Watching the Colts horrific performance this year was very telling on many different levels. Beyond proving the unquestioned greatness of Peyton Manning, it also proved how providing one individual with so much power, control and responsibility can lead to a catastrophic downfall should anything happen to that individual.
It is no secret that the Colts provide Peyton Manning with way more control over the offense than any other team in the NFL. They primarily use two personnel groups, four formations and rarely motion or shift. They are in a static alignment the majority of the time so that Peyton Manning can manipulate the defense at the line of scrimmage to show what they are doing. Peyton can then change the offensive play to what is appropriate. For the past however many years, this has proven to be very effective. They have won many games, and Peyton Manning has made a ton of endorsement money off of his on field persona. During this time, I have never heard a football analyst question the way that the Colts run their offense.
In contrast, the New England Patriots utilize a system which provides their future Hall of Fame Quarterback with less control at the line of scrimmage. They use many personnel groups, formations, shifts and motions. They are continually dynamic with their alignments to create uncertainty amongst the defense. Although Brady could probably handle the same type of responsibility that is placed upon Manning, the Patriots utilize a more "collective" effort. Their offense is much more of a system than the Colts offense, which had gotten to the point of being totally dependant upon one individual. When Brady was lost for the season in week one a few years back, Their backup came in with no experience and guided their team to an 11-5 record. They were able to accomplish this with a very similar level of talent to what the Colts were working with this year.
When you look at these two organizations, It is no wonder that the Patriots future is looking a whole lot brighter than the Colts. After firing both the Polians, the Colts really are starting from ground zero. I am very curious about whether the new coach who is hired (after Caldwell is inevitably fired) will establish more of an offensive system to take some of the control away from Manning, and allow the offensive coaching staff to actually do their job. As Manning rose to greatness, he continually took more and more control of the offense... to the point of where any coach holding the title of offensive coordinator was somewhat irrelevant. Despite their success, I think it is also fair to question whether the Colts potential was fulfilled during the time that Peyton was running things. Yes they did win a super bowl, and yes they were continually in the playoffs, but many of those post season births ended in disappointment. Given the amount of talent on those teams, I think that it is fair to question whether that talent was continually optimized.
I think that the bottom line here is that when you are running an operation, you cannot let one person be larger than the operation itself. When you have a great individual, you definitely want to exploit his abilities, but not at the expense of becoming overly dependant upon that person. It is very important to develop an operation that strives to be fully dimensional, even at the expense of short term success. I think that the Colts often did not see the big picture, and got too caught up in dominating regular season games with absurd offensive outputs. In many instances this hurt them in the post season, and now they are looking at a very uncertain future. I think that the coaches who enabled Manning's insistence of controlling everything should bear a lot of responsibility here. Tony Dungy was clearly a players' coach. He always treated his players with the utmost respect, and was a great leader of men. With that respect, came an insistence that the players win games... not the system the team ran. I tend to believe that this is a faulty way of thinking. As a coach it is your job to establish a system, and try to do everything in your power to be creative in devising a scheme week in and week out. Otherwise... You are not really doing your job. When I see the Saints, Patriots and Packers offensive systems perform like they do, it confirms this belief.
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