Colts hope to avoid injury bug for remainder of season

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WLFI) - It has become habit now for Bruce Arians to enter the media room on Wednesday afternoon and begin with an injury update.

The list has been longer than he would like the past few weeks but today ‘Dr. Arians’ had some good news to share.

“We are ready to roll. Darius Butler and Fili Moala will not practice today. All the rest of the hands are on deck and ready to go,” Arians said. “We’ll see what we get out of each guy and progress throughout the week. But those are the only two guys that will not practice today.”

Running back Donald Brown, defensive end Cory Redding and outside linebacker Robert Mathis were three players who did not play the last two weeks but were back on the practice field Wednesday afternoon.

Redding announced that he was playing as soon he reached his locker on Wednesday and wanted to thank his teammates for getting back to .500 without his services this past weekend.

“When guys go down, other guys have to step up,” Redding said. “My teammates responded well and they went out and played a hard-fought game, made some plays and came out ultimately with a victory.”

After weeks of plugging in missing parts throughout the Colts defense, Redding said his unit is itching to finally have the bodies it had for almost all of the preseason.

“Even though we’ve shown flashes of great things on this defense, we have yet to put a complete game together,” Redding said. “That’s something that we strive for and we continue to prepare for. When we do, watch out because we have a lot of guys that can fly around and this system can really make you be successful if you stay true to the system.”

The potential of adding some healthy bodies to the defensive side of the ball kept things relatively quiet for the offense on Wednesday.

Arians and quarterback Andrew Luck talked about the need to eliminate the turnovers that have plagued the offense in the Colts first two road games this season.

What will it take to get that first road win on Sunday?

“Good question. I wish I had all the answers,” Luck said. “We’ve got to find a way to substitute the energy we get from our home crowd, figure out how to get that same energy from an away crowd, or how to create that.”

In hitting the road, Arians’ message to the Colts this week is to ‘do a little more’ in order to win away from home.

“I think (Arians) means, just okay is not good enough,” outside linebacker Dwight Freeney said. “Sometimes someone has to step up and make a big play, interception, caused fumble, sack. I think what he means is when you’re at home, you have home field advantage, some things bounce your way. But when you are away, it’s kind of you like you need a little extra somewhere, don’t know where, somewhere.”

The players have taken that message in this week and will continue to hear it in trying to capture an elusive road victory.

“Doing your job doesn’t win on the road,” Arians said. ”If both teams do their job, the home team wins. That’s just the nature of the beast. We’ve got to do more than our job. We’ve got to create some turnovers, we’ve got to protect the football.”