By PHIL RICHARDS
The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS - Tony Dungy has achieved considerable respect for the effectiveness with which he has inculcated the fundamentals of the Cover-2 defense. He gives far more credit to the simplicity of his lesson plan than to his sophistication as a teacher.

"If you can count to three, you can play in this defense," said Dungy. "If you can count to three fast, you can play it well."

The Indianapolis Colts can count.

They can count down. Ranked 29th in the NFL in total defense last year, they moved all the way to eighth this season, Dungy's first as their head coach.

A little history lends perspective. In their previous 18 seasons in Indianapolis, the Colts achieved top-10 defensive rankings only three times: sixth in 1987, seventh in 1995 and 10th in 1997.

The defense the Colts will take to Giants Stadium on Saturday to face the New York Jets in an AFC wild-card playoff game has been remade. The weekly yield has dropped by 50 yards and 11 points.

The record has gone from 6-10 to 10-6.

Defense has been the difference.

"Our personnel aren't that much different, but the way the personnel are playing is," said middle linebacker Rob Morris. "It's because we have more confidence and we're more familiar with our scheme."

Morris is playing the football of his life.

So are end/tackle Brad Scioli and outside linebacker Mike Peterson. And a wave of newcomers that includes veteran cornerback Walt Harris and strong safety David Gibson and rookie end Dwight Freeney and tackle Larry Triplett have plugged right in and begun making plays.

"That's one thing about this defense," said coordinator Ron Meeks. "It's very friendly to young players."

That's a byproduct of its simplicity: 1, 2, 3.

Reduced to essentials, the Cover-2 is the safeties playing back, in a "two-deep zone," each responsible for half the field.

The linebackers and cornerbacks also play zone coverage, or "five under." The four linemen rush the passer.

The objective is to deny the big play, to keep the offense in front of the defense.

Everything is predicated upon rules. Everyone is responsible for a single gap. Everyone reads a single player: If he does this, then you do that. Free safety Idrees Bashir estimated that the Colts' pass coverages have been reduced from about 35 to fewer than 10.

Said end Chad Bratzke: "The less you have to think, the faster you're going to react."

Harris played on a pretty good defense in Chicago last season, but he says this scheme is far superior because of the rules that govern it and make everyone accountable.

Tampa Bay, the Jets, St. Louis and Denver all play Cover-2. Virtually every NFL team plays some version of it at least some of the time.

Dungy got the defense from Chuck Noll, under whom he served, first as a Pittsburgh Steelers assistant coach, then defensive coordinator, from 1981 through 1988. Dungy employed the Cover-2 throughout his six years as head coach at Tampa Bay, where the proof was in the playing. The Buccaneers' defense ranked sixth or higher four of his last five seasons.

Meeks learned it last year, when he toiled as secondary coach under Lovie Smith, a Tampa Bay linebackers coach St. Louis brought in to install and coordinate the Cover-2. The Rams defense soared from No. 23 in 2000 to No. 3 last year.

"I fell in love with the defense," said Meeks. "This system will take care of itself. If you consistently do it over time, you will make plays because it puts you in the right place at the right time."

If you make the wrong reads or fail to make them quickly enough, the effect is altogether different, and the errors can be minute. A lapse of recognition. A misstep that fouls footwork. A failure to get the head and shoulder on the correct side of the blocker.

As the nose tackle, it is Triplett's job to take on the double-team, to tie up two blockers and keep the linebackers "clean."

Early in the season, Triplett was repeatedly "scooped" out of the hole. The guard would hit him hard. The center would delay until Triplett was turned, then apply the double-team, using Triplett's own momentum to drive him out of the hole.

"Once I'm out of my gap, it's kind of a domino effect," said Triplett. "The linebackers don't know where to go and I don't know where to go. All of a sudden the running back is up the gut for 20 yards."

A little savvy and improved footwork have made Triplett more effective. Defense-wide, the misreads and failures have become fewer as the season has progressed, but there have been lapses.

In five of their six losses, the Colts have fallen behind during the first half, made their adjustments and come back. Each time, the offense was complicit, but the defense was abused.

"We're facing teams that do different things that you've never seen before," said Scioli.

"With a new defense like this getting new looks, it's a tough adjustment."

After giving up only 13 plays of more than 25 yards through their first 12 games, the Colts yielded eight gouge plays during their next three, losses to Tennessee and the New York Giants and a victory at Cleveland. They included touchdown passes of 42, 78, 30 and 82 yards.

"You don't get to where Tampa is in just one or two years," said Meeks. "That takes a number of years and we have to go through the same process.

We're not there yet. We're a young team. We've made some progress, but I promise you, there's a lot of progress to be made."

Tampa Bay ranks No. 1 in overall defense, pass defense and scoring defense and is tied for fifth in rushing defense. Of course, the Bucs are operating with five Pro Bowl players: end Simeon Rice, tackle Warren Sapp, linebacker Derrick Brooks, safety John Lynch and cornerback Ronde Barber.

The Colts have had a single Pro Bowl defender in their 19 years in Indianapolis. That was linebacker Duane Bickett, way back in 1987.

The Colts acquired Freeney, an AFC defensive rookie of the year candidate, as well as Triplett, defensive back Joseph Jefferson, linebacker David Thornton and tackles David Pugh and Josh Mallard in the 2002 draft.

Still, it takes years to build a defense like Tampa Bay's.

"We don't have the individual talent Tampa has," said Gibson, who played the last two seasons with the Buccaneers. "But defense is a team game. One of the best defenses in NFL history was Miami's 'No-Name' defense."

One area in which Tampa Bay's playmakers separate themselves from the Colts is turnovers. The Bucs have 38 takeaways, the Colts 27. The margin in interceptions is 31-10.

Dungy attributes the disparities to the fact that the Colts currently play a preponderance of man-to-man pass coverage, rather than the zone upon which the Cover-2 is based. It's a matter of personnel, and the techniques that best suit them. It's game situations. It's the need to bring down a safety to help against the run.

Dungy wants to evolve more and more toward zone. That enables the defense to "face up," to watch the quarterback and the football, to swarm and gang-tackle, to pick up fumbles, errant passes and deflections.

It all remains a work in progress, but there has been progress. Opponents see it.

Jets running back Curtis Martin has faced the Colts 15 times over the years. He has averaged 110 yards rushing in those encounters. He will be Saturday, as always, the center of the Colts' defensive attention, the acid test.

Martin cites the Colts' speed.

"I think they're playing with a sense of urgency this year that I haven't seen in them in past years," he said. "I think they get to the ball faster. I think their defensive scheme is great."

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