I have a good feeling about our defense this year

[ColtsAllDay12]

I dont understand the Josh Chapman situation. Ive heard that he expects to be ready for training camp, but how is that possible if he just had surgury on his ACL in January? I thought it takes at least a year to recover from that?

[NewColtsFan]

I dont understand the Josh Chapman situation. Ive heard that he expects to be ready for training camp, but how is that possible if he just had surgury on his ACL in January? I thought it takes at least a year to recover from that?

I don't know the timetable except to say this.... it's only 1 ligament (as opposed to two or three) and that may shorten the recovery time to 9-12 months. How soon he'll be able to go is unclear, we don't know yet if Josh or the team are being optimistic or simply honest that he'll be back for camp in August?

I think we'll know pretty soon. I'm sure there will be reports of just how much he's able to do and how much longer before he's absolutely good to go in game-ready shape...

[Jay Kirk]

It depends on the damage that was done,but this guy played with it,dont count him out,i believe he will be there

[TKnight24]

I knew he played with the injury. But I don't want him to rush back. Take his time and fully recover then he can come back and cause chaos in the backfield

[Coffeedrinker]

I think most of what you say there about our new situation is applicable to the 2008 Falcons. Rookie quarterback, head coach, GM, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, etc. Coming off a terrible season, a roster in flux, the coach abandoned them, their $100m quarterback was on his way to jail, etc. The Falcons in 2007 were in as desperate a situation as we were this offseason. Went 11-5 in 2008 and made the playoffs.

I have questions about Manusky just like you do, specifically because of how the 2011 Chargers looked on third down, but I'm not very worried about it. First of all, the Chargers had a lot of injuries, so given health, we actually have better personnel than they didand secondly, their splits show that they gave up a lot of short third downs. A conversion on 3rd and 2 is a lot less worrisome than a conversion on 3rd and 8. Really, it's the ones in between where you make your money, and the Chargers weren't impressive there either. But there were a lot of 3rd and short conversions for them last year.

Having the 16th ranked yardage defense is very possible, I think. I don't put as much stock into yardage as others do, of course, but I don't think there's that much of a difference from 30th to 16th in raw numbers. Matter of fact, the difference from 16th to 30th is only 48 yards per game. Besides, we were 25th in total yardage and 28th in points allowed. I don't know where 30th is coming from. So from 25th in total yardage to 16th (based on last season's numbers), it's about 35 yards per game. As bad as our defense was in 2010, the total yardage we gave up would have been good enough to be 14th in 2011. Very doable.

I like your attitude and I hope you are correct about it being doable. Also good example with the Falcons, I had forgotten about them.

There's much more to be seen in % of plays for first downs, points per game, points per pass attempt, etc. I've been wanting to develop a formula to weight all those stats into an aggregate metric, rather than going off of yards or scoring alone.

I like the Aikmann Efficiency Rating for that. It's not a perfect system but it's probably the best out for ranking a team performance on the offensive and defensive side.

[GrizzColt]

This year I expect Luck and offense to be surprisingly good like Newton and the defense to be so-so. Next year we spend big money on the defense and it takes a step up while Luck either hits the sophomore slump or stays level. The 3rd year is when everything clicks and we look like the team we're gonna be.

[mystrymaster]

i fell like powers looked better when he took chances and with chances come turnovers and big plays, as long as t the turnovers are more than then big plays we are fine.

[indynorth]

I don't expect our defense to be world beaters by any means. However, I also think they are much better than the media is portraying. The secondary is a question mark but it is not totally devoid of talent. The main problem with our secondary last year was the way the coaching staff had them playing Tampa 2. Our interpretation of that scheme was way too soft. Just by switching defensive schemes and adopting a more aggressive overall mindset puts us ahead of where we were last year in my opinion. I expect the defense will be respectable.

Im glad we hired Pagano he knows alot a/b defense