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Bad Luck in Road Games


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Luck put the loss on himself and took full responsibility. I think that trumps what any of us think in terms of criticizing or not criticizing him for the loss.

Taking responsibility is a great value I like in this young rookie.

Fortunately he doesn't bring baggage like cough "Cam Newton."

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Not at all. Unlike some of the other posters here, he's not going to be an exception when it comes to the other parts of the team being criticized by me.

He's more often than not throwing into double and triple coverage, especially when throwing to Wayne, still throwing behind receivers, and still holding on to the ball too long. Sorry, but THESE aren't "rookie" mistakes, this is him putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on himself and most definitely the defense. On top of that this was against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, so I apologize for not having the same excuses as some other fans do.

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It's actually the sixth game of 40+ and his average per game this season is something like 42 attempts. I've said it several times before and I'll say it again... Arians is doing you guys a massive disservice.

Just becuase your team runs a Pop Warner offense to scale everything down for RG3 , it doesn't mean that's the way to bring Luck along. I think he's capable of progressing at a little quicker pace than RG3 is.

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not really the same....griffin will run right into the heart of the defense and take a big hit

I don't know if you've been as meticulous in tracking Griffin's snaps as I have... but he really hasn't taken very many big hits on the run since Week 3. The only rough shot he took today was identical to one I saw Luck take recently where he got hit on a slide and drew a flag. I've even seen Luck absorb blows not entirely unlike the one that got Griffin concussed against the Falcons. The circumstances may vary slightly but the level of exposure is extremely similar.

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Just becuase your team runs a Pop Warner offense to scale everything down for RG3 , it doesn't mean that's the way to bring Luck along. I think he's capable of progressing at a little quicker pace than RG3 is.

I'm not advocating that you guys should adopt a style of offense like we run. I don't think Luck would be quite as good at it as Griffin is owing to their different football backgrounds and physical makeups. A more conventional, balanced offense with a stronger, WCO-style short passing element would be right up Luck's alley, though, and would go a long way towards protecting him and increasing his efficiency. I don't really think you guys want Luck trying to be Roethlisberger... but it sometimes seems like Arians does.

Nice attempt at a cheapshot with the Pop Warner remark, by the way. Maybe you should watch the All-22 of us sometime. It's a pretty nifty offensive scheme we've got in DC and there's a reason it's been effective at an NFL level. It's not as simple as you'd like to think it is. :)

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I'm not advocating that you guys should adopt a style of offense like we run. I don't think Luck would be quite as good at it as Griffin is owing to their different football backgrounds and physical makeups. A more conventional, balanced offense with a stronger, WCO-style short passing element would be right up Luck's alley, though, and would go a long way towards protecting him and increasing his efficiency. I don't really think you guys want Luck trying to be Roethlisberger... but it sometimes seems like Arians does.

Nice attempt at a cheapshot with the Pop Warner remark, by the way. Maybe you should watch the All-22 of us sometime. It's a pretty nifty offensive scheme we've got in DC and there's a reason it's been effective at an NFL level. It's not as simple as you'd like to think it is. :)

you guys can't hide you use a college offense... there's nothing wrong with it you can use whatever you like but it is a gimmick offense.

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I don't know if you've been as meticulous in tracking Griffin's snaps as I have... but he really hasn't taken very many big hits on the run since Week 3. The only rough shot he took today was identical to one I saw Luck take recently where he got hit on a slide and drew a flag. I've even seen Luck absorb blows not entirely unlike the one that got Griffin concussed against the Falcons. The circumstances may vary slightly but the level of exposure is extremely similar.

i could be wrong, but show me a hit luck took that was remotely similar to that hit on griffin cause i can't think of one. and the hit on luck last week was illegal and moronic....

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I'm not advocating that you guys should adopt a style of offense like we run. I don't think Luck would be quite as good at it as Griffin is owing to their different football backgrounds and physical makeups. A more conventional, balanced offense with a stronger, WCO-style short passing element would be right up Luck's alley, though, and would go a long way towards protecting him and increasing his efficiency. I don't really think you guys want Luck trying to be Roethlisberger... but it sometimes seems like Arians does.

