WESTFIELD — Chalk one up for the defense.
On a bright, warm Saturday morning at Grand Park Sports Campus, Gus Bradley’s unit flexed its collective muscles while offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter and his staff were left with “teaching points.’’
“We’re going to have some corrections coming out of today,’’ Cooter admitted.
It was just the second training camp practice, but the offense seemed out of sorts in 11-on-11 work. There were several would-have-been sacks of quarterback Anthony Richardson —quarterbacks where red jerseys and are not to be jostled, let alone brought to the ground —along with a few penalties.
On one play, pre-snap confusion resulted in center Ryan Kelly flicking the football into the ground in disgust. On another, a snap out of the shotgun evaded the quarterback.
“Man, it’s day two of training camp,’’ Cooter said. “We’re probably not pushing the guys hard enough with some of the stuff we’re teaching and installing and trying to do if we don’t have a few mistakes.
“We’ve had a nice offseason. We’ve been working through some walkthrough-related stuff. Sometimes, you start going full speed and we’ve just gotta clean up the timing of things.
“There’s work to be done. We’ll make a nice little correction (video) in the afternoon for them. We’ll work through everything and hopefully be cleaner the next time around.’’
The evaluation of the roster began in earnest with Thursday’s one-hour practice, and ramped up a level on Saturday.
The Colts are back on the practice field Sunday afternoon at 4, and things intensify Tuesday with the first full-padded work.
“When we put the pads on,’’ Cooter said, “we’ll kind of really find out what we’ve got.’’
A contributing factor to the off day by the offense? Bradley’s authoritative defense.
“I thought when we looked at OTAs and minicamp . . . it felt like we were playing pretty fast,’’ he said. “Our hopes were to start training camp the same way.’’
On Thursday, Richardson and the offense were crisp during one phase of red-zone work. Richardson completed 4-of-5 passes with touchdown throws to wideout Michael Pittman Jr., tight end Kylen Granson and receiver Alec Pierce.
“We picked it up better today,’’ Bradley said.
Pass rushers Samson Ebukam, Kwity Paye and DeForest Buckner poured through the offensive line for pressures and/or sacks of Richardson. Jonathan Taylor squirted free for a couple of nice runs — again, running backs aren’t brought to the ground — but often was swallowed up by the middle of the d-line, which is patrolled by Buckner and Grover Stewart.
“That’s where it starts, right? With the defensive line, especially with who we have up front,’’ Bradley said. “We like our veteran presence, our leadership there.
“We’re counting on them to sort of set the tone for the whole defense.
“We have a saying: It all starts up front.’’
The Colts head into 2024 with their starting offense and defense intact.
Defensively, that means Ebukam and Paye at end and Buckner and Grover inside. It’s impossible not to notice linebackers Zaire Franklin and E.J. Speed.
On offense, starting right tackle Braden Smith missed his second day of work while still rehabbing following offseason knee surgery. Blake Freeland has filled Smith’s void.
In most instances, JuJu Brents has worked at right cornerback and Jaylon Jones at left cornerback.
Some good
There were a few positive moments by Cooter’s offense.
Richardson delivered a tight pass to wideout Josh Downs between a pair of defensive backs down the right sideline. Downs secured the pass while falling backward, bounced to his feet and celebrated by spinning the football on the ground.
Of course, Richardson might have been sacked before releasing the football.
Excluding possible sack situations, Richardson was 5-for-5 with completions to Downs (two), Pittman, Taylor and Mo Alie-Cox.
Earlier in practice, rookie quarterback Kedon Slovis hooked up with rookie wideout Anthony Gould for a 40-yard-ish completion.
No Joe
Veteran quarterback Joe Flacco was excused from practice to attend the funeral of Jacoby Jones. They were teammates for three years with the Baltimore Ravens.
Jones, 40, died in his sleep July 14 in New Orleans.
You can follow Mike Chappell on Twitter/X at @mchappell51.
