ESPN is reporting that the Raiders plan to release Pro Bowl CB DeAngelo Hall this Wednesday in another move by Weird Al Davis. Davis has reportedly asked his staff to analyze the team's current roster and make suggest for players that could potentially be released by the end of the week.

Would picking up DeAngelo Hall be a good move for the Colts? The CB unit has been a little weak this year (with the exception of the Pats game), Marlin Jackson is IR'd for the year, and Kelvin Hayden has missed the past few games with an injury. Hall definitely has a history of being a hothead with his inexcusible unnecessary roughness calls and showing up of his head coach.

I personally think it would be a great move if the Colts could pull it off and if the price was right. Although, I doubt Polian would make a move like this after the Corey Simon saga.

It looks like the draft decisions of Jacksonville this year have continued to look terrible.

When the Jags traded away a handful of picks to get Derrick Harvey, most of the sports community frowned upon the move. Then, when Harvey turned out to be the longest contract holdout in the NFL, the decision looked even more questionable. 

Now, their lack of draft intelligence is showing again. Today they cut 5th round draft choice Trae Williams, DB from South Florida. The move leaves Jax with only 4 players on their opening day roster from this year's draft. The front office of the Jags looks incredibly ignorant right now if you ask me. The Colts will have more players on their roster from the draft without a first round pick. It's good that we don't have to worry about Jax catching us now...or in the future. 

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I heard this story on the TV in the other room and almost crapped my pants. 

http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=8674587

Looks like we're without yet another key player for the duration, or a majority of the duration, of training camp.Peyton will undoubtedly still be prepared for the regular season opener, but the development of people like Tom Santi, Jacom Tamme, Roy Hall, and others on the offense will definitely be slowed by Peyton's absense in the huddle for 4-6 weeks.  

This from NFL. Com's Adam Schefter:

Now that former Patriots linebacker Rosevelt Colvin has passed his physicals and demonstrated he could play in a game tomorrow, Indianapolis and Houston each are pushing to sign him. And each has a selling point. Colvin played high school football in Indianapolis, and it would be nice to return. But the Texans have their general manager Rick Smith, who once successfully recruited Colvin to Purdue. Now Smith is trying to successfully recruit Colvin again.

I don't know why Colvin would want to sign with a cellar dweller like the Texans over a perennial contender like the Colts. The Texans are most likely offering Colving more playing time, and perhaps a starting role as a linebacker on the team. The Colts probably aren't offering much more than a situational pass rusher job. 

There's no way the Colts are going to offer more money than the Texans, either. And with comments like this from Bill Polian,

Polian also said while the team hadn’t ruled out acquiring free-agent linebacker Rosevelt Colvin, he said, “There’s nothing imminent there."

, it looks the Colts are playing the "I'm going to really act like I don't want you so that you'll want me more" card. It totally works on chicks, but we'll see if it works on Rosey Colvin.

After Matt Walsh sent tapes to the league office, six or so specific teams were revealed to have been videotaped by Walsh himself for the Patriots. One of the teams that I expected to see come out was the Colts, the Patriots' biggest competitor of the last 6 years. Well, expect it to come out tonight during Andrea Kremer's interview with Walsh tonight on HBO.

Yesterday evening, on 1070 The Fan (Indy's ESPN radio) with Eddie Whtie and Bob Kravitz, Kremer went into details about her interview with Walsh. I won't be able to directly quote her here but she said something like this:

"When the Patriots would play the Colts, Walsh was instructed to tape the offense. He was clearly instructed to first tape the offensive coordinator and then Peyton Manning until the play."

This has got me fired up. You can't tell me the taping of Tom Moore and Peyton Manning's signals didn't directly affect the outcome of games in 2001-present. Especially the games in 2001-2004.

I'd encourage everyone to listen to the podcast of the interview here: http://www.1070thefan.com/kravitzandeddie/podcast.aspx

The link is at the top of the page. You can skip to about the 8:30 minute mark of the interview. Also, she talks directly about the Colts about the 16:00 mark if you only want to hear that.

