INDIANAPOLIS – In a normal offseason, the Colts would have the vast majority of their 90-man roster in Indianapolis right now, coming to the team complex 4 days a week for voluntary work.
That’s now virtual in 2020.
For four days a week, the Colts are allowed to ‘be with their players’ for four hours. That means a whole lot of Zoom, with about 2 hours for unit/position group meetings and then 2 hours of strength and conditioning.
Head strength coach Rusty Jones typically meets for about 30 minutes with the entire team. Jones goes over workouts, nutrition and general strength training that needs to be done during this time of the offseason.
The Colts sent heart monitors to their players, so the staff is able to see live results from the workouts and how things are coming along when it comes to conditioning.
Frank Reich said some players have had virtual workouts within their position groups so everyone can see each other during the drills.
“We are getting a ton done,” Reich said on Monday as his team got ready to begin Week Three of the virtual offseason. “This has been extremely productive. We don’t get the camaraderie to the same level, but we even work at that in ways that we can. But with installation, our coaches are doing a phenomenal job. But we always tell the players, these meetings will only be as good as they are engaged in the meeting, so we try not to make it like lectures. Our install meetings, we are trying our best to be very interactive, just like we are in the building.”
A virtual approach to the offseason will continue through at least May 15th, before the NFL re-evaluates things.
On Monday, Reich met the media via Zoom to chat about the unusual offseason program.
What were some of the highlights from Reich, who is heading into Year 3 at the helm?
-On having Philip Rivers and the sort of input he’s giving this time of year: “As you guys know, our quarterbacks have a lot of input. There’s no question who is running (Nick Sirianni) the meetings. I’m in most of the quarterback meetings. (Quarterbacks coach Marcus Brady) does a great job and we are installing the offense. Our ears are always open to what the quarterbacks have to say, and really what all of our players have to say. Our players do a good job and have the maturity to know what that means and what that doesn’t mean. Philip, just with our existing relationship with him, it’s literally like riding a bike. We are laughing and joking about how it’s kind of like we have been together the whole time. It’s a very quick re-acclimation to that. We know what Philip likes. We know how Philip likes to think. At the same time, he’s brought some new things. And that’s been fun and exciting to hear some of the things that he’s learned over the last few years and he’s been equally as eager to hear what we’ve learned over the last few years as well.”
-On Jacob Eason and the things that need to be worked on in his game: “Yeah, he does have a gun for an arm. We are always going to be working on improving accuracy. I think his accuracy is solid. It can get better and it has to get better. That’s usually a byproduct of footwork and how you think in your progressions and how fast you get it to the right guy. We will work hard on that with fundamentals and technique with the footwork that we want and sync that up. But then also the mental part. Accuracy is not just physical, it’s also mental. You have to be going the right place with the ball. That helps your completion percentage, too. So we will work with that. The other area that we will continue to work on is just pocket awareness. When you have the arm that he has and you can throw from the pocket the way that he can, you just want to continue to work on those little subtle movements in the pocket, pocket instincts and pocket awareness. For a big guy, he’s pretty athletic. So how do you turn some of that athleticism and arm talent into big plays? Those are a couple of things we have identified that we are trying to develop.”
-On Michael Pittman’s overall impact on the entire wideout group: “We envision Michael as being the ‘X’ receiver. We believe he can develop into that pretty quickly. He’s obviously going to have to prove that, but we are very optimistic that he will. The X receiver is the guy that you want to put, when you are in a trips right, he’s singled into the boundary and you can throw 1-on-1 to him. There’s a handful of routes you want to throw to him there. You think about those things when you pick a guy. ‘Okay, we can throw these 5 things to him.’ Right away, you think about those things. But it’s not just about that. It’s about how the receivers complement each other. I think the offensive staff works really hard at moving guys around. He’ll be the X receiver but we will still get T.Y. (Hilton) where we want to get him. We are still going to continue to develop Parris (Campbell). Zach Pascal is a big part of what we are doing. So we will move guys around. We will continue to always do that. But we do envision Michael as that X receiver, so every now and again we say, ‘Hey, they are playing a lot of man coverage. Let’s put him in the boundary and throw 1-on-1 and expect him to win.’”
