Superman

How well does he know the offense, when he never seems to be aware of receivers coming open down the field?

What's the difference between Higgins and Pittman?

Are you arguing that the Colts had Stroud ahead of Richardson on their draft board, and were hoping that Stroud dropped to #4?

Not meant to be personal, sorry to have offended you.

It's a good question. The most cynical response is that the Colts value continuity over improvement. I don't think I believe that, but that seems like the basis for Steichen's answer earlier today. I don't think it's a financial thing. Bradley and his staff can't be making much, and I'm sure they all have offsets. And I don't think that Steichen would want to be more involved in the defensive game planning, when he's already intimately involved in the offensive game planning. (By the way, I always talk about how I dislike my HC being a primary play caller; Steichen seemed absolutely locked in all season, one of the rare examples of how to handle the play calling and still nail all the game management decisions. And he was also engaged with defensive players and special teamers. If anyone can handle that responsibility, it's Steichen, IMO.) And I don't want a DC that has to be prodded to change his approach. If Steichen is having to plead with Bradley to make adjustments, then they aren't on the same page, and Steichen should hire someone that's a better fit. I guess they had low expectations for the defense, given the state of the roster and the developmental nature of this season. And maybe they hope that another offseason brings improvement, which will lead to better output from the defense. It would be nice to hear comprehensive thoughts from Steichen about the defense and future expectations, but today probably wasn't the time for that.

Do you think it's too difficult to teach young DBs how to play Cover 2 and Cover 6? These are basic NFL coverages, and Bradley's staff is supposed to be great at teaching fundamentals.

Did you listen to his presser? I think it was exactly a vote of confidence, and the only reason he didn't say it with 100% certainty is because there's a process at the end of the season, with exit interviews, meetings with the owner and GM, etc. It's also possible that Bradley signed a two year contract, and it will be partly up to him to decide if he wants to return. But if it's up to Steichen, it sounds like Bradley would be back. For sure. If anyone thinks Bradley will be more aggressive with different/better personnel, I think they're fooling themselves. Yeah that's another good point. If you only blitz on third down, it's much easier to gameplan against.

To each his own, for sure. I find the caps jarring and off-putting, and I doubt that's your intention. Not trying to change you, just offered my perspective for your consideration.

Maybe that's what they meant. I thought it was about clock management. I think Taylor wasn't fighting for extra yards because he was in pain.

LOL, not a hot take at all. I thought we were in trouble depth-wise before the season started, because we were relying on Leonard and didn't know if he was healthy. We let him go, and converted a safety to LB. It's one of the thinnest positions on the roster, and poor tackling was one of the biggest problems with the defense all season.

Not to pile on you, but the caps is a big turn off for me also. And while I might give your posts a quick skim, it's mostly just out of 'is this another random caps rant' curiosity. It's like you're channeling an edgy talk radio host, and I don't listen to those guys either. JMO -- the caps stuff detracts from your message, which I think is the opposite effect you're going for.

Could be either of those. But if Cross drops deep, we still give up a nice chunk to the TE. Schematically, don't stop good QBs, we just let them complete passes with little resistance.

I don't know. I want the Gus Bradley that gameplanned for the Ravens. That doesn't mean I want the Ravens gameplan every week, just that I want the guy who will make common sense adjustments based on the opponent. Ballard signed off on that guy, and I highly doubt that Ballard told Gus to dial it back after that game. To me, that game is proof that Gus has some freedom to be more flexible. But this is a DC who has been super conservative and rigid for his entire time in the NFL. I agree that he fits Ballard's vision for the defense, but I'm not sure that he doesn't have the freedom to make adjustments week to week, play to play.

The Falcons are a 4-3 zone defense. I think what their new DC did in one season is a testament to what a fresh approach can bring for a team like the Colts.

I don't know about this. First, everyone talks about blitzing, and I think that's just a symptom of the conservative and uninventive minds of Eberflus and Bradley. For example, my biggest smoking gun for why Eberflus needed to go was the way we defended Lamar Jackson. He destroyed us twice in a row, and we did nothing different. Then we play the Ravens this year, and Bradley called the defense like he was possessed with the spirit of Brian Flores -- maybe because Flores is the most high profile defensive coach to fluster Lamar with heavy blitzing. Bradley showed a willingness to step outside of his comfort zone, and it worked. I'm certain he did this with the blessing of the HC, and I'm certain he didn't get a phone call from the GM telling him to never blitz that much again. I'm not asking for someone who will blitz a lot. I'm asking for someone who will adjust their approach from game to game, and play to play, based on the situation. I don't expect anyone to come in and go Brian Flores all season. I just want someone who makes adjustments within the zone based, four man rush scheme. To be clear, my point is that it's not acceptable to play like you're afraid of getting beat deep, while also getting beat deep. First play of the game Saturday night, we give up a 75 yard TD. It's unacceptable, when the underlying philosophy of your entire defense is 'don't give up explosive plays.' And I don't think that's a talent issue. The Texans exploited our defensive philosophy perfectly, and even if we don't give up the huge TD, that's probably still a successful play because they would have had another open receiver for a first down.

