Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell making it clear he's no Tony Dungy clone

Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell (AP Photo)

Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell stood at a podium in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis late Friday, eyes straight ahead, mouth very much unsmiling.

When he spoke in the aftermath of a 13-3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the preseason opener, he did so sternly:

We obviously certainly didn’t perform very well. We didn’t control the line of scrimmage, which is something you have to do, particularly playing against a team that runs the ball as well as they do and as consistently as they do. We had a lot of miscues, missed tackles, penalties – all of the things that are going to slow you down a little from being a team that puts points on the board.

Caldwell was asked about the game "just" being a preseason game.

He replied:

I’ll stop worrying about winning when they stop keeping score of these games. Obviously, winning’s important to us. That’s our objective every time we take the field and we didn’t perform well enough to win tonight.

Here's what I kept thinking when Caldwell was speaking:

All of those people who all offseason kept wanting to know the difference between Caldwell and his predecessor, Tony Dungy?

There it was. Right there.

Dungy, one of the most successful NFL coaches of the last 10 seasons, achieved that success with one of the most mild-mannered approaches imaginable for a head coach. He rarely, if ever, called players out publicly, and rarely spoke bluntly of poor performances. Even with the worst Colts performances of his seven seasons, Dungy usually softened his post-game remarks so much that he had a way of making ugly losses somehow seem almost OK.

Caldwell has made it apparent quickly that's not his approach. Not that he kicked and screamed after the preseason loss, but it was easy to see there was going to be no post-game spinning from Caldwell. When his team doesn't play well he's not going to like it and further, you're going to know.

Caldwell was asked about the Colts' tackling, and with the Vikings rushing for 198 yards on 41 carries, the need to improve it:

That’s the great thing about games – you have an opportunity to see a little different vantage point of where your weaknesses are. We’re going to work on it. There’s no question about that. It’s not like we haven’t been working on it. We’ll hone in on that and we’re going to get better in that area.

More than anything Friday, it was Caldwell's tone and manner that stood out. He didn't rip anyone, but throughout his press conference -- and later, on interviews with the team's radio broadcast -- he again and again expressed displeasure at the performance and the need to improve. Not that Dungy never talked about improving, but Caldwell says it with more of an edge, and certainly shows his emotions a bit more than Dungy. He's a little more old-school, a little more discipline-oriented, and certainly a little more willing to show it publicly.

In a very real sense, this was the second glimpse in less than a week into the man now coaching the Colts. This past Monday, Caldwell moved Charlie Johnson into the starting lineup at left tackle and moved Tony Ugoh out. He spoke candidly and publicly of Ugoh needing to improve and that Ugoh hadn't shown quite enough in the offseason to merit being the starter, a position he'd held much of his first two NFL seasons. On a lot of teams, such candor would have been the norm, but Dungy rarely acknowledged position changes, certainly not in preseason. If a player moved to second team, Dungy would normally talk about the second-team player needing a chance to work and that the team was examining the situation. Then, the second-teamer often would remain the starter, but with little comment from Dungy. Caldwell's approach is a subtle difference, but as was the case with his postgame demeanor, the difference was real.

And that's OK. As I've said several times, one of Caldwell's strengths is he's extremely intelligent and prepares extremely well for any situation. As such, he's smart enough to know he can't be Dungy, who coached with a calmness rarely seen in the NFL. Caldwell said at his introductory press conference in January that he likely wouldn't be as calm as his predecessor and that people might actually see emotion from the Colts' head coach.

We started to that late Friday night.

And we started to see the difference in Caldwell and Dungy, too.

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