Offense: Indianapolis Colts

Quick response to a Q about the Colts's offense. I'll go ahead and say that I am not an expert on what they do, but have seen a fair amount and gotten some good feedback from others.

Anyway, the Colts go to the line w/ three plays: run left, run right, and a pass. Peyton Manning selects among them.

They run lots of the stretch play with pullers (similar to the Minnesota Gophers, I believe) and inside zone and a called cutback with zone action. They obviously like to runs lots of play action off the stretch and it they like to throw the post/dig combo and some kind of corners on the outside with a seam/post by the slot/TE.

The Colts throw lots of hitches and lots of smashes. I believe what they do, I know other NFL teams do it, is run this as a conversion route. The outside guy always runs a hitch; the slot runs either a corner at 10-12 or a seam. Depending on his key, he looks for either MOFO/MOFC or reads the deep outside 1/3, i.e. if someone is deep outside he runs a seam, if not he will run a corner. QB reads the deep outside 1/3, and takes either a 3-step drop (hitch), or a 5-step drop (corner/smash).

Their formations are super simple, almost always a split outside WR to either side and one tight end and one RB, and they mix in either a slot or a 2nd tight end a lot.