The Indianapolis Colts’ coordinators met reporters on Tuesday for the first time since the club relieved general manager Chris Ballard of his duties, and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo opened with praise for the man who was let go. “Well, I mean, first and foremost, I love Chris. I had a great working relationship,” Anarumo said. “I think he’s an ultimate pro in this profession, a professional in every sense of the word. So nothing but respect for him.”
Asked how owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon’s talk of urgency lands after a move like that, he said the pressure is always there. “We all know what we sign up for when we take these jobs. There’s always a sense of urgency, whether somebody’s relieved of their duties or not,” he said. “You’re on high alert every day in this league, no matter what your status is, whether you’re 9-and-0 or 0-and-9. You got to know coming to work that there’s 32 of these jobs and that’s it. So nothing changes for me. We don’t flinch. We move forward, we keep getting better, and that’s what our job description is and will continue to be.”
Asked whether he feels he is coaching for his job, Anarumo answered with a question: “Is that every week, to be fair? Yeah, welcome to the NFL.”
The Colts fired Ballard on Monday, a day after a 26-20 home loss to a Tennessee Titans team that had not won a game. Indianapolis led 13-0 at halftime. The club is 2-4, and assistant general manager Ed Dodds is running the personnel department for the rest of the season. Head coach Shane Steichen stays in his job.
“Status quo”
Asked whether the change has altered his daily work, Anarumo said it has not. “Yeah, status quo,” he said. “From Shane, you know, through Chris, and now at Dodds, there is a system in place. So, you know, we’ve gone about our daily routine as scheduled. Nothing’s really changed.”
Tuesday was the players’ day off, and Anarumo said the building looked much the same as usual, with many players in for weights and treatment. “I think everybody has their own way of processing. Chris brought all these guys in here,” he said. “But again, we’re in the NFL. This is the business of change. We’ve got professionals both on the coaching staff, in the personnel department and as players, so they know what their jobs are.” He added that the staff is not insensitive to what happened, “but at the same time, we’ve got jobs to do and we’ve got to move forward and focus on beating the Vikings this weekend.”
Asked whether Steichen, who was visibly angry after Sunday’s game, carried that into the week, Anarumo said: “Yeah, every time we lose, we’re all pissed.”
The edge rush has to finish
Tennessee managed only 186 yards on Sunday, and Anarumo pointed to that number when he was asked about the lack of production from his edge rushers. “I’m proud of what the guys did last week,” he said. “So we’re getting better. And I think that the production will come from those guys. Nobody works harder than Latu and that whole group.” He said the staff will keep giving them “more at-bats” and will try to scheme ways to get them one-on-one matchups.
On Laiatu Latu, in his third season, he said effort is not the issue. “I just think he’s there. He’s around the quarterback. We just got to finish better,” Anarumo said. “And that would go not only for Latu, but JT and some of the young guys that we have as well.”
He also explained why the Colts only sometimes move DeForest Buckner outside. Doing it gives the defense a stronger edge against bigger personnel groupings and puts one of its best players in a one-on-one pass-rush matchup, he said. But Buckner is “one of the premier three techniques in our league, so you want to be careful on how much you move him to a position that is something that he does part-time, not full-time.” Asked why a few starters played almost every snap on Sunday, he said the defense was only on the field for 47 plays, and that a normal game of about 65 plays “will look different.”
Next up is Minnesota quarterback Kyler Murray. “He’s one of the better athletes in our league,” Anarumo said. “Like everybody says, right, keep him in the pocket, make him throw from the pocket, but he’s going to get out, because that’s what he does.” He said spies are one of the options.
Cooter: “I got to do a better job”
Offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter was asked what has to change for Daniel Jones, who went 22 of 42 for 269 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions on Sunday and was sacked six times. Cooter talked about the whole offense. “I think just overall offensively, finding the consistency play in, play out, as an offensive staff putting the plan together,” he said, adding that he wants to improve “the way I coach, we coach, giving our guys the best chance to go succeed and have a little advantage on game day.”
On the pressure Tennessee got with its blitzes, he said: “Sometimes the most dangerous team is the team that doesn’t blitz a lot, because when they do, it has a surprising element to it.” Then he took the blame. “I got to do a better job getting our guys prepared to go execute that plan and putting us in the best spot to go have success with every drop back,” he said. “So start with me. I got to do a better job for these guys so we can go have a little more success on Sundays.”
Asked about Jones forcing throws, Cooter said he would speak broadly rather than about any single play. “Aggression can pay off, but aggression has risks. Every quarterback has to balance that,” he said. “We all work through that in different aspects of our life, don’t we?”
Minnesota’s defense under coordinator Brian Flores is a different kind of blitz problem. “Aggression, and then the threat of aggression, right? They’re going to blitz a ton. They’re going to show the intent to blitz a lot of other times as well, and maybe drop a few guys out, or a bunch of guys out, or maybe just one guy out,” Cooter said. “I think they’re top five in just about everything.”
Cooter said Steichen has kept the team on task this week. “It’s very easy in this league for anybody involved with an organization to get distracted,” he said. “So Shane’s done a really nice job, when things do come up that can be distracting, of keeping everybody focused.”
The Colts visit the 5-0 Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday, October 25, at 1:00 p.m. ET (8:00 p.m. in Cairo).
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