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John Hammonds

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Everything posted by John Hammonds

  1. Absolutely. There were plenty of failures to go around. All of us are talking about the very last play. And some are mentioning our dismal 3rd down performance. But what gets lost in the discussion is that both of the Texans' touchdowns came on plays where our safeties made a bad coverage mistake. On the first touchdown, Nick Cross bites on the shallow crossing route when he, as a single high safety, is supposed to keep the entire field in front of him. He forgot he was playing free safety, and acted like a strong safety. On the second touchdown, Rodney Thomas jumped out to cover the flat, which was already being covered, and left the middle wide open.
  2. The difficulty in assigning the Colts' "needs" is that we can't just look at Current Deficiencies. We also have to look at the bigger picture, long-term. Current deficiencies include Rare Air players at WR, at DE, and CB. However, after next year, Buckner, Grover, and Kelly will all be 31. Kelly will have played out his contract, and may opt to retire to focus on his young family. We'll have spent money extending Pittman and Grover in 2024 (not to mention Moore), and will have to make decisions on Zaire and Kwity in 2025. It's gonna get very hairy very quickly. And many of our central players we have now may not be with us two years from now. It could be a very different team by the time we have to deal with AR's second contract.
  3. I think the reason it feels this way is that we didn't lose because of an amazing play the Texans made, but by our own failure. The Texans didn't make an interception, or a sack, or a defended pass, or a tackle for loss to end the game. We called a good play, got the guy wide open, threw it (behind him a little).... and it was dropped. The final play to kick us out was our own failure. That's why it feels this way.
  4. I am absolutely not going to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the NFL is instructing the refs to make sure that a certain team wins.
  5. It's like DON'T SAY ANYTHING JIM! We already have enough distractions with the suspensions and stuff. Put the smart phone down and walk away.
  6. PRO BOWL OG Quentin Nelson (PFF 67.4 / 18 out of 79) PRO BOWL ALTERNATES OC Ryan Kelly (PFF 78.4 / 7 out of 36) DT DeForest Buckner (PFF 81.3 / 13 out of 128) WR Michael Pittman Jr (PFF 78.3 / 25 out of 125) LB Zaire Franklin (PFF 61.1 / 60 out of 81) LEFT OUT OT Bernhard Raimann (PFF 83.9 / 4 out of 84) OT Brandon Smith (PFF 79.1 / 12 out of 84) DE Samson Ekubam (PFF 83.5 / 16 out of 114) DT Grover Stewart (PFF 74.3 (23 out of 130) DB Kenny Moore (PFF 76.0 / 20 out of 126)
  7. If Gus is gonna be judged this offseason on whether or not he is fit to continue as DC, I doubt it's gonna come down to a single game's performance. What's against him is the standard measureables. 27th in points against. 24th in total yards. 27th rushing. 17th passing. The poor 3rd down conversions. Also, the quirky DL formations that left a huge gap in the middle for the offense to exploit. What's in his favor is that he's 5th in sacks without a premier pass rusher. He's had to patch together a defensive backfield made of rookies and special teams players that weren't supposed to start. His big-play linebacker stopped being one. After the disastrous Saints game, he was willing to scrap his base defense for different (and better) structures and styles. He's probably done as well as he could have with the roster he had to work with. I don't know if they keep Gus or not. It probably depends wholly on if there's a bona fide better guy out there. I will say if they keep him, his defense is gonna have to perform a whole lot better next year. North of 16th in every category. And he'll probably had a long sit-down with Steichen and Ballard on whether or not he's gonna go all-in on the modern Fangio cover-6 defense.
  8. Two teams enter! One team leaves! Two teams enter! One team leaves!
  9. His PFF score has been in the mid 50's all year. And that's just not something you want your starters sitting it. He was a good story before -- 7th round choice from an Ivy League school finding his way into the starting lineup. But that was yesterday. And in the meantime, Nick Cross has been improving and improving, giving the coaches reason to get him playing time. There had to be a moment when it was "ok, let's let somebody else play, and see how they do".
  10. This win belongs to Shane. We still had our defects. We couldn't put pressure on the QB. We still couldn't tackle well. We still had lapses in coverage. We still had issues getting separation. And Minshew... was Minshew. We didn't have the better players today. But we still managed to win. Shane called great plays that got us points. Shane made good game management decisions that kept us two scores ahead -- just out of reach. Shane managed the clock well. This win belongs to Shane.
  11. I agree. We know that she broke his phone. We know that she tried to slap him. We know that he pushed her to the ground. We know that she had verifiable physical trauma. And we know that he was arrested. This could be bona fide "domestic battery". This could also be Johnny Depp 2.0. Where she accused him of a thing, ruining his life and career, only to have him demonstrate that she was the actual aggressor. We don't know enough. And I'm ok with reserving judgement until we do.