-On what Reich saw so early on Pittman that made him fall in love: “I saw size, speed, body quickness, good feet, good route runner for a big man. A lot of times, I think guys win with size and strength but I saw that he’s a good technician. I saw him running routes in college and winning on routes that we run in our offense. So it was easy to translate. Short and intermediate routes that we like to throw to that type of receiver, a big, strong receiver, that we haven’t been able to do as much of, that we’ve done in the past. We just haven’t had the right body type for that. A lot of those showed up on (Pittman’s college) tape. But also the plays down the field. We all know one of the goals is for us to get our yards per attempt up higher, where it needs to be. That takes everybody and I think he can help us add to that as well.”
-On new tight end Trey Burton fitting into this offense: “Incredibly excited about Trey. Obviously was with him in Philadelphia. Trey is a big-time playmaking tight end. He’s an incredible route runner. He’s a very smart, instinctive player. I think he fits a big need in our offense. You know that spot in our offense gets a lot of attention. I think he can step in that role that (Eric) Ebron was in. He’ll play it different than Ebron will play it. It’ll look different. We will scheme different things up for Trey, then we did for Ebron. Some of it will be different. But that role gets highlighted schematically, in certain ways. I expect Trey, assuming he’s going to stay healthy, will have a very productive year.”
-On the potential role for fullback Roosevelt Nix: “I did feel (the two-back role) was missing last year. We are primarily a one-back offense. We won’t change from that. But when you go back to 2018 and we had (Ryan) Hewitt, we could do a little bit of that. We just think Rosie fits that mold. Obviously, he’s a great special teams player, but he can obviously help in the two-back offense. He’s got to stay healthy and we could have some other guys back him up and supplement the role that he plays, but we would just roll out some of the two-back package we had in ’18 and have it further developed as it succeeds, where I could envision it being 10 or 20 percent of the offense, let’s just say. That would be the goal, between 10 and 20 percent of the offense. There’s things you can do in a 2-back offense, run and pass game, that are unique. It’s a way to be more multiple in the run game. It’s a way to keep teams guessing more in the run game. On one hand, you could say they can stack the box more. But there’s other advantages you can have offensively that we will try to utilize, and I think Rosie is a good fit for that.”
-On the peace of mind in having Darius Leonard: “This is Year Three for Darius. He has been a consistent playmaker and his leadership has continued to grow. I’m just excited about him continuing to do that, making plays on the ball, being the consistent player that he is. He’s been everything you want. The thing I love the most about Darius is the way he practices, how much energy he brings to practice. I think it’s contagious and I think he’s a leader in that regard.”
-On the energy Malik Hooker brings: “In ’18 Malik was coming off the (torn ACL) and got better as the year went on. Last year, I really felt like Malik had a really good year. You could really feel his presence. I thought physically, you could feel Malik’s presence on the field. Malik is not the most outgoing, bubbly personality. He’s got lot of juice and intensity in him and I think you really saw that come out last year, when he was healthy, when he started playing real physical and making plays on the ball. So really excited and expecting big things from him this year.”
-On if there’s any update with free agent Adam Vinatieri: “No update. Just letting the rehab process finish its course before any final decision is made. And then get together with Adam, once he gets to that point.”
-On where he wants to see improvements from himself as a head coach, and play caller: “One thing I want to do a better job is supporting the coaches in all three phases. You gear so much energy towards players, but part of being the head coach is coaching the coaches and holding the coaches accountable and being involved on every level, as the head coach. I think I can do a better job there just giving coaches feedback along the way, encouragement along the way, observations. That’s definitely one area I feel I can grow in. As far as offensively, how do we eliminate those games where it feels like we get stuck? What happened in those games that we got stuck? Was it schematic? Did the defense have something on us that we didn’t know? Taking a look back on some of those games, when we get into a lull offensively, what gets us out of those lulls? Studying some of those things as a play caller, it seems like when we did this, it helped get us out, or this didn’t work. What are the little things that gave us a spark? How can we do more of that? Those are a couple of areas that I’ve looked at.”
