Rotoworld is reporting via the Palm Beach Post that the Colts have shown interest in trading for the Browns kick returner/wide receiver Joshua Cribbs. 

First off, there is no way this trade goes through. Colts trades rarely happen and whenever it leaks that we might be trading for somebody, it usually always fizzles. That being said, I kind of hope we do get him. It would just make the Colts elite in every aspect of the game. 

So what do you think? Should we trade for him or not?

Source: Rotoworld

It has been 328 days since any single Colts runner has had a 100 yard game. (That was Addai against the Texans, his only of the 08 season f.y.i.)

It has been 279 days since Bob Sanders has been in a game. (Including the playoff game against the Chargers, he only played 7 games.)

It has been 228 days since Marvin Harrison was a Colt. (Already?)

It has been 27 days since Gonzo went down with his knee injury. (He's already missed a quarter of the season.)

BUT

It has still been 348 days since the Colts last had a regular season loss. That is astounding. 

My question to you guys is, if you had, and I mean ABSOLUTELY HAD, to pick one person to attribute this success to, who would it be?

• We have an outstanding passing offense this year.
• The running offense is doing better, but still not nearly where I would like for it to be.
• Our offensive line is doing pretty well. It's held up fairly well when passing and has opened what appears to be bigger lanes in the running game.
• Our WR's have shown outstanding toughness. Every man is stepping up big time and making things easier for Peyton. Garcon has done things in the past two games that I never thought he could. He IS the next big Colts WR.
• Our defensive line has returned to its pro-bowl pass rushing form (fingers crossed for Freeney). 
• Our run defense has improved to the point where we are still weak against the run, but we aren't allowing those long runs of a couple years ago and even last year.
• Our linebacking corps I think is the best asset of our defense. We have Session, Brackett, and Hagler all starting. All have at least a season of starting experience under their belt. The depth behind them is astounding too because we have Wheeler (who was being groomed to start this season), Keiaho, a started from last year, and Senn who has showed promise. They all know how to play, and have shown that their play will be good going forward.
• Our cornerbacks have done well when they needed to. They've been beat up this season so far, but Powers has been a decent starter especially for a rookie CB. I won't even mention Tim Jennings. Hayden has played well when able and Marlin Jackson is recovering well from his torn ACL.
• Our safeties have been the most surprising unit of the team. With Sanders out I thought that our deep defense would be mediocre but Bethea has come into his own possibly forming the best safety tandem when Sanders is healthy. Bullit was clutch last year and looks like he will continue it this year.
• Our special teams has finally reach league average. Thank God. 

This story had me thinking about how marriage might have altered the stats of some QB's throughout history and today.

I went through the dates of marriages (and several divorces) and just wanted to see if there was any statistical evidence relating marriage and a loss of "competitive edge." These findings do not take into account what team each quarterback played for, what players were lost around the same time, or significant rule changes which could alter the numbers.

AVERAGE                     GS   Win%     Comp. %   Yds.   TD   INT   RAT.

(Pre) Dan Marino           14    85%        60.6%     3810    33    15    96.3

(Post) Dan Marino          14    57%        59.1%     3566   25    15    84.6

1. (Pre) T. Bradshaw       12    54%       46.7%     1852   10    19    51.4

1. (Post) T. Bradshaw      9     89%        49.4%     1183   10    15    54.5

2. (Pre) T. Bradshaw       10    72%        50.3%     1339   12     9     69.5

2. (Post) T. Bradshaw     12     69%       54.0%      2301   18    15    84.1

(Pre) Peyton Manning     16     54%       60.4%     4096    28    19   85.5

(Post) Peyton Manning    16    71%         66%       4168    31   14   99.5

(Pre) Eli Manning             14    53%        53.7%     2824   19    16   70.6

(Post) Eli Manning           16     81%       60.3%     3238    21    10   86.4

(Pre) Brett Favre              15    61%        62.6%     3706    27    16   86.9

(Post) Brett Favre            16     63%       66.4%     3869    27    19   85.5

Possible Findings

• Dan Marino might have focused less on football after marriage.
• Terry Bradshaw could not have been luckier in the team that drafted him. Without the Steelers defense, no one else would be able to carry him.
• Brett Favre was not affected at all by his marriage as far as the statistics say.
• Perhaps marriage helps quarterbacks with decision making skills or another attribute as all showed significant increases in their statistics afterwards (Marino being the exception.)
• The maturing could also just be adapting to the game or maturing as a person individually.

NOTES

A trend of marriage is seen after 2-3 years of a starting job in the NFL. All players in this post followed this trend.

Eli's post marriage numbers are so high because he had a good year last year. It was first season since marriage.

Peyton is not coincidentally the best overall quarterback shown.

All stats are taken from Pro Football Reference.

Please rec this FanPost! Special thanks to farris6659 for forwarding this enjoyable story to us. I edited the title so folks would get a better idea of the story's subject, and I placed the forwarded email into our quotes box. Enjoy, and thanks again to farris6659. --bbs

I received this e-mail from one of my Vikings friends. Thought I would share it. It seems to be gaining steam as a forward.

Last Friday I was going through the Indianapolis Airport .

People in the Security Check line were grumbling about what nonsense the process was, blah, blah, blah. An elderly lady (in a different line) was struggling with her luggage, pocketbook, etc.
She was also confused about what to do, how to do it, couldn't get her shoes off (and a host of other things).
The Security Officials weren't helping the situation either (they can be mighty callous at times).