  12. I'm still in the 0-2 camp. AND I HOPE I AM VERY WRONG.
  13. As you know from other posts I've made, I'm predicting a loss. However. If Braden Smith plays, that gives us a better matchup vs Maxx Crosby than Freeland. It gives us a cleaner pocket. And it gives us better run blocking. If Pittman plays, it gives us our nearly guaranteed 1st down conversion. And it takes coverage pressure off of our other receiving targets. And gives us better run/pass threat balance. The only unanswered questions I would have would be if we could generate a pass rush playing at home, and if Nick Cross can fill Julian Blackmon's shoes, and then some. If all of these things fall our way, we have a good chance of winning the game. (Still picking against us, though.)
  14. I remember when Barnett came out of the University of Tennessee, having broken Reggie White's sack record there. The story on Barnett was that most of his sacks were manufactured through matchups, and that simply man-to-man he wasn't that amazing a player. And, sure enough, he just didn't have the production with the Eagles. A rotational player who was starting due to his draft status. I'm not surprised they walked away from him. Especially with how he was playing this year after his ACL injury in 2022.
  15. I'm not sold on Jared Verse. He had zero splash plays through like the first 3/4 of the season. Then, finally, he gets 9 sacks. But 5 of his 9 sacks came in 2 games. I really don't think of him as a step-up from what we already have. I'm not opposed to adding him to the roster. But if you're looking to draft "Rare Air" players, especially early in the 1st round, I don't think he rates.
  16. I don't know how much it factors in, but here is the list of finalists in order of the number of times they were finalists. How long they have been waiting might have some bearing on whether or not they finally get selected: WR Reggie Wayne 5 times WR Torry Holt 5 times DE Jared Allen 4 times OT Willie Anderson 3 times DB Devin Hester 3 times WR Andre Johnson 3 times LB Patrick Willis 3 times DE Dwight Freeney 2 times DB Darren Woodson 2 times DE Julius Peppers 1 time DB Rodney Harrison 1 time TE Antonio Gates 1 time DB Eric Allen 1 time RB Fred Taylor 1 time OG Jahri Evans 1 time
  17. I'll agree -- it's pretty poor. Doubtful there are any HOF players coming out of that draft!
  18. As a general rule, the story of any game is that the coaching staffs will design game plans to create matchups to try to win. Like chess games. And sometimes their plans work. And sometimes they don't. When they don't, then the game comes down to the simple equation of "I have these many players that are simply better than yours." And the Colts don't rate very well at that. They need to have the better game plan, because their personnel just isn't that much better. And for the most part, Steichen has been up to the task. He's done a great job of designing a plan to beat the other team. As for the personnel comparison track, it gets even worse the more starters you have missing from the game. Your margin of error gets slimmer and slimmer. Until, finally, there's a key guy that if he's missing, it just throws off the entire game. That's what happened last week against Atlanta. No Pittman = instant defeat. It's absurdly simple to defend against the Colts: Show a Bear front to stop JT's interior running, double team Pittman, and take your chances with the Colts' lesser talent in the passing game. Make them beat you. If Pittman is out, then you don't even have to do a double team. You can shut down the entire offence almost without trying. It's my opinion that we have So Many of our players out that the margin of error in the Better Personnel scenario has become so slim we have very little chance to win. We're seriously depending on the Steichen game plan to win. To be honest, he's done a great job. And he does give us a chance to win. But there's only so much you can do when you're missing your bishops, your rooks, and your queen. The best chess player in the world can't win with only knights and pawns.
  19. I know I'll be called a Downer for this, but... I'm gonna go glass half empty. I don't believe we will win either of these last two games. We are a "pretty good" team, that can normally beat the bad teams we play, and can sometimes get that miracle game against a good team, but with as many guys as we have on IR, we have to conjure those miracles just to beat the meh teams. These last two games are against teams that aren't meh. They're not playoff teams. But they're not meh. I'm gonna say we lose them both. And that doesn't mean that this season was terrible, or that Ballard needs to be fired, or whatever. We achieved a heck of a lot more than we thought we would at the start of the season. And we have building blocks to achieve more after this. But I think we've driven this car, this year, with this many missing pieces, about as far as it can drive. (Go ahead, Colts. Prove me wrong. Please.)
  20. Talked down his name? Which name would that be? Darius or Shaquille?
  21. What do I want for Coltsmas? A little delayed gratification. Like being able to get a true Next Level player with the 21st pick in April.
  22. SS Nick Cross has been getting increasing playing time over the past 4 weeks. Week 12 at Tennessee - 31 defensive snaps (36.5%) Week 13 at Cincinnati - 29 defensive snaps (48.3%) Week 14 vs Pittsburgh - 26 defensive snaps (44.8%) Week 15 at Atlanta - 55 defensive snaps (85.9%) With Blackmon out injured, Cross started at SS and took 86% of the defensive snaps. I expect we'll see him start the rest of the way.
  23. I'm sure at the Giants/Eagles game, Okereke and Leonard met at midfield, tugged at their new jerseys, and sighed. Yup.
  24. Deja vu all over again 2021: 9-6 with two games to play. If we win them, we're almost assured in the playoffs. home vs Raiders away at Jaguars 2023: 8-7 with two games to play. If we win them, we're a pretty good shot to make the playoffs. home vs Raiders home vs Texans
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