Prepare to be pissed off.

After happily going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Crate & Barrel all day on Sunday after church with my wife, I came back to check on the draft and was surprised by what I saw when the picks from the Colts scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen.

No cornerback selected. No safety selected. No defensive back at all.

The Colts had their 7th pick left to go, so I assumed that would be where they take their customary DB in the draft. Instead, we drafted our 3rd center of the weekend.

I was very surprised to come out of the weekend without having drafted a DB, so I looked into our secondary situation a little closer:

We clearly have the best starting safety tandem in the NFL right now, with both of our starters (Bob Sanders and Antoine Bethea) being named to the Prow Bowl this past season. Matt Giordano is also a solid backup at safety. We also carry two very underrated, hard-hitting starting corners on our roster in Marlin Jackson and Kelvin Hayden.

After those 5, the Colts have 8 other DBs listed on their roster, including 5 that they picked up in 2007 through the draft and free agency. With so many fresh DBs on their roster, I'm assuming Polian and company thought they were set as far as depth goes for their secondary.

Hopefully Dante Hughes pans out as the future at Cornerback and Nickelback for now. It was disappointing to see him as well as Michael Coe go down last season, both of whom were showing alot of improvement as the season progressed. I know some people liked Tim Jennings last season, but I felt like Jennings and the other guys who filled in at corner were not effective. Of course, most of the other guys are only 2nd year players this year and most likely have alot of room to grow.

All in all I can see Polian's logic in not going with a DB in this year's draft. We're obviously set when it comes to the starting 4, and show alot of promise with the guys behind them.

Here's to hopefully some great coaching in our secondary this offseason.

Following up on the post I made a few weeks ago, the finalits have been announced for the Colts Design a Horse competition. The competition was created to have a secondary logo for our team. Go over to www.colts.com/designahorse and you can vote for your favorite. I'm lobbying for #2, as it is my favorite and was designed by a friend here at work. Anyone from Stampede Blue make the finals?

ESPN the mag confirms... the Indianapolis Colts have the greatest franchise in the history of sports.

Well, maybe they didn't go that far. But, the Colts top this year's annual ranking of franchises based upon what they give back to the fans. All teams from the 4 "major" sports are ranked (NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB) based upon things like player effort and likability, coach leadership, and ticket prices. The only category the Colts didn't rank in the top 25 out of 122 was Stadium Experience. I think we all know that will change after this season at Lucas Oil.

The article (linked below) highlights other Colts fan sites like this one and MyColts.net

Article link

Link to ESPN franchise ranking chart

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The Colts franchise is hosting a Logo design competition. This is from the Colts.com website:

The Indianapolis Colts® are looking for a secondary logo to go along with our current logo that we want YOU, the fans, to create! Five finalists will be chosen and posted on colts.com for fans to vote on. The winner will receive 2 lower level season tickets for the inaugural season at Lucas Oil Stadium and $1,000!

More details at www.colts.com/designahorse

I think I'll make something in Microsoft Paint later

Moss or Samuel?

As the NFL nears the start of free agency this Friday, several questions and rumors will be and have been flying around ESPN and other sports news outlets. One of the more intriguing ones that we've all heard by now was involving Patriots free agent Randy Moss and the Cowboys. But, as I read the article I got to thinking: would I rather play our rival Patriots without Moss or Asante Samuel? Both players are free agents and the Pats have no chance of signing both of them.

Asante Samuel

Asante has always played tough againts the Colts. No highlight of his gets more play than his interception of Peyton Manning in the 2006 AFC Championships game, which he ran back for a touchdown to put the Pats up 21 -3. (Thankfully for us, that wasn't the end of the highlight reel.) Save for an amazing 73 yard first-half-ending dump off pass to Joe Addai, the Colts passing game was weak agains the Patriots this year (80 yds 1 INT in 2nd half), thanks to Asante. Losing Samuel means that the Patriots will likely draft a cornerback early on in the draft, or they will plug Randall Gay into Samuel's vacancy. Gay has done fairly well when stepping in for injured players in the Pats' secondary.