I started to move her direction, but before I could get out of the line I was in, a gentleman (close by) sat down all of his stuff, and began to help the lady. I thought he looked familiar, but it didn't register; it was fascinating to see him come to her aid (nobody else was making a move to help!).
He was talking to her, making conversation, helping her untie her shoes, putting her things in one of those bins, and making sure she was AT EASE. He helped her through the screening gate, then calmly put his things on the belt, went through and immediately began to help the lady put her shoes back on, gather her belongings, etc. In the meantime she had reached in her purse to show him pictures of her family.
He made a big fuss over the photos, then asked for a wheelchair so he could get her to her gate. Honestly, it was a Hallmark script. They disappeared down the concourse together... he was pushing the wheelchair and she was jabbering with him. It made me smile....

NOW HERE'S THE KICKER: I got through security and went to get something to drink. Just beyond the little restaurant was a group of people gathered, all excited, shaking hands, etc., and in the center of them was THIS KIND GENTLEMAN who had been helping the lady.

And, guess who it was?
TONY DUNGY, retired coach of the Indianapolis Colts!  I looked at his hand and, SURE' NUFF there was the HUGE diamond Super Bowl ring.

The point:
The elderly lady didn't know who he was, or care WHO HE IS, of would even have known had she been told. HE DID THE RIGHT THING FOR THE RIGHT REASON. Important people serve others with a sense of purpose.

These kinds of things are still THE BEST LESSONS EVER. . . . . .

According to Perezhilton.com and Us Weekly, Tom Brady got married Thursday night to the insanely hot Gisele Bundchen. There had been rumors of this happening several times before but apparently it happened at a small reception in California.

Here's hoping to a new child, wife, QB controversy, and a bum knee distracting Brady enough that the Colts can maybe pick him off a couple times when we meet this season.

Brady's Past

Brady's Present

Recently, my friends and I attended the NFL combine. I searched forever online and only found a few tips. I even emailed Kravitz, Phil B, and some other local/national sports writers. All to no avail, so we decided to go down there with our camera and wing it. Here's what we learned.

• Everyone uses the Skywalks. I never understood how the combine could survive in Indy with this weather. I thought coaches would hate it, but these Skywalks have probably been the main factor for the combine staying. You can see everyone you would want to in these hallways.
• All the Skywalks connect hotels to the convention center. It's real easy to just drift around and look for people of interest. In the Skywalks, we met John Clayton (who just stood around talking ALL DAY, it's no wonder he has so much insider info).
• Upstairs at the convention center is where most of the formal meetings happen. You can't go into the conference rooms, but you can catch coaches to and from. That's how we got a picture with Jim Caldwell.
• Downstairs is usually more quiet than upstairs, so if there are going to be any formal interviews, it's going to be down here. That's how we got a picture with Brad Childress. Also, some players use these long hallways to warm up and practice before they are tested. We were able to see University of South Caroline TE, Jared Cook. He was practicing the 40 yard dash. According to Rotoworld, he ended up leading all TE's in the 40 time, vertical leap, and broad jump.
• Around lunchtime, if you are able to afford Shula's or other similar restaurants then I would advise eating there. Unfortunately for my friends and I, we are college students so we settled for the dining court. We caught John Fox enjoying some Jody Maroni's Sausage Kingdom there.
• Early in the morning I think there might be some overall conference that everyone attends in the Luke, so we waited outside and caught John Harbaugh.
• Hotel Lobbies are also a hot spot. We caught Jim Schwartz there and barely missed Andy Reid.
• Look to avoid professional autographer seekers. They usually only focus on players, but I don't think NFL execs appreciate them.
• We generally avoided bother players though as a rule of thumb because we figured that they would need to concentrate on their chance to get their names out.

Overall, it was great. The Combine was really fan friendly and all the coaches were happy to take pictures (I secretly think Jim Schwartz was even happy to be recognized). From what I could tell we were the only people there looking to see coaches so you don't have to worry about competing with other fans. I would suggest this to anyone who wants to meet NFL coaches and others.

All the Pictures

Rotoworld.com is reporting via NFL.com that we have resigned Kelvin Hayden to a 5 year 43 million dollar contract. There is reportedly 22.5 million guaranteed.

This really changes things because before, Adam Schefter (the only viable inside reporter) said that we would cut Marvin to make room for the franchise tag. Does anybody know if this contract would put us over the cap limit? Maybe Marvin restructured? I'm just glad that we got this done becuase Hayden will be an NFL star one day.

I'm glad that Peyton, who was the only real candidate for MVP, won it. But, around the league several people were pulling for Pennington, Rivers, or Turner.

Turner- 2.3 YAC, longest carry 13 yards, 7 yards receiving

Rivers- 20 of 36 for 217 yards, 55.6% completion, 1 interception, 61.9 QB rating

Pennington- 25 of 38 for 65.8% completion, 4 interceptions, 53.7 QB rating

Manning- 25 of 42 for 59.5% completion, no interceptions, 90.4 QB rating

In what world could people argue with those numbers?

The Colts are one of the most committed teams to the draft only approach. But I'm just going to get right to it, does it really work?  Yes, we make the playoffs years after year, but when it comes down to the playoffs would we have different outcomes with experienced tried and true free agents than what Dungy is given to work with?

I'm not saying let's go out and throw cash around for free agents, but let's be honest, we need to bolster a lot of positions on our team and usually drafting leads to players that take 2 or even 3 years to mature into reliable players. I for one, would not be against trading up in the draft to grab a good power running back or a wide receiver with pure speed. If we don't take that route, then maybe we should trade for a big name defensive tackle. If we can find a way to make it work under the cap, then we should.