101, 8/25 … Wagoner … + 8/26 … Venturi

The Coach Rick Venturi joined Kevin Wheeler to talk about the Colts, their expectation level, preseason football and how important it is, Jeff Fisher’s style and how he has to be able to adapt, Nick Foles, and Todd Gurley.

VENTURI: You want your regulars to play well. There has to be a sense of urgency. 3rd game will be interesting.

Everyone trying to figure out the balance between getting ready and staying healthy. The new CBA changed training camp and caused problems with that (ie. by limiting practices). People have really struggled with it (ie throughout the league). People have tended to go softer rather than harder. RV doesn’t really believe in that. He thinks it hurts ya. You have to find a level of combat readiness. If you can’t practice hard, then you have only 2 options. You have to practice agaist some other teams, or you have to extend your regulars in the pre-season games. RV would prefer to extend his regulars in pre-season games. Gametime in pre-season is worth 5 practices.

Sees it all over the league. I don’t agree with it. He covers the Colts, and he thought they weren’t as physical as he would like in their 2nd preseason game. The first was against PHil and you have to gameplan Phil in the preseason and it’s obvious they did.

RV would expect the Rams to have a sense of urgency. He has watched their games and he would expect them to be ready to play. Fisher has a talent in getting a good performance out of a team that has just looked bad the previous game. He expects that this will be one with a sense of urgency.

Goes on to praise the Colts a lot. With some criticism mixed in. In the 1st 2 weeks of pre-season the problems were on the offensive line. Their OL struggled against Chicago and the Bears were actually fairly vanilla. He then talks about the Colts defense as mixed. Good against mediocre teams, not good offenses. Langford was expendable with the Rams because of their level of talent but he’s the Colts best DL. More about the Colts and where they stand—the bar is very high.

Rams slow starts? He didn’t answer directly about the Rams ( he hasn’t studied the Rams for a while like he has the Colts.) So his comment about the league in general is that you have to crank it up in the pre-season. What’s happened throughout the league is that coaches are not adapting to the new CBA. You can’t run a training camp like you used to and you can’t run pre-season like you used to. Whereas someone like Chip Kelly looks at it fresh, and is used to preparing young first-year players.

It’s still a matter of talent. He hasn’t followed the Rams but what he doesn’t like is the inability of the Rams to draft high impact players. He thinks the older guys are the rock solid part of the team–he mistakenly names the 2 kickers, but also Saffold, Long, and Quinn.

You have to hope that offensive line somehow holds up. They have to play great defense and great special teams but they have to stay ahead of the count on first down (he means they have to get yards on first down and not end up in bad 3rd down situations). The OL is really problematic when it comes to throwing the football. Foles is a complementary guy to a running game because he can throw play action to the deep seam. He can make some big plays … they will also have to throw quick rhythm. If you run a conventional NFL passing game he is really going to have to sharpen up over what he’s been before. (Would need to get quicker.)

Gurley is a highlight reel. Elite, premier, top 5 RB. Guy is tremendous. Depends on when he’s ready. This team will not survive if they cannot run the football.