Doyel: Finally, the Colts' play calling has grown up

The last guy, he was fancy. Pep Hamilton, I mean.

When he was offensive coordinator for the Colts, which he was from the start of the 2013 season until Tuesday of last week, Pep liked to spread players all over the field and then run the ball up the middle. He liked to load the line of scrimmage with run blockers, and then call for a pass. His plays looked clever. They just never were clever.

The new guy, he’s not like the old guy. He’s a former tight end, a tough guy named Rob Chudzinski — he answers to “Chud” for heaven’s sake — and he replaced Hamilton five days ago with a plan for this Colts offense:

Don’t worry about being smarter than the other team.

Just be tougher.

The Colts were the tougher team in Sunday's 27-24 victory, believe that, and they weren’t tougher than the Jaguars or Titans or Texans. This wasn’t the nursery known as the AFC South, and the Colts weren’t taking candy from any of those beleaguered babies.

This was an adult opponent, a bunch of grown men from Denver who had played seven games this season and won all seven, a Denver team with a defense that has been compared to the 1985 Chicago Bears. Chudzinski knew that, and he decided: So what.

This was a Denver defense with six Pro Bowl players. Chudzinski knew that, and he decided: Big deal.

The statistics tell the story, if not enough of it, though they do tell some cool stuff about the Colts offense on Sunday. Quarterback Andrew Luck posted his best passer rating of the season (98.4), a number more in line with his Pro Bowl season of 2014 (passer rating: 96.5) than with his bizarre regression this season (career-low 71.6 entering Sunday). Luck was 21-for-36 for 252 yards. He threw two touchdowns. He threw no interceptions, though Luck couldn’t wait to tell the media, several times and without prompting, about the potential interceptions dropped by the Denver defense. Whatever. They didn’t happen.

Running back Frank Gore ran a season-high 28 times. He gained just 83 yards — that’s 3.0 yards per carry — but that’s pretty cool. Because it says the Colts were determined to run the ball, even if the run wasn’t ripping off yardage in chunks. Running is a sign of toughness, and by God the Colts offense under Rob Chudzinski is going to be tough.

“Give credit to the (Denver) defense,” says Colts guard Hugh Thornton, “but we wanted to be the more physical team – and we were today.”

They were, because Chud wanted it that way and also because he stacked the deck to make it happen. After eight weeks of four- and five-wideout nonsense under Hamilton — more receivers equals fewer blockers; fewer blockers equals pain for Andrew Luck — Chud called for formations with two or three receivers, tops. Several times he called for one receiver. Just one. Imagine that. On almost every play Sunday, the Colts lined up two tight ends. On several they lined up three.

On several others they lined up two or three tight ends and a sixth offensive lineman, a package the Colts (and most NFL teams) call “jumbo.”

The package — at least, the way the Colts ran it on Sunday — is new.

“I’d never done it before Chud,” says Lance Louis, the sixth offensive lineman on Sunday for several plays. Two of them were third-and-1 play calls, with 323-pound Lance Louis on the field with five other Colts linemen, all of them weighing 310 pounds or more, and tight ends Dwayne Allen (265 pounds) and Jack Doyle (267).

That’s a lot of beef, and the kind of formation Pep Hamilton used this season in a 20-7 loss to the New York Jets.

Hilarity did not ensue.

Blocking beef as far as the eye can see, and on second-and-2 from the Jets’ 11, Pep calls a pass — but not just a normal pass. That wouldn’t be clever enough. No, Pep called for Andrew Luck to throw the ball to the sixth offensive lineman, backup (at the time) tackle Joe Reitz. Luck’s throw is incomplete. The Colts then pass it again on third-and-2. No good. They kick the field goal. No good.

Pep Hamilton started losing his job that day.

Chud? He started winning his job on Sunday, and he did it in jumbo fashion. In the second quarter he sent in Lance Louis and the jumbo package, and on third-and-1 Gore gained 5 yards. In the fourth quarter, with the Colts trying to use up the clock with a 27-24 lead, it was third-and-1 from the Broncos’ 40. There was 4:34 left in the game.

“Jumbo!” called tight ends coach Alfredo Roberts.

Onto the field ran Lance Louis. He gave the Colts almost 2,000 pounds of offensive linemen and joined, in Allen and Doyle, another 530 pounds of tight ends.

Gore ran behind 2¼ tons of blockers. Gore needed 1 yard.

Gore got 1 yard.

The Denver Broncos, they never did get the ball back.

This is what Colts tight end Coby Fleener told me when I asked about Chud’s formations:

“It puts the defense in a pickle,” he said.

This is what quarterback Andrew Luck told me when I asked if it was obvious that someone new was calling the plays this week:

“Yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”

Luck was grimacing when he answered, because he likes Pep Hamilton — he played for him at Stanford — and he knows what his answer would mean. The Colts offense has never played a defense as good as the one it played on Sunday, and the Colts offense has never looked better all season, and yes we all know that the players have to make the plays.

But someone has to call them.

And the Colts finally have someone good calling plays.

Suddenly, a lost season has been found. The possibilities. Imagine them.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel

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