But every team loses players to free agency. We happened to have a lot of contracts expire at the same time, which was actually good for a team that needed to reshape its roster.

And not drafting defensive players was more a function of the fact that we signed defensive veterans in free agency: McKinney, Redding (just named a captain), Zbikowski, etc. Plus guys like Freeman, Vaughn and Davis, who are doing as much as or more than the guys they replaced.

On top of that, we DID draft defensive players.

We really didnt have enough players under contract to field a 45-man game roster in january.

....7 of our offensive starters last week were not in the organization in February....

That's what totally reconstructing your roster looks like. We're not used to it as Colts fans, but it's not unique, and it's not unheard of. It's what needed to be done.

...No one has ever started the four rookies and made the NFL playoffs (it may have happened in the AFL)

with an offensive line that changes every week

No No. 1 overall QB has ever led his team to the playoffs.. or thrown for 4,500 (eventually 5,000) yards

Those two teams you mentioned also didnt go 8-4 with something like a minus-15 turnover ratio and neither allowed far more points (306) than they have scored (265).

I've watched pro football for 50 years and there's never been anything like this..

It's all impressive, and I didn't expect it. But the expectations going into this season were too low. On top of that, we've overachieved. And then add in Pagano's situation, and it's even more impressive. I'm not trying to sell our guys short. They deserve a ton of credit, and I've been singing their praises since before the season started.

But you mentioned in the previous post that the way we turned over in the front office and on the coaching staff, and did it with a rookie quarterback and a bunch of new players. And all I'm saying is what I've been saying since the offseason: It's been done before, and will be done again.

To me, Grigson knocked the offseason out of the park. Maybe missed some opportunities later in the draft, and I definitely think he should have done something about Freeney's contract. But he deserves a ton of credit. He's easily the Executive of the Year at this point.

[jemack]

Has a team ever made it into the playoffs with 2 bald cheerleaders? Sorry....

[John Dee]

Freeman is also a rookie... in the NFL..

And I actually think he will make the All Rookie D team.

Luck, Allen, and Hilton should also make the All Rookie O squad.

What a great draft Indy had... Make some solid moves next off season and ...