Nice attempt at a cheapshot with the Pop Warner remark, by the way. Maybe you should watch the All-22 of us sometime. It's a pretty nifty offensive scheme we've got in DC and there's a reason it's been effective at an NFL level. It's not as simple as you'd like to think it is. :)

have watched all 22 and a lot of the passes the ask him to make are very simple....lotta play action stop/stop and pop reads...coaches and qbs have said the same thing......ok, i actually got it from them first. not that asking that of a rookie qb is a bad thing....i actually wish arians would put some easy completions in for luck.

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The Colts have now been outscored 158-100 on the road (32-20).

If you can't win on the road, you won't win or come close to the Super Bowl, it's just a fact.

My God in heaven. You have a rookie QB on a cap strapped team that was 2-14 last year and this guy wants a Super Bowl.

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i could be wrong, but show me a hit luck took that was remotely similar to that hit on griffin cause i can't think of one. and the hit on luck last week was illegal and moronic....

I'll look into it. Have to remember which game it was that I was watching when I made that connection.

have watched all 22 and a lot of the passes the ask him to make are very simple....lotta play action stop/stop and pop reads...coaches and qbs have said the same thing......ok, i actually got it from them first. not that asking that of a rookie qb is a bad thing....i actually wish arians would put some easy completions in for luck.

There's no question that Griffin gets to make some relatively easy throws as a result of the scheme and the fact that opposing defenses don't like to blitz him. That's not the point, though. The point is that the scheme itself is not as simple as your average college offense or even what the Panthers run. We give teams a lot of looks, do a lot of different things out of those looks, and involve a lot of different players in a lot of different ways.

The college game often comes down to getting the ball to superior athletes in space and counting on inferior athletes to be inferior. In the NFL everyone is a superior athlete, so you couldn't run Chip Kelly's offense and be successful unless you adapted it heavily to suit NFL defenses and NFL athletes.

you guys can't hide you use a college offense... there's nothing wrong with it you can use whatever you like but it is a gimmick offense.

Define gimmick.

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I'm not advocating that you guys should adopt a style of offense like we run. I don't think Luck would be quite as good at it as Griffin is owing to their different football backgrounds and physical makeups. A more conventional, balanced offense with a stronger, WCO-style short passing element would be right up Luck's alley, though, and would go a long way towards protecting him and increasing his efficiency. I don't really think you guys want Luck trying to be Roethlisberger... but it sometimes seems like Arians does.

Nice attempt at a cheapshot with the Pop Warner remark, by the way. Maybe you should watch the All-22 of us sometime. It's a pretty nifty offensive scheme we've got in DC and there's a reason it's been effective at an NFL level. It's not as simple as you'd like to think it is. :)

Arians is trying to win ball games and so far he's 6-4. Not bad considering the present roster. I'm sure he doesn't want to pass the ball 50 times but some games have called for that.

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I am just as disappointed in the team's performance as anyone, but let's take a breath and see this game for what is was. It was a measuring stick to see how good we really are and to see where we need to improve. We obviously don't belong in the discussion of elite teams yet. This has shown that our play calling has to get better (i.e. balancing the play calling), O line has to improve, and pretty much all facets of the defense and special teams coverage needs to improve.

It's nothing to get upset about and it's nothing to get worried about. This is a pretty young team with few veterans (many of which are in decline) that is learning to play together. They will get better and this game has been a learning experience for them. And let's not forget that Belichick knows how to get in young quarterbacks' heads, heck he gets inside veteran quarterbacks' heads, but I believe Andrew will grow out of that as he matures just as Peyton did, maybe even quicker than Peyton did.

Sure, I'm bummed out because we lost, but this certainly doesn't spell doom for the franchise. We already knew that the team needed to get a lot better. This just reminded us after we started to dream of a Cinderella season.

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Arians is trying to win ball games and so far he's 6-4. Not bad considering the present roster. I'm sure he doesn't want to pass the ball 50 times but some games have called for that.

Agreed for the most part. However, you guys called ~38 passing plays to ~18 runs before the game got out of hand in the 3rd quarter. Vick Ballard was having a pretty good night so I don't know why you wouldn't have tried to get him a few more carries in there.