Randy Moss

There's not much need for me to go into Randy's accomplishments this past sesason. To go along with his record-breaking 23 TDs this season, Moss had 9 catches for 145 yards and 1 TD, including a 55 yard bomb from Tom Brady that sparked New England's 4th quarter comeback, in his one career game against the Colts with the Patriots. If Moss were to leave the team, barring any off-season acquisitions, Jabar Gaffney would most likely become the team's #1 receiver due to the Pats not re-signing Dante' Stallworth, leaving Wes Welker in the slot.

Who Do I Want Gone?

When this question first came to mind, I thought that I would definitely want Samuel gone from the team when they play them next. I had daydreams of Peyton tossing 6 TDs in Lucas Oil against the Pats with Asante Samuel playing somewhere else. But, after looking closer at their roster and how we would match up with the Patriots, I think the Colts benefit more if Moss can't be re-signed. With Moss AND Stallworth gone, the Pats lose their deep threat capabilities, a huge part of what made Wes Welker and the rest of the team so dangerous in 2007. And although Samuel is probably a top 5 cornerback in the league, the Patriots have been extremely effective at plugging in players on the defensive side in the past, and I wouldn't expect too big of a drop off in their performance if they had to go with Ellis Hobbs and Randall Gay at the corners.

So, go ahead Jerry Jones and sign Randy Moss. My guess is we'll see you in the Super Bowl if you do.

ESPN is reporting today that Tom Brady and Randy Moss will not be playing in the Pro Bowl in Hawaii this weekend, citing ankle injuries. I understand the possibility of these injuries being legit, but isn't it more likely that their pride is injured and they can't stand the thought of showing their faces in public and having to answer more questions from the media? They're probably following their coach's example here and ducking out of having to face the reality that their pursuit of perfection was ruined this past Sunday.

Also, the league should make a special rule here and allow Eli Manning to replace Tom Brady for the AFC instead of Cleveland's Derek Anderson. That would be sweet irony.

Amongst all the hooplah about Dungy's supposed retirement decision, you'll find this quote from 4-time Super Bowl Champ and ex-Patriot Adam Vinatieri:

"'I have more respect for him than any other coach,' said kicker Adam Vinatieri, who owns four Super Bowl rings. 'Selfishly, I'd like to have him back. If he goes, I'll give him a hug and wish him well.'"

More proof that we've got the classiest organization in football, right here in Indianapolis.

I wonder if Belichick hugs?

ESPN is reporting that the Colts have signed Bob Sanders to a 5 year, $37.5 million deal, with $20 million in guaranteed money. This contract would make him the highest paid safety in the league. I'm sure you're all stoked like I am. This was a great move by Polian to sign Sanders before he hit free agency in the offseason. We get to keep the game's best defensive playmaker for at least 5 more. Thanks Bill.

I just saw Randy Moss's website and its "Colts Cheat" YouTube video posting (the one accusing the Colts of pumping in crowd noise). It only goes to show that Moss is still a punk, regardless of what team he is playing for. Also, it's funny to hear a player from the Pats accusing another team of cheating.

As far as fake crowd noise goes, I went to the Bengals-Browns game this Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium, and the highest noise level never even came close to what it is at the Dome. I'm not claiming we Colts fans have the greatest/loudest fan base in the world (although it's pretty sweet), but we play in the dome where noise doesn't escape and we have some pretty smart fans who go bananas when the opponent is on 3rd down and know to shut up when the offense is on the field (thanks to Peyton sometimes). I don't care what Moss or some lame-brain dome security guard say, we've got the genuinely loudest home field advantage in the NFL.