No, he just played it as if he wanted it to be the last possession of the game. And even JT going out of bounds gave Steichen a lot of flexibility with play calls, so I've been surprised to see people complaining about that also. We had plenty of time. Just needed another first down, and then I think we would have seen Houston start using their timeouts. And ultimately we know the goal was a TD and XP, hopefully with basically no time left.

I don't think a shutdown corner changes our defense if we're playing Cover 3 and Cover 4 almost exclusively, with virtually no pre-snap disguise. It's almost a waste of resources. And while we keep talking about "scheme," some specificity would be good. Ballard wants a zone based defense that can get consistent pressure with a four man rush, while limiting big plays. (With Gus, we have a zone based defense. We don't get consistent pressure, and we don't limit big plays. So one out of three on that mandate, IMO.) I don't know that Ballard wants a defense that only plays two coverages and never disguises, and that's my main problem with Gus. We can probably get better pass rush with some improvement up front, but if we're playing Cover 3 and Cover 4 70% of the time, we're still going to get picked apart by good QBs. Did we contest a single pass against Houston?? I think we can be a top ten defense even if we're zone based, four man rush, without a traditional shutdown corner. But we need to play more coverages, we need some disguise, and we need to allow our DBs to play closer to the line of scrimmage more often. (We also need better pass rush, and better tackling, but that's more about personnel than scheme, IMO.) I think there's room for more blitzing also, but there are games where Bradley brings extra pressure, so I think maybe there's something to work with there. That's what I mean by scheme. We're not going to hire anyone who runs 50% man coverage, or who blitzes 30% of the time. What I want is someone who isn't simultaneously so afraid of being beat deep that he runs the most conservative defense in the league, while also getting beat deep two or three times a game.

You should listen to what he said. Steichen is a master of coach speak, and he all but verified that Bradley is coming back. Maybe Gus decides to retire, but Steichen isn't dismissing him.

I don't know what you guys are talking about, the clock management was fine. We had the ball on the 15 with over a minute left, and three timeouts. We had plenty of time to score a TD.

Serious moves relative to Ballard's way of doing things. I think this offseason should look more like the 2020 offseason than the 2022 offseason.

I agree that the defense is limited by the personnel, but that's what the offseason is for. I assume we'll have some potential upgrades on defense. The question that I think is more relevant is whether you think the defense is limited by the scheme. Because even with an upgraded roster, if the scheme is limiting output, then the ceiling is capped by coaching. To me, that's an easy yes. There are a lot of zone based, four man rush defenses in the league. The Colts defense is one of the most conservative defenses in the NFL. We make vanilla look spicy and exotic. And the advantage is supposed to be that we don't give up big plays, but we see how that's been working. So we don't get any creativity from the defensive scheme, and we don't get the benefit of not giving up explosive plays. So what's the advantage? What is Gus bringing to the table, other than predictability? This defense is middling to bad in most statistical categories, and this is in a season where offensive output was seriously muted -- more offensive penalties, a ton of QB injuries, etc. The Colts played six backup QBs, (Walker, Levis, Browning , Trubisky, Heinicke, O'Connell -- three rookies included in bold), and went 3-3 against them. Two rookie starters in three other games (Young, and Stroud twice, and he worked our defense both times), three journeyman starters (Tannehill, Carr, Mayfield), and one of the worst QBs in recent history (Mac Jones). We played a soft defensive schedule, and were still barely average overall. I think it's a huge mistake to keep Bradley and not require changes to his approach, in the name of "continuity." I actually think it's contrary to Steichen's message of accountability. Bradley's way of running the defense isn't good enough, and the results are obvious.

I would have liked the team to get that playoff experience, and the opportunity to have a home playoff game for the first time since 2014 would have been awesome. But winning the division, aside from throwing up a banner, doesn't really change my thinking on the state of the team and the roster. The Jags should have clinched this division a month ago. They fell apart and blew it, which is the only reason the Colts had a shot at it to begin with. We couldn't even beat the Jags when they were healthy early in the season, and even then, they weren't some juggernaut of a team. We still probably would have been the sixth best team in the AFC, at best.

I don't usually make win/loss record predictions. But my expectations were that this was a year to evaluate the state of the roster, especially on offense, and develop the young QB. It's obviously an INC on the second part of that. But on the first part, the OL looked like the worst part of the team in 2022. This year, they bounced back significantly. Not exactly the OL from 2019/2020, but definitely back to a strength of the team, rather than the liability they were in 2022. Our QBs in 2022 got sacked 60 times; this year, only 41 sacks, and that's with obvious limitations at QB. The offense was again functional, and even showed some promise of things to come. I felt like coaching had a big impact on the OL play in 2022, and I think things look much better there this year. I also thought we'd have our bumps and bruises in pass coverage and pass rush. Kenny Moore bounced back. We were intending to play a bunch of young, inexperienced players in the secondary. We lost two of them right away (Rodgers, Flowers), we cut Darius Rush, and Brents missed half the season. I thought Blackmon got better as the year went on, then he got hurt. Rodney Thomas got worse as the year went on, and he got benched, only to show up in the Texans game in the worst way, blowing another coverage in the end zone. Nick Cross showed some flashes, but too late in the year, IMO. Jaylon Jones was the only stