By Tom James
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — The waiting game began for both the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints after they conducted walk-through practices Saturday. Next stop is Super Bowl XLIV, which has a scheduled 6:00 p.m. kickoff today at Sun Life Stadium.
The Saints closed out their last full workout on Friday with head coach Sean Payton putting his squad through a relatively short one hour and 50 minute session at the University of Miami.
Payton got good news, injury-wise, when tight end Jeremy Shockey (knee), safety Darren Sharper (knee), defensive end Will Smith (groin), defensive end Bobby McCray (ankle/back) and middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma (knee) all got work during the practice.
“I think we had a good week of work,” the Saints coach said.
Following Friday’s workout, the team’s players and coaches followed their regular-season tradition of eating charbroiled oysters that were shipped in from Drago’s Restaurant in New Orleans.
• Productive road for the Colts — Indianapolis head coach Jim Caldwell reflected recently on what it took for his team to make its run to Super Bowl XLIV.
“We started [off-season work on] March 16 [2009]. I think we all got together and had an opportunity to visit shortly with the team. We talked about what it was going to take to get here. One of the things that we had promised them all along was that we wanted to certainly develop a team that first of all, that had an atmosphere that was conducive to success. We do believe that we were able to get that accomplished. It made it a lot easier, obviously when you have a number of guys that understand what winning is all about. We have a real solid group of core veterans that made that journey a lot easier,” Caldwell said.
“It starts in the off season and the off season is really not an off season. You have to work and work extremely hard in order to get yourself in position to be able to compete in the fall. The thing I had promised them was that we would have a hungry, a fresh and a well prepared team. I think we did start that way in terms of the regular season and I do believe we started that way also in terms of the playoffs. Now my mission and goal is to have that same type of fire and enthusiasm, obviously for [tonight’s] game, but that won’t take a whole lot of prodding. I think the guys are ready to play and they’re certainly focused.”
• Do what you do — The Colts coach has tried to get his team to approach the Super Bowl with the same routine they have for a regular-season game.
“One of the things that we wanted to make a point of was we told them we want you to do exactly what you would do normally. As a matter of fact, if a guy ate pizza on Thursday night, then he should’ve eaten pizza. If a guy relaxes and takes a nap on Friday afternoon then he ought to take a nap. When we have a night game and we have Saturday preparation, whatever you do that afternoon, that’s what you should do and probably shouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary in that regard,” he explained.
“So we try to stay as close as we possibly can. It’s not a long wait. Certainly I think guys are going to be anxious because they haven’t had a chance to play in a couple of weeks. But nevertheless I think that they’ll be able to manage it and I think we all will. Coaches as well will be able to manage that time and use it productively.”
• Moving around — Indianapolis moved out of the Fort Lauderdale hotel that is had been staying in all week and went to an undisclosed location Saturday night.
The Colts did the same thing three years ago the night before Super Bowl XLI.
“We have our meetings, we’ll do our walk-through [Saturday] and after our walk-through we’ll come over and eat lunch, take a break until we go to the hideaway hotel. So it really isn’t anything any different than we would normally do on a game weekend,” Caldwell said.
