INDIANAPOLIS –When the Colts players walk out of the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Thursday afternoon, they won't go empty handed.
Those outside the NFL might view more than a month "off of work" as a time for vacation.
It is most certainly not.
In case players need any reminder as to what lies ahead for them, they just need to look at the paper the coaching staff has given them.
"They've got a list of things that they all got to work on," defensive coordinator Ted Monachino explained earlier this week.
"They'll be held accountable to those things by their teammates and that's the most important thing that we can do over the next 47 days (until Training Camp)."
For Monachino's defenders they will leave Indianapolis after an eight-week introduction to what style he wants to see in 2016.
Attacking and simplified have been two frequent terms Monachino has used to describe his version of the multiple 3-4 defense.
Earlier this week, Monachino expanded on the past two months of work with the players in the building.
"What I came in with the idea of is I wanted to make sure that we were clean and that we were black and white, that we eliminated as much gray from the system as we could," the new defensive coordinator said.
"We were able to accomplish that to a great extent."
Monachino's arrival in Indianapolis marks his first time calling the defensive shots, at any level. He's previously coached in the defensive front seven for 11 seasons in the NFL.
During that time, Monachino has seen the evolution of opposing offenses forcing defenses to truly defend sideline-to-sideline.
Ultimately, how Monachino's defense can handle such offensive spread looks will largely define how far the Colts go in 2016.
"We've got a system that carries a lot of variety so we think that we can match up a lot of things that we like to do with things that people are going to dictate to us, that they like to do," Monachino says.
"We're going to have to find new and better ways to defend from sideline to sideline. That's 53 1/3 yards that we have to take care of every down. We've got to be the masters of situational football as much as we can. Teams that run those systems they have things that they like to do in situations. If we can stay ahead of that by one down, then it gives us a much better chance to call the game in that way."
2016 Vet Mini-Camp - Practice #1
