MIAMI – You won't hear too, too much complaining from the Indianapolis Colts about the NFL's All-Decade team.
And it's not just because the Colts aren't a big individual honor team, or that with Super Bowl XLIV six days away they have more important concerns. It's because generally speaking, the Colts were represented well on the team that was announced Sunday.
QB Peyton Manning. RB Edgerrin James. WR Marvin Harrison.
DE Dwight Freeney. K Adam Vinatieri.
Head Coach Tony Dungy.
All were named to the 53-player team announced Sunday, and all were deserving:
Manning was an obvious choice, being he is perhaps the decade's best player regardless of position, and while Vinatieri made it more for his time in New England than with Indianapolis, he was perhaps as much of an automatic for the team as he has been in the waning second of Super Bowls.
Freeney making it further enhances a reputation that has rightly grown the last two years – that of not only one of the best players at his position of the last decade, but as the best Colts defensive player of the Indianapolis era. Freeney's lone gripe these days – and one you'd never hear him voice – is that playing in Indianapolis with a team that includes Manning has perhaps prevented him from being recognized for what he should be – as a key to one of the NFL's elite franchises, but one of the league's elite players regardless of position.
Nice, too, that James and Harrison made it. Although their selections seem logical and irrefutable in retrospect, their inclusion will enhance their cases come Hall of Fame voting time for each. For James, inclusion on the list could sway votes, and because he'll likely be a borderline HOF candidate, they could be valuable votes when it comes to deciding whether he gets in.
The same goes for Harrison, because while it seems reasonable to assume he will make the Hall of Fame, voting for the receiver position can be a strange process, and there are those who think his induction may not be as sure a thing in five years as it seems now.
As for Dungy, a guy who coaches teams to the postseason in his final 10 seasons as a head coach, who wins a Super Bowl and closes his career with six consecutive 12-victory seasons – well, a guy like that has to an All-Decade coach, doesn't he?
About the only players with significant gripes might be WR Reggie Wayne and C Jeff Saturday.
Saturday this season made his fourth Pro Bowl in five seasons, and there were plenty of people around the Colts who believed he was the best center in the NFL several years before that. The thought here is that Saturday may be judged more favorably by history as time goes on than Kevin Mawae and Olin Kruetz, the two players who made the team at center.
The same is true of Wayne, who has all the signs of a player who when people look at the All-Decade team in a few years will wonder at his absence. He has been one of the NFL's elite receivers over the last half decade, and seems poised to be so for the next two or three years, at least. His career perhaps overlaps the decades a bit too much to make either the 2000s team or the 2010s team, but considering his consistency and his presence on some of the league's elite teams, not making an All-Decade team may not necessarily preclude him from being a Hall of Fame candidate.
He's not in yet, certainly, but he's moving into conversation.
Certainly, there are other reasons the Colts have been elite for a decade, DE Robert Mathis and TE Dallas Clark among them, but overall – a few exceptions aside – you won't hear too, too much complaining from the Colts about the All-Decade team.
And not just because they have bigger concerns this week.
COLTS DE DWIGHT FREENEY BIGGEST STORY ENTERING SUPER BOWL WEEK. HERE.
COLTS READY AS BYE WEEK ENDS. HERE.
CALDWELL UNWORRIED ABOUT GREGG WILLIAMS COMMENTS. HERE.
COLTS STILL HAVE THEIR CHANCE AT PERFECTION. HERE
CALDWELL KEEPING PLAYERS HUNGRY. HERE.
SUPER BOWL XLIV: PREPARATION THIS WEEK KEY NEXT WEEK. HERE.
DE DWIGHT FREENEY, CB JERRAUD POWERS MISS PRACTICE. HERE.
SUPER BOWL XLIV: EARLY THOUGHTS ON THE SAINTS. HERE
SUPER BOWL XLIV: PREPARATIONS BEGIN. HERE.
COFFEE WITH THE COLTS: A NEXT-DAY LOOK AT THE AFC TITLE GAME. HERE.
COLTS 30, JETS 17. HERE
Reviewing Colts President Bill Polian’s radio show . . .
* Part One: DE Dwight Freeney likely to play in Super Bowl. Here.
* Part Two: “There should not have been a question” about run defense. Here.
* Part Three: “We got to our playoff games healthy and . . . intact.” Here.
* Part Four: WR Pierre Garcon and WR Austin Collie no surprise. Here.
Quoting the Indianapolis Colts . . .
* QB Peyton Manning and Head Coach Jim Caldwell. Here.
* C Jeff Saturday, RB Joseph Addai and WR Reggie Wayne. Here.
* S Antoine Bethea, WR Austin Collie and TE Dallas Clark. Here.
* WR Pierre Garcon, MLB Gary Brackett and CB Kelvin Hayden. Here.
*** READ JOHN OEHSER'S INDIANA PACERS COVERAGE. HERE.
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