'Friday night feel': Colts coach Shane Steichen's scrimmage under the lights was a hit

Indianapolis Star

4 days ago

WESTFIELD, Ind. — Colts head coach Shane Steichen came up with the idea this summer.
A scrimmage under the night sky at Grand Park, a massive sports complex that is far enough outside of Westfield that the field can feel like high school stadium, the kind that rises shining out of the darkness in the middle of nowhere on Friday nights across the country.
The Grand Park practice fields do not have lights, but the Colts brought in temporary lighting, started Thursday's practice late enough to feel nighttime creeping across the field and ended it in the darkness, fireworks shooting into the sky as a Colts-themed light show played above the trees.
'I kind of wanted to bring back that Friday night feel, when you're in high school, playing under the lights,' Steichen said. 'That was always a special time for myself and a lot of these guys.'
The Colts went out under those lights and just played.
Nearly every NFL practice is a tightly scheduled affair these days, broken up meticulously into a combination of individual work, isolated battles and controlled 11-on-11 work. A handful of other NFL teams hold practices in their stadiums or under the lights for fans, but even those sessions are often meticulously broken down.
But Steichen has been searching for ways to make practice more intense this summer, forcing his team to react to sudden change and unexpected shifts in the schedule.
For Thursday night's practice, Steichen decided to hold a real scrimmage.
The Colts went through their pregame warmups, then lined up and played exclusively 11-on-11 for two hours, stopping only for a couple of special-teams periods.
'You warm up, and then you go friggin' play,' Steichen said.
The weather cooperated.
After a week of practices in sweltering 90-degree temperatures, the storms that came through Thursday morning cooled everything down into the 60's.
'Brought me back to my high school days,' nose tackle Grover Stewart said. 'It felt great out there.'
The Colts had been looking forward to the night for a long time.
'I tried to go home and take a nap before, but it didn't really work,' linebacker Joe Bachie said. 'I was all giddy.'
The practice signaled a new phase of training camp.
Indianapolis spent the first week easing into the season.
But the Colts head to Baltimore for a joint practice next week, and a joint practice with the Packers the week after that, sending Indianapolis tumbling towards the season opener.
'When the pads come on, the urgency picks up a little bit,' Steichen said. 'We've got a game a week from today. The urgency has to be there every single day moving forward.'
Playing under the lights — and playing as close as they can get to real football in camp — had to help.