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I am just as disappointed in the team's performance as anyone, but let's take a breath and see this game for what is was. It was a measuring stick to see how good we really are and to see where we need to improve. We obviously don't belong in the discussion of elite teams yet. This has shown that our play calling has to get better (i.e. balancing the play calling), O line has to improve, and pretty much all facets of the defense and special teams coverage needs to improve.

It's nothing to get upset about and it's nothing to get worried about. This is a pretty young team with few veterans (many of which are in decline) that is learning to play together. They will get better and this game has been a learning experience for them. And let's not forget that Belichick knows how to get in young quarterbacks' heads, heck he gets inside veteran quarterbacks' heads, but I believe Andrew will grow out of that as he matures just as Peyton did, maybe even quicker than Peyton did.

Sure, I'm bummed out because we lost, but this certainly doesn't spell doom for the franchise. We already knew that the team needed to get a lot better. This just reminded us after we started to dream of a Cinderella season.

I don't think its doom and gloom for the franchise. We beat some bad teams, got off to a good record, and got our names mentioned in the playoff hunt. The optimists looked at it as a sign that the rebuild is complete. Then we get shellacked by a great team and now people are upset. We got dropped back to earth with a thud.

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Agreed for the most part. However, you guys called ~38 passing plays to ~18 runs before the game got out of hand in the 3rd quarter. Vick Ballard was having a pretty good night so I don't know why you wouldn't have tried to get him a few more carries in there.

i love arians offense, but his consistency in play calling is confusing. he goes long stretches seemingly ignoring the run game or the short passing game (honest, it does exist). i don't claim to be an x and o expert...so maybe has reasons for this i don't grasp.

it did make he cringe hearing trent dilfer talk about big ben....saying he was finally on an even playing field with brady, manning etc now that he finally has a short passing game to compliment the deep ball...not exactly a compliment to arians.

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I don't think its doom and gloom for the franchise. We beat some bad teams, got off to a good record, and got our names mentioned in the playoff hunt. The optimists looked at it as a sign that the rebuild is complete. Then we get shellacked by a great team and now people are upset. We got dropped back to earth with a thud.

yup.

They played a great team on the road and made a ton of mistakes like alot of young teams do. Theyll eventually learn how to win these.

I personally thought it was going to be hard for them to win even if Luck and the offense played a clean game. We just dont have a good secondary. It wasnt even really that good overall when Davis and Powers were playing (mostly because we had no depth at all). With those guys out I knew Brady would torch us.

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I don't think its doom and gloom for the franchise. We beat some bad teams, got off to a good record, and got our names mentioned in the playoff hunt. The optimists looked at it as a sign that the rebuild is complete. Then we get shellacked by a great team and now people are upset. We got dropped back to earth with a thud.

Exactly! Cinderella's carriage just turned back into a pumpkin. Don't get me wrong. I loved seeing all the wins after such an abysmal season last year. But the rebuilding has just begun. The personnel on Dvreally need to be evaluated to see if they will ever fit this defensive style. The O line has to get better through the draft or free agency, and clearly, special teams needs to be addressed as Pat McAfee can't make all the tackles. I just hope this game is as much of a wake up call for he coaches and front office as it has been for the fans.

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i love arians offense, but his consistency in play calling is confusing. he goes long stretches seemingly ignoring the run game or the short passing game (honest, it does exist). i don't claim to be an x and o expert...so maybe has reasons for this i don't grasp.

it did make he cringe hearing trent dilfer talk about big ben....saying he was finally on an even playing field with brady, manning etc now that he finally has a short passing game to compliment the deep ball...not exactly a compliment to arians.

This.

It is a problem with Arians from what I remember of him at Pittsburgh. Way too many long developing routes. Just puts too much pressure on his QB and the o-line.

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Exactly! Cinderella's carriage just turned back into a pumpkin. Don't get me wrong. I loved seeing all the wins after such an abysmal season last year. But the rebuilding has just begun. The personnel on Dvreally need to be evaluated to see if they will ever fit this defensive style. The O line has to get better through the draft or free agency, and clearly, special teams needs to be addressed as Pat McAfee can't make all the tackles. I just hope this game is as much of a wake up call for he coaches and front office as it has been for the fans.

The scary thing is that you guys are still in pretty good position to make the playoffs even if you're reduced to riding the pumpkin instead of the carriage. The AFC is pretty weak this year outside of its division leaders, so you guys are pretty much vying for a playoff spot with the Bengals at this point - one that might not even require a 9-7 finish when all is said and done.

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The scary thing is that you guys are still in pretty good position to make the playoffs even if you're reduced to riding the pumpkin instead of the carriage. The AFC is pretty weak this year outside of its division leaders, so you guys are pretty much vying for a playoff spot with the Bengals at this point - one that might not even require a 9-7 finish when all is said and done.

All of this is true. However, this game showed that we will likely be little more than a speed bump to the other AFC playoff teams. We are far from elite. The amazing thing is that this team is in the hunt in a rebuilding year. Colts fans have a lot to cheer for.

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Agreed for the most part. However, you guys called ~38 passing plays to ~18 runs before the game got out of hand in the 3rd quarter. Vick Ballard was having a pretty good night so I don't know why you wouldn't have tried to get him a few more carries in there.

I do see your point and if you look at the numbers , one would think it's a no brainer that you arfe correct. If you have watched every play of every Colt game for years (like I have) you would know that this offensive line is not even "pedestrian." Other LT , it's Satelle and 3 back ups. So Arians knows that he pretty much has to set up the run with the pass. Ballard was getting yards but , it was pretty much all in the first two drives which did produce 2 TD's. After the first quarter , the Pats totally stuffed the run game and the Colts had to air it out. Only after the game was decided did the Colts have any effective runs again.

IMO , the bottom line is this. If the Colts had no shot at the playoffs , so would be totally correct. Run the ball a little more and protect Luck even more with more short passes. Infact as many on this board will atttest to , Arians runs the ball almost too much when the Colts have built a decent lead by half time. They + and moan because he goes too conservative and lets the other teams back into the games. See jacksonville and Minn. games. They just can't run the ball when the opposition is looking for the run for the obvious reasons. So I think Arians is probably right when he decides to air it out in some of these games.

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This.

It is a problem with Arians from what I remember of him at Pittsburgh. Way too many long developing routes. Just puts too much pressure on his QB and the o-line.

Agree totally.

Arians needs to involve his RBs more in the passing game. Yeah, Brown has dropped a few, but then you also had the game winning Ballard catch vs the Titans. Dont get Luck killed like Big Ben with those long developing plays. Our O-line is not Brady's O-line to give 4-5 seconds of protection consistently, Mr.Arians. The pass-run ratio can still be dictated situationally but the ratio of shorter passes can definitely be upped, IMO.

I remember the Chargers offense doing well against us and remember Norv Turner loving to go 15-25 yard passes consistently or Rivers checks down to his RBs who got YAC. But when the Chargers played blitzing teams like the Ravens, Jets or Steelers they had issues because those plays took too long to develop and more often than not, they came up short against those teams.

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I do see your point and if you look at the numbers , one would think it's a no brainer that you arfe correct. If you have watched every play of every Colt game for years (like I have) you would know that this offensive line is not even "pedestrian." Other LT , it's Satelle and 3 back ups. So Arians knows that he pretty much has to set up the run with the pass. Ballard was getting yards but , it was pretty much all in the first two drives which did produce 2 TD's. After the first quarter , the Pats totally stuffed the run game and the Colts had to air it out. Only after the game was decided did the Colts have any effective runs again.

IMO , the bottom line is this. If the Colts had no shot at the playoffs , so would be totally correct. Run the ball a little more and protect Luck even more with more short passes. Infact as many on this board will atttest to , Arians runs the ball almost too much when the Colts have built a decent lead by half time. They + and moan because he goes too conservative and lets the other teams back into the games. See jacksonville and Minn. games. They just can't run the ball when the opposition is looking for the run for the obvious reasons. So I think Arians is probably right when he decides to air it out in some of these games.

I've watched about 90% of the Colts' offensive snaps this year so I'm pretty familiar with the failings of your offensive line. I still disagree that this necessitates passing to set up the run, that's more of a philosophical approach to the game taken by Arians than it is a necessity. I also question the design of some of these runs and the lack of emphasis on the playfake (when you guys do run it, it is not convincing and it seems apparent to me that not much effort has been put in towards coaching the players to sell it).

