Colts' Defense Fuels This Season's Model

In recent seasons, the Indianapolis Colts have arrived at this time of the year wondering if a shaky defense could pull things together just enough to allow a powerful offense to carry them to a championship.

Last year, that's precisely what happened. A defense that had been pitiable during the regular season regrouped for a series of surprisingly solid playoff performances, and the Colts rode the play of quarterback Peyton Manning and his offensive cohorts to a Super Bowl triumph last February in Miami.

Their Super Bowl encore has produced a role-reversing season for the Colts. As the AFC's No. 2 seed prepares for its playoff opener against San Diego, the questions are about the offense and whether the unit can recapture its old, dominating form with the expected return of wide receiver Marvin Harrison to the lineup.

The defense was the element of the team that was reliable all season, the part that now promises to lead the way if the Colts (13-3) are going to threaten the New England Patriots for AFC supremacy and make a run at a second straight Super Bowl title.

"Over the regular season, it's been much more reliable," Colts Coach Tony Dungy said of his defense, "and we've played some good offensive people and held them down. We've played more to the standard I think we should play to, more to the standard I thought we'd play to last year and we really didn't see it until the playoffs last year."

Dungy was quick to add the real test is just beginning. "This is when you have to do it," he said. "This is when you get tested by the Tomlinsons and the Gateses and the Riverses of the world, and we'll find out."

That would be tailback LaDainian Tomlinson, tight end Antonio Gates and quarterback Philip Rivers of the Chargers, who struggled for much of the regular season but bring a seven-game winning streak into Sunday's game. The Colts may not have to worry about Gates, who sprained his toe in last weekend's first-round playoff victory over Tennessee. But with or without the gifted tight end, the Chargers represent a formidable test for the Colts as they come back from a two-week break after the regular season.

Dungy said he regularly lectures his players that the postseason isn't about turning up the intensity a few notches or trying to do extraordinary things; it's about doing the simple tasks and doing what's been done all season, but doing them now with the stakes raised. For the Colts, doing what they've done all season means continuing to play superb defense.

"I think this year just overall as a defense and myself, we all have done a great job at executing the defense and doing what we're coached and doing what we're supposed to do," safety Bob Sanders said. "It's exciting, man."

Sanders was named the NFL's defensive player of the year by the Associated Press. It was, it seemed, a recognition of what the Colts had done as a team almost as much as it was of what Sanders had done personally. The Colts ranked third in the league in total defense and first in scoring defense.

For years, it had been puzzling that Dungy, a defensive mastermind during his days as an assistant coach, had been unable to craft a defense in Indianapolis that could serve as a worthy complement to the record-setting quarterback he inherited. The Colts did devote most of their cash and salary cap space to bolstering their offense, but it frustrated Dungy and those around him when the team couldn't assemble a defense that was ordinary, much less exceptional.

The turnaround began late last season, when defensive coordinator Ron Meeks (who spent a season as the defensive backs coach of the Washington Redskins under Norv Turner, now the Chargers' head coach) shook up the lineup just before the playoffs. The players seemed to get the message, and the postseason demonstrated what a difference-maker Sanders can be. He missed most of last season with knee troubles but was in the lineup for the playoffs, making tackles on running backs near the line of scrimmage and hitting wide receivers to break up distant passes.