New England Patriots 59 vs Indianapolis Colts 24
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter
TD D.Carter 1 yd. run (A.Vinatieri kick) (7-80, 4:11)
TD R.Gronkowski 4 yd. pass from T.Brady (S.Gostkowski kick) (8-81, 3:42)
TD T.Hilton 14 yd. pass from A.Luck (A.Vinatieri kick) (10-84, 5:23)
2nd Quarter
TD J.Edelman 68 yd. punt return (S.Gostkowski kick)
TD A.Talib 59 yd. interception return (S.Gostkowski kick)
FG A.Vinatieri 47 yd. Field Goal (12-52, 5:13)
FG S.Gostkowski 31 yd. Field Goal (10-62, 3:52)
3rd Quarter
TD J.Edelman 2 yd. pass from T.Brady (S.Gostkowski kick) (10-76, 3:53)
TD R.Gronkowski 24 yd. pass from T.Brady (S.Gostkowski kick) (1-24, 0:06)
4th Quarter
TD A.Dennard 87 yd. interception return (S.Gostkowski kick)
TD T.Hilton 43 yd. pass from A.Luck (A.Vinatieri kick) (5-74, 2:15)
TD S.Ridley 3 yd. run (S.Gostkowski kick) (7-80, 3:27)
TD S.Vereen 4 yd. run (S.Gostkowski kick) (7-39, 3:42)
What the Colts did Right
Although, not exactly the best performance, Luck showed a lot of poise and heart. He played the full 60 minutes and gave it his all. He had some really good throws on the day. He showed flashes of brilliance that we should expect to see a lot more of in a few years. He made a very nice touchdown pass to TY Hilton in the first half, and made great back-to-back throws in the third quarter, with the 2nd pass being with a defender grabbing on to him.
Vick Ballard had a good game. He made some very good runs, and was very patient. Notice how the best running backs in the league (I'm not saying he's one of the best running backs in the league) are patient. It's a aspect that many overlook. He picked the right holes and ran hard EACH time. Donald Brown didn't start, but when he had his chance, he showed great speed and burst through those holes. Maybe having Ballard as the #1 back and Brown as the #2 is the way to go. Time will tell.
Reggie Wayne had a good game. He some very good catches. TY Hilton had a pretty good game receiving too, but I'll definitely be talking about him in the "Wrong" section. Dwayne Allen played well late in the game too.
The blocking was pretty good. The run blocking was very good early on, and was a big reason why Ballard was able to run so well early on. Pass blocking had its moments.
Then the defense.
I can honestly say that there was only one good performance and that was from Cory Redding. He played hard on every play (until he got injured) and stopped the run and provided pretty good pressure on the QB. Fili Moala wasn't bad either.
The only good thing about the defense in general is that they were able to pretty much shut down the run. Discounting that Edelman end around, the Colts held their running backs to 2.8 yards per carry, which is very good. It's been very good the last few weeks.
What the Colts did Wrong
When the other team score 59 points and you lose by 35, that means a lot went wrong.
Andrew Luck did not have the best game of his young career, actually far from it. He made way too many bad decisions, and forced too many throws. I mean, he targeted Reggie Wayne 18 times. That's way too many, and it's not like Reggie was having one of those days either. All 3 of Luck's interceptions were thrown Reggie's way and one was just a terrible pass way over his head in quintople (5) coverage, another thrown way behind him, and another was tipped.
TY Hilton... On paper, he had a very good game; if you saw the game, you'll realize that that wasn't the case. He fumbled once on a kickoff, and scared the heck out of Colts fans by bobbling a punt return. To make matters worse, the hands of stone were out again. He had 2 drops again this week, and it's still showing that he still has inconsistent hands. He made some great catches, but he had a lot of bad plays, so all in all, it wasn't a great performance from him. Dwayne Allen had a few drops too (Reggie had one too), but some were tough catches. The Colts are in the top 10 for total drops this season, so that's something that they need to work on.
The pass blocking was very bad at times. Anthony Castonzo, who's showing that he's a bit inconsistent was beat a few times very badly. Joe Reitz was terrible, just terrible. Yes he was against Wilfork, but he was beat on at least 75% of the plays. I remember a play where he went one-on-one against Wilfork and my God; that play made me scream "Go back to basketball!!" Justice was beat a few times too, but he's generally been pretty good in pass blocking.
The game management in the last 2 minutes of the 1st half was awful. They easily killed a good 30 seconds off the clock and walked away with 0 points after they could have easily (and should have) gotten 3 points. This isn't the first time Arians has done something silly this year. Remember the challenge on a touchdown...
Now, the defense. Dear God...
The pass defense looked as bad as the Colts-Saints game last year. Tom Brady had a 68% completion percentage, which isn't bad, but if you look back at the tape, at least 4 of those passes were his fault; he overthrew the receivers or made bad throws to wide open guys. So really, it could have easily been a 80% completion percentage.
The Patriots just outsmarted the Colts defense. The main thing I said the Pats should do on offense is make mismatches, so put Gronk against guys like Conner or Freeman. They did and look at Gronk's game. Conner looked lost in coverage. His pass coverage skills have clearly not gotten any better, as Gronkowski caught all 7 of his targets (Conner covered him on 5 of those).
The secondary has just gotten worse and worse each week, and I'm convinced that they are the worst in the league. I don't think Vontae Davis could make them that much better. Tom Zbikowski missed tackles, Bethea didn't look good in coverage, Vaughn was just picked on all game, and Butler wasn't bad, but he had some really bad plays. Gordy was picked on a lot too, and had a terrible game. But, it doesn't help...
... that they don't have a pass rush. The Colts had 0 sacks, and barely any pressures. I think I saw Brady on the ground 2 times all game. That's horrible, he had ALL DAY to throw. You can't give a future hall of famer 5+ seconds to throw. You could have Revis, Tillman, Finnegan and Byrd in your secondary, but they will be beat if you have 5+ seconds. Why wasn't there a pass rush? Because the Colts only rushed 5 guys the majority of the time, and didn't blitz very often. They went with the "more guys in coverage is better" mentality, and that doesn't work against Brady. You need to pressure him, and they didn't. The Colts have had some mediocre quarterbacks like Weeden, Tannehill, Hasselbeck and even Ponder from earlier this year post fantastic numbers against them.
I don't usually talk about special teams, because they usually play mediocre and do nothing good or bad. The punt coverage team was horrendous. Edelman had a punt return TD that included 5 miss tackles, and then he had a 50 yard return a few series later. He's not even that good. C'mon man! Then, as mentioned before, TY fumbled too, and both kick returners (TY and Zbikowski) looked awful. Zbikowski looked slower that a freagin turtle and TY ran right into his blockers and as mentioned for 3rd time, fumbled it.
So, all in all on defense, there was no pass rush, and because of it Brady picked apart the defense. There really wasn't one good performance on defense, and they were just outsmarted. On special teams, the coverage teams were bad and they couldn't return a ball more than 17 yards.
This was the worst defensive performance of the year. The Colts deserve a:
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