That said, I recognize the dilemma that inconsistent execution prevents. Prior to the last ~18 games our OC received a ton of grief from fans for passing too much when we had what was viewed as an effective running game. What people often didn't take note of was that our runners were very inconsistent and picked up most of their yardage on big runs, which left us in a lot of 2nd and 3rd and longs that called for passing attempts. It's kind of a crummy catch-22 for a play-caller to be in but for us it was resolved by elevating rushers who had better vision. I see the same kind of problem when I see Donald Brown run (he only seems effective running a very specific type of inside zone run) but I think Ballard is good enough to keep grinding out yards more often than not if you keep handing him the rock throughout games. Sometimes you just have to try and maintain the threat of the run even when it isn't working.

The blocking will also get better faster with reps. Chemistry is arguably more important than talent when it comes to run blocking (especially on the interior) and that can take a while to build.

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My God in heaven. You have a rookie QB on a cap strapped team that was 2-14 last year and this guy wants a Super Bowl.

Come on now...where in Andy's post did he say he wanted or expected a SB this year? He was simply making a point, than in order to get through the playoffs, you're going to have to be able to win on the road. If the SB isn't our ultimate goal, then what's the point of building the team? But I think we all know, Andy included, that the SB is not even close to a realistic expectation this year. His point remains true though, that the team is going to have to learn how to win on the road, and with more and more experience and further tweaking of the roster by Grigson, I'm sure they'll learn how to win on the road soon enough.

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Luck put the loss on himself and took full responsibility. I think that trumps what any of us think in terms of criticizing or not criticizing him for the loss.

Taking responsibility is a great value I like in this young rookie.

Fortunately he doesn't bring baggage like cough "Cam Newton."

Yea i find that ridiculous that there is a group of folks here that won't put the blame on Luck even when he takes the blame himself.

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Yea i find that ridiculous that there is a group of folks here that won't put the blame on Luck even when he takes the blame himself.

Look when you lose 59-24 there is enough blame to go around everyone can take some but when your QB throws two pick sixs plus another INT and fumbles another ball that leads to a TD that is going to be extremely hard to over come in any game. Luck doesn't need to take all the blame but let's not kid ourselves here he holds a good chunk of it from yesterday.

With that said people were kidding themselves if they didn't think Luck was going to have games like this his rookie year. Peyton played his worst game as a pro in New England his rookie year and that was before the Pats are the monster they are now. That's just a hard place to play. Heck guys like Manning, Brees, and Rodgers would have a hard time winning up there let alone any rookie QB.

This game to me was a huge reality check for us as fans. Luck is not a legit MVP contender like some were saying he was the week before and the Colts are not a Super Bowl contending team. With that said they aren't supposed to be yet. We are 10 games into what is supposed to be a multi-year rebuilding process. To me the Colts won before the game even started in that this game was relevant for the playoff race. They are a head of schedule but sometimes I think we as fans forget that. Honestly if you look at how far this team has come from the New England game last year to now it's pretty remarkable and should leave us feeling good about the future. Again, if the Colts get into the playoffs this year hey great it's experience that is going far more likely to payoff down the road than this season because that means all these young guys are going to have the experience of a playoff race and playoff game and as we have seen in the NFL you have to have those experiences before you win in the playoffs.

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I am not, everyone knows I am not. I will call it like I see it. Luck has been turning the ball over way too much for my liking. Arians' play calling is a big part of it too, IMO. Cant always call the deep yardage pass, dumpoffs and screen passes to RBs etc. should be included in the arsenal too. Those long yardage passes take time to form and if the coverage is good, one of 3 things will happen - a sack (which is OK, IMO), a strip fumble or a bad throw into tight coverage. The latter two happened more often, IMO.

This was before the Pats game but when he was at 16 turnovers with 396 dropbacks it came out to right around 4% turnover rate. Right around Rich Gannon at #14 lowest all time. Peyton is 3.5% sitting at #5. So while it looks bad at times hes asked to do a lot and will only get better.

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