Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Larry Coyer said recently the most important aspect of his new job may not be scheme, blitzing, changes or any of the other things on which observers have focused this offseason.
The most important aspect of his job, he said, is the most important aspect of any coaching job:
Communication.
“You need to listen to your players,” Coyer said recently. “We try to have an open-door policy. We can’t incorporate everybody, but we need to listen to our players because they play the game. Coaching genius is great, but if they can’t execute it, it isn’t nothing. It’s playing genius that we need. We’re trying to incorporate player input into our game plan.”
That approach has drawn praise from players.
“He has his own style and he’s old school,” Colts four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Dwight Freeney said. “I like to sit down there with him because he has so much knowledge and so much experience, so you can kind of pick his brain. That’s what I like to do. I like to sit there and talk to him. When I say old school, I say old school from the stand point of, ‘He’s been around.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean that he coaches old school. Times have changed and things change in the game, and he’s been great so far at changing times.
“He likes to get the guys that want to make plays in a position to make plays.”
The Colts under former defensive coordinator Ron Meeks and former Head Coach Tony Dungy ranked among the top five in the NFL in scoring defense in 2005 and again in 2007, but they rarely blitzed, instead opting to focus on rushing the quarterback with four linemen. Colts players throughout the offseason have talked of the defense being more aggressive, with Head Coach Jim Caldwell and Coyer each saying that while there will be tweaks and adjustments, the Colts’ scheme a four-three, Cover 2-based system – will remain essentially the same.
“Really what we do is no different than what they’ve done in the past,” Coyer said, who spent the last two seasons as an assistant in Tampa Bay and four years before that as defensive coordinator in Denver. “Anything that we’re doing they’ve had in the past here. The big deal that we’re trying to do is the mindset of stopping the run game. They are playing really hard and (racing) to the ball, which was a Coach Dungy deal. I think we have to recapture that a little bit, run to the ball, everybody, frenetically. . . . I think they know what we want to do, and how we want to do it.
“They’re very attentive. It’s been very good. Each day I have more respect for these players. The more you know them, the more you respect them. They bust their butt, they’re attentive, they have pride, I have great respect for them. They are very smart.”
Coyer said while he has run blitz-oriented schemes in the past, that’s not as necessary in Indianapolis because a line that features Freeney and Pro Bowl defensive end Robert Mathis often can pressure the quarterback without help. Coyer, too, said “aggressive” doesn’t necessarily mean “blitzing.”
“We’ll be aggressive, but really when it comes right down to it, there’s nothing structurally that is any different,” Coyer said. “I did that one time. We did “Blitzburgh”, and we won 13 games (in Denver in 2005), but I think that’s for a special time and a special place. We were “Blitzburgh” because we couldn’t rush with four. I think here everybody knows we have a chance to rush with four. We have to give our offense more possessions. We have to get our defense on the sideline, they know that for our defense’s sake. I think that is a major deal for us. Third down is a critical deal.”
Whatever the focus, Coyer said the important thing is the players’ approach. He said he long admired the Colts’ organization, particularly during the current streak of seven consecutive postseason appearances, and said recently upon arriving in Indianapolis he quickly learned the reason for the success.
“These guys have great attitudes,” Coyer said. “They have wonderful attitudes. Where it got to be in Denver and where it was in Tampa was the defensive football team expected to shut them out. That’s the truth. We expected to go out there and turn the ball over and make plays, and we could win 3-0 and we could win 10-7. I think that our players have that attitude. I believe that.
“They have pride. They want to be able to play games like that. They’re really solid individuals and there is great leadership in this locker room. I think we’ll be that kind of team. I think we are going to go out there and tee it up nose to nose. That’s our plan. We are going to tee it up and let it happen. The talent’s here, the attitude is here. These guys know how to win. I don’t know if anybody takes that tritely, but they’ve won 12 games, now nothing is guaranteed to anybody, you have to earn your stripes.
“The big deal with that is … we have to play like we have one heartbeat. Everybody’s got no heroes and one heartbeat. Everybody gives it up for everyone else.”
IFR Analysis: Just how much the Colts’ defense is going to change in the regular season remains a mystery, which of course is likely very much by design. But it’s interesting to here Coyer talking about listening to the players and finding out what they think works. I honestly don’t know how much this happened under Meeks and Dungy, but it strikes you it’s very much a part of Coyer’s approach. The one thing I came away with talking to Coyer this past offseason was how much he truly respects the Colts’ organization. The thing that he said he always noticed about the Colts when coaching other teams was that while many teams speak of playing through injuries, the Colts actually did it. He cited specifically the Colts’ 2003 postseason victory over Denver, the one that came two weeks after the Broncos beat the Colts in the RCA Dome. Coyer said each team came into the playoff game injured. The difference was the Broncos played like it and the Colts didn’t. This anecdote doesn’t have much if anything to do with the Colts’ defense, but it shows what Coyer likes about the Colts. As for just how his approach will work in Indianapolis — and how much blitzing the team will do — as I’ve said before, mid- and late-September will begin to tell the story.
