What are the Indianapolis Colts Working With?

(Photo by: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

I'll be honest here, I've been infected.  With Colts fever.  After the heart wrenching playoffs loss to the Chargers, I swore off football.  Sure, I gathered with a group of friends to watch the Super Bowl, but the Queso Dip and ice cold High Life's held my attention much more than the actual game did.

And that's how I wanted it. 

I was content, no ecstatic, to sit in a hot tub, make fun of commercials and casually watch a football game without having to scream and pray my way through it.  This past season did that to the die-hard Colts fans. 

Despite the fact that the team won nine consecutive games on their way to a 12-4 record, and came within a freakish punting job away from playing Pittsburgh in the second round, the 2008 season was a tough one to sit through. 

There was the secretive Peyton Manning knee surgery, the Jeff Saturday and Marlin Jackson injuries, the poor start, the decline of Marvelous Marvin, the gaping hole in the middle of the defense...I could go on, but the point is, it hardly made for care-free, relaxing viewing. 

So I swore off football, started dabbling heavy into fantasy baseball, and then the draft came.  Like any good fan, my ears immediately perked up, but I didn't go crazy on the mock draft scene, or start reading local papers to find out about potential picks like I had in the past. 

I simply waited, and waited, and waited...and watched as Donald Brown became the newest Colts running back. 

Following draft day, I started digesting the selections and reading quotes from Bill Polian, which led to a fling with the always interesting rookie free-agent signings list, and an in-depth study of the upcoming schedule. 

I tried to remain passive in my growing fandom, but when the Howard Mudd and Tom Moore fiasco surfaced, I gave up.  I was all in. 

The first thing I looked at, and the most important question any fan should ask themselves before the start the season is; what are we working with here?  What do we know, and more notably, what don't we know. 

Being a glass half-empty kind of guy (or so says the old-lady), let's take a look at the unknowns surrounding the 2009 incarnation of the Indianapolis Colts.

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