Colts Put on Pads for First Time at Camp

After three days of individual and team drills while wearing just helmets, the Indianapolis Colts got serious in shoulder pads for Monday morning’s training-camp practice at the team complex.

INDIANAPOLIS — After concluding his first 2020 training-camp practice in shoulder pads on Monday morning, Indianapolis Colts Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly was asked how he sized up the benefit of the workout.

“Aaah, well, I’m covered in sweat right now and I’m sitting on a towel,” Kelly said on a Zoom video conference call. “So I guess I sweated enough. So I’ve got that going for me.

“You look back at the practice and as NFL players, you don’t get into this room without being a competitive person in your nature, so I think as we watch the film, I know I’m going to see things that I don’t like or that I know I can do better compared to last season, or how I was moving on this or how I did this or where my eyes went. So you have to have a starting point somewhere. And today was a starting point for us.”

This was the first of 11 padded Colts practices before Week 1, when the Colts are scheduled to open the regular season at AFC South Division rival Jacksonville on Sept. 13.

That doesn’t leave much time to get ready and decide upon a 53-man roster. But it’s the same for everybody, due to the Coronavirus pandemic causing the offseason shutdown of team facilities, the cancellation of mini-camp as well as offseason training activities at the complex, then no preseason games.

Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, when he was with the Colts, liked to speak of the quality of workouts as opposed to the quantity, hence, it’s not how many hours you work but how you work.

Third-year Colts head coach Frank Reich agrees.

“There’s no perfect formula,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of great people, our trainers, our strength people, our players, our coaches. We’re always assessing things. We have a schedule that’s based on a lot of history. We’ve all been around this game a long time. We know how long things take typically.

“So you just put all our heads together, you put your foot on the gas as long as you can, you back off at certain times, you learn how to make progress in walk-thrus and meetings and continue to get better there.

“We also have a sense of urgency, knowing that we have really 11 padded practices before that first week. So really the goal and the mindset is to make the most out of those 11 practices in pads starting with today, and I thought we did that. I thought today was a really good day. It was just great to get back out there, physical, fast, guys were smart. We got a lot done.”

Kelly, who is working with a new quarterback in 17th-year pro Philip Rivers, focuses on the mistakes he notices when watching film of the practice. Then he applies those lessons learned to the next day.

“From day one to day two to continuing moving forward, we’re going to have to keep making strides,” Kelly said. “That’s one thing that we’re all going to have to do, is really improve from day-to-day and just not make the same mistakes we made today.”

(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)