Doyel: Ted Monachino is different...and good

He better be different. He better be good. That’s what I was thinking when the Indianapolis Colts announced in January they had hired a new defensive coordinator. Don’t be like the last guy. Don’t be like most defensive coordinators in this league, who coach defense like almost everyone else coaches defense. There's safety in the middle of the herd.

Don’t be safe. Be different. Be good. That’s what I was thinking when the Colts announced in January the hiring of Ted Monachino.

Five months later I’ve learned some things about the Colts’ new defensive coordinator, and here’s what I’ve come to believe:

He’s different. He’s going to be good.

Maybe you don’t believe that. Maybe I can understand that. Monachino comes from the Baltimore Ravens, where he had coached linebackers since 2010 and worked under a defensive coordinator in 2011 named Chuck Pagano. He’s a Pagano guy; get ready for more of the same Colts defense we’ve seen since Pagano became head coach in 2012. That what you’re thinking? That the Colts defense of 2016 will probably look a lot like the Colts defense of 2012-15?

Colts' new defensive coordinator promises pressure

Here’s what outside linebacker Robert Mathis thinks.

“It’ll look different,” he says. “It’s attacking.”

Mathis is smiling and as he says this. He likes this topic, this defense, this defensive coordinator.

“We’re going to attack,” he says, and now Mathis is chuckling. He’s ready to go hit himself a quarterback.

Here’s what players in the Colts locker room are saying this week: Monachino doesn’t coach defense like most guys. They won’t say it explicitly, won’t name names or point fingers, but they make it clear that Monachino won’t coach defense like the last guy here.

Greg Manusky coached defense with an assortment of flavors, every last one of them vanilla. Greg Manusky has been a defensive coordinator for three NFL teams. He has been cut loose from all three jobs. He is now with the Redskins, coaching outside linebackers. That’s probably where he belongs.

Ted Monachino, we don’t know where he belongs. He hasn’t done anything yet, you know? He’s never been a defensive coordinator, but that’s not petrifying. That’s promising. New guy, new blood, new ideas.

Yes, he struck a deferential tone to Pagano in his first meeting with local media since becoming the defensive coordinator – “This is the Colts defense, certainly not Ted Monachino’s defense,” he said last month – but Monachino strikes me as his own guy. Could I be wrong about this? Absolutely, yes. But first impressions are what they are, and this is my first impression of Ted Monachino:

He’s different. He’s going to be good.

Various Colts defenders were telling me the same thing this week, but none said it as well as Robert Mathis – or with the credibility Mathis can bring – when he was saying this:

“He’s going to dictate,” Mathis said of Monachino. “Our DC, Ted, he wants to dictate to you. Typically, defenses have really responded to what the offense does.

“Nah – we want to dictate the tempo, how this game is going to play.”

Monachino is a high-energy ball of different. Small things matter, and here’s one small thing, one different thing, I noticed about Monachino when he met the media this week at the Colts complex on 56th Street.

He was dictating to us.

Over the years, Colts coordinators – Manusky, Pep Hamilton, current offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski – have walked into the media room, stared at the reporters and waited for someone to ask something.

Monachino walked into the room and made a speech.

“Good afternoon everyone,” is how he began, several of us scrambling to turn on our tape recorders. “I just wanted to give you a little update on where we are in the process. It’s been a great Phase I, II and III. Now we are trying to get as far down the road as we can over the next …”

And he was off. He went on for more than a minute, cramming 250 or so words into those 60 seconds before opening it for questions.

Before he was done, Monachino had given credit for his rise from linebackers coach to NFL defensive coordinator to some of the great linebackers he coached in Baltimore: Pro Bowlers Terrell Suggs, Elvis Dumervil and C.J. Mosley.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be around a bunch of really good players and that makes you a better coach,” he said. “I understand that.”

Later I asked Monachino if he had done anything in his first few months on this new job that he hadn’t expected of himself. And he said: Yes. He thought he’d be better.

“Well, my expectation of my own performance is very high,” he was saying. “I think there are an awful lot of things that I need to improve.”

He’s not like most guys, I’m telling you. Whether that translates to success on the field, we’ll see, but here’s a little more to know about the franchise’s second most important offseason addition, behind only rookie center Ryan Kelly: He slows down his motor, starts to idle a bit, only when the conversation moves from football to family.

His daughter, Mikalee, played volleyball at Central Missouri and is a trauma nurse in Chicago. His older son, Sam, is a junior quarterback at Zionsville High School. His younger boy, Michael, is into video games and film.

“He watches movies?” I stupidly asked Monachino.

“He makes them,” Monachino said. “He’s in sixth grade, and he’s really good at it.”

For one moment Monachino relaxed as he discussed his kids, but then he was off, stalking down the hall. He has to improve a Colts defense that ranked 25th in points and 26th in yards allowed last season, and he has to get better himself.

Ted Monachino disappeared around the corner, into a future that will unfold – one way or another – on his terms.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.