THE DAILY DIGEST | Indy Football Report Editor John Oehser takes a look at what they're saying about -- and what's going on around -- the defending AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts . .
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Colts made their point, and it's hard to imagine the NFL won't hear it. And get something done.
If there was anything to be taken from Colts President Bill Polian's comments on the issue on Saturday, that likely was it – that, yes, moving the umpire from the defensive side of the ball to behind the quarterback has made things a bit tricky in certain instances.
But no, it won't be a problem long-term.
Polian, in his 13th season as the Colts' president, told reporters Saturday that despite some mechanical issues that were illustrated fairly vividly in the Colts' preseason loss to the Green Bay Packers, he doesn't believe the new umpire placement will hurt the Colts' ability to run their up-tempo offense.
“We’ve never had that issue before and if we do the mechanics right, I don’t think it ought to be an issue,” Polian, a member of the NFL's Competition Committee, said.
“It was certainly not the intent. If I thought that would be a bi-product of it, obviously I would not have voted for it. There are mechanical issues that we have identified, but I think most teams see that. It’s not us alone.”
The NFL this off-season implemented a change in mechanics mandating that the umpire line up behind the quarterback rather than in the area of the linebackers. The umpires move back to their old position behind the defense in the final two minutes of each half.
The rule was put in place for safety reasons to protect the umpire, but because it is the umpire who often places the ball for the center-to-quarterback snap, Polian said it was evident when the change was implemented that it could create timing issues.
The league early in the off-season told teams quarterbacks were to wait to snap the ball until the umpire has lined up behind the deepest offensive player. Given the Colts often snap the ball seconds after placement, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning expressed concern about the effect it would have on the Colts' no-huddle offense.
In their loss to Green Bay Thursday, the Colts twice were penalized for snapping before the umpire had cleared the running back.
“It's a work in progress,” Polian said Saturday afternoon.
Polian also said it was far from a coincidence that the issue's profile rose Thursday.
“We recognized as a committee that the third preseason game was going to be a good test, because in virtually all cases your top-line players were playing and playing a long time,” Polian said. “In our case, we told the league office and the officiating department that we would do all we could to push the tempo and try to create situations where we could find out what kind of picture we were going to see. That's what occurred. We'll go back and talk about the postmortem.
“I'm sure there are some tweaks that they will make and we'll move forward.”
Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell said the preseason is for such an evaluation process, and expressed confidence Friday that Polian – as a “strong and direct voice” within the league would represent the Colts' interests adequately.
“Let me put it this way, I do think it’s being evaluated,” Caldwell said. “It didn’t work well for us (Thursday) on a couple of occasions, and so we hope in the evaluation process they’ll find some middle ground and give us an opportunity to use our offense like we’ve done for a number of years. . . .
“I think that is what they wanted to use the preseason for, to test it and see how to make certain that we get it implemented properly. It’s all part of the evaluation process.”
Polian said the reality is that it may take more time to realize fully the effects of the change, and said that's true of any rule or change. Most significant is Polian wasn't overly concerned with the rule change, or about the potential for the Colts to be hurt by the change.
The guess here is Polian's right, that the mechanics of the rule will be seriously evaluated before the start of the regular season and that enough tweaks will be made for the Colts to effectively run their offense. Anything else would be wrong.
A rule change for safety is fine, but a rule change that doesn't allow a team to snap the ball after it's placed makes no sense and alters the game.
It's hard to imagine the league office allowing that to be the case for long.
Comments