Super Bowl Scouts' Notes: Where will Reggie Wayne line up? On the left. When Wayne arrived at Indianapolis, Marvin Harrison was the Colts' receiving star, and his personal quirk was insisting on always being to the right of Peyton Manning. So Wayne learned the left, and now being there is his personal quirk. On most NFL teams, the star receiver moves around to confound coverages -- sometimes right, sometimes left, sometimes in motion, sometimes in the slot. For the Colts, Wayne is always on the left, usually by himself, rarely in motion. He's like the gunfighter in a Western who always drinks in the same saloon at the same time of day -- you know where to find him. But can you cover him? He's pretty quick on the draw. Usually, predictability is belladonna to a football team. For Indianapolis -- always the same plays from the same sets -- it is proof of offensive precision. The Colts block better than other teams. They throw better. They catch better. They don't care if you know what they are going to do.
In most recent years, Indianapolis has played no-blitz, conservative defense. According to FootballOutsiders, in 2008, the Colts blitzed on just 10 percent of opponents' snaps, well below the league average of 20 percent. This year, under defensive coordinator Larry Coyer -- one of the countless defensive coordinators fired in the past decade by Denver, and doing just fine elsewhere -- the Colts are up to 24 percent blitzing. They're also showing press coverages, not just a Tampa 2 look. Like all skilled quarterbacks, Drew Brees wants to be blitzed: A blocked blitz is a great opportunity for the offense, because the outside receivers are in man coverage, what a skilled quarterback always wants to see. In the postseason so far, the Colts have blitzed novice quarterbacks Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez, to good effect. Brees is another matter -- my guess is Indianapolis will play a lot of four-man rush, Cover 2 against Brees and hold off on blitzing. But if whatever Indianapolis tries doesn't work, the Colts will adapt as quickly as a Borg warrior. When the Colts' offense or defense is doing something that doesn't work, the team adjusts tactics immediately. There are NFL clubs that have gone through entire seasons without adjusting tactics that weren't working; nobody adjusts in-game better than Indianapolis.
In a league that's gaga for the shotgun spread -- the Colts went shotgun spread in 2005 and haven't changed a thing since -- New Orleans remains impulsive. Sometimes Brees is under center. Sometimes he's in the shotgun. Sometimes the Saints have multiple wideouts. Sometimes they have two tight ends and a sixth offensive lineman. When the Patriots set the scoring record in 2007, they constantly changed formations and personnel groups. Sean Payton has taken that lesson to heart, and the result is the highest-scoring team of this season.
New Orleans loves to bootleg, and the bootleg never worked against Minnesota in the NFC title game. Whether it will work in the Super Bowl is an important barometer. While New Orleans' passing gets the attention, the run is integral to the Saints' scoring. New Orleans is not always pass wacky -- the Boy Scouts were sixth in the league in rushing. Sometimes, the Saints will shift to a power formation and simply run three or four times in a row, a variation the Colts never use. In the NFC championship, the Vikings got the New Orleans offense off-kilter by holding the Saints to 68 yards rushing. Don't be surprised if Indianapolis tries to take away the New Orleans rushing attack, frustrating the Saints in the same way Minnesota did. Three years ago, when the Colts won the Super Bowl, their defense, porous against the run in the regular season, played very well against the run in the postseason. This year? During the regular season, the Colts' defense was 24th against the run -- then in the postseason has held the run-oriented Ravens to 87 yards rushing and the run-oriented Jets to 86 yards rushing.
Not only does New Orleans blitz way too much, the Saints play eight- or even nine-man fronts when blitzing. My guess is Manning can't wait to see that look. In the postseason, the Saints' offense has done well on long-yardage downs, then sputtered on third-and-short; the Saints' defense has done well on first and second downs, then surrendered big plays on third-and-long. As long as New Orleans is still in the Super Bowl when the fourth quarter begins, the Saints have a chance, as this spontaneous, emotional squad comes alive in the fourth quarter. And Manning is only 9-8 in the postseason. It's not as if he cannot be beaten.
Officials are likely to call the game strictly. The Saints hammered Kurt Warner and Brett Favre, two graying guys, very hard, and it seems as if their defensive coordinator, the tastefully named Gregg Williams, told his players to hit late if they got the chance -- the Saints would accept a roughing flag or two in exchange for getting Warner and Favre to hear footsteps. The league's top official, Mike Pereira, has acknowledged the zebras missed two roughing calls by the Saints against Favre, one of which would have negated an interception, and also should have called roughing the passer against Indianapolis in the Colts-Jets divisional game. (The NFL has a lot to learn about openness, but it's a positive sign that once a week, Pereira appears on NFL Network and is honest about officiating mistakes; here is his segment explaining why the referee was looking the wrong way on the two Saints-Vikings non-calls.)
Saints standouts Brees, Darren Sharper, Jeremy Shockey and Jonathan Vilma were players other teams actively wanted to offload. New Orleans regulars Mike Bell, Jabari Greer, Jonathan Goodwin, Anthony Hargrove and Scott Shanle were let go by other teams. Saints' regulars Bell, Greer, Pierre Thomas, Lance Moore and Darnell Dinkins were undrafted.
As for the Colts, Division III's Pierre Garçon and fourth-round draft pick Austin Collie became stars pretty much as soon as they arrived in Indianapolis and started drinking the Indiana water. At the Super Bowl, the Colts will start eight undrafted players: Gary Brackett, Melvin Bullitt, Kyle DeVan, Jacob Lacey, Ryan Lilja, Daniel Muir, Gijon Robinson and Jeff Saturday. Indianapolis has the NFL's best offensive line, and three of the five starters (DeVan, Lilja and Saturday) were not drafted.
