With the Indianapolis Colts' 2010 organized team activities sessions ongong at the team's practice facility, Indy Football Report Editor John Oehser takes a daily look at the team's most-pressing issues .
What's noticeable about what may be the biggest story of Colts 2010 off-season, the return to health of S Bob Sanders, is how little people have seemed to pay much attention.
Or perhaps more accurately, how few people have seemed willing to believe.
Sanders, a seventh-year safety and one of the NFL's most-dominant, most-dynamic defensive players when healthy, practiced throughout this past weekend's mini-camp, and from all reports, he has practiced throughout 2010 organized team activities.
This is very, very big news for the Colts.
And good news, too.
It certainly has more potential to make a huge on-field impact than the other “big” stories of the weekend – the absences of WR Reggie Wayne, DE Robert Mathis or S Antoine Bethea, or even C Jeff Saturday speaking about the potential 2011 NFL lockout.
The absences of Wayne, Mathis and Bethea almost certainly will be solved, and Saturday probably is right when he says the negotiations between players and owners likely will move very, very slowly through this season and spike with terrific urgency as the 2011 approaches.
By August, the issue of Wayne, Mathis and Bethea may not be a distant memories, but because the players will almost certainly be in camp, and because they are committed, focused players, there won't likely be any dropoff in performance.
The potential return of Sanders is anything but a non-story.
Colts Owners and Chief Executive Officer Jim Irsay said early this off-season that getting Sanders and WR Anthony Gonzalez back after they missed practically all of last season could be like signing two high-profile free agents, and QB Peyton Manning said the same.
Very true, and while it's true of both players, it's particularly true of Sanders.
It has been vogue in recent seasons for fans to discount Sanders' potential impact, or at the least, it has become understandably common for fans to wonder – considering he has played more than six games in just two of six NFL seasons – how much longer the team should or would keep him.
The reason they keep him, to the unemotional eye, is obvious:
Comments
Has anyone else noticed that Reggie Wayne is becoming a bit of a diva? I understand that he is a huge asset to our offense but does he have to act like he knows it? It's all getting a bit old to me.
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