On July 27 – after the Colts’ first practice of training camp – quarterback Matt Ryan laid out his mindset for the next month and a half.
“You can’t wait,” Ryan said. “It’s every day, it’s every rep. We’ve got to maximize the time that we spend out here, before you know it, we’re going to look up and be in Houston and we’re going to be keeping score.”
Before you know it is here. The Colts re-convened at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Monday for a walkthrough with just six days remaining until the season opener Sept. 11 against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium.
But the Colts don’t need to ratchet up the urgency with which they’re preparing this week – because it’s been high ever since they hit the practice fields at Grand Park in Westfield in late July.
“I think it sets us up well, and there’s no question Matt has had a tremendous sense of urgency,” head coach Frank Reich said. “I think others players have we well. But you can just feel it. There’s — you can just feel it. So now that we’re here, he’s had that same sense of urgency every day, every week through training camp, now it’s here, it’s nothing new. That’s the way it should be.
“You need to have that sense of urgency every day. So I think him bringing that the whole offseason, the whole training camp, that in and of itself is what sets us up the best now that the season’s started.”
That sense of urgency is important for a team that plays five of its first seven games against AFC South opponents. In another realm of before-you-know-it: The Colts will be done playing the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans one week before Halloween.
The Colts, too, have a sense of urgency to open the season with a 1-0 record not because of the external pressure to snap an eight-game Week 1 losing streak, but because, well, starting 1-0 is a lot better than 0-1.
But the level of focus and the intensity the Colts practiced with during training camp has players confident they’re ready for the start of the…
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