Player development is the key the Colts' success

There are plenty of stories going into the Super Bowl that will be properly hyped up over the next two weeks.

Peyton Manning's legacy as a quarterback, the Saints helping the city of New Orleans heal with their success, and that the two best teams in the league are going to face off will likely be the stories everyone will be talking about.

The emergence of Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie will also receive its fair share of publicity as well, but their play is only a microcosm of how the Colts have made their franchise consistently great over the last number of years. Garcon and Collie were drafted in the 6th and 4th round respectively and share late round status with many of their fellow teammates. Other than being fortunate enough to draft Peyton Manning, the key to the Colts success has been in the development of their players within their organization.


A quick look at the roster shows that the only player who was acquired via free agency that was on another team was Adam Vinatieri. Everyone else was either drafted by the Colts or signed by them as an unwanted or undrafted free agent.

From Robert Mathis (5th round in 03) to Jeff Saturday (cut by the Ravens then signed as a free agent in 99) to Antoine Bethea (6th round in 06), the Colts have been built around players that were afterthoughts to many teams that developed into high level starters in the NFL.

Not only has Colts GM Bill Polian and his scouts identified talented players, the coaching staff has developed those players into the kind of guys who fit the offensive and defensive systems being run in Indianapolis. The Colts defensive success at the safety position with Bethea and Melvin Bullitt (undrafted free agent 07) in the absence of former NFL Defensive Player of the Year Bob Sanders is the perfect example of this.

Bethea and Bullitt have made Colts' fans almost forget about Sanders this season. In comparison the Steelers' defense pretty much fell apart without their All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu.

So what's the secret to developing players year after year like the Colts do? Every other franchise in the league is looking for that answer.