Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, who coached the team for the majority of the season while Chuck Pagano was undergoing treatment for leukemia, has been hospitalized in Baltimore with a case of the flu, and won't call plays for the Colts today in their AFC Wild Card playoff game against the Balitmore Ravens. Clyde Christensen, the Colts quarterbacks coach, will call plays today for Indianapolis.
Arians has emerged as a hot head coaching candidate this week in the wake of the excellent job he did with the Colts while Pagano was sidelined. With a rookie quarterback in Andrew Luck, the Colts went 11-5 this year and scored 112 more points than they did a year ago, jumping from 28th in the league in points to 18th and going from 30th in total yards to tenth.
It'll be interesting to see how Luck and the Colts offense responds without their primary playcaller. Indianapolis turned a corner with Arians calling the plays this year for Luck, and Christensen's last go-around as offensive coordinator for the Colts in 2011 was a disaster with Curtis Painter at the helm of the team. But if the Colts defense struggles against an erratic Ravens offense today, it really won't matter how many points their offense is able to put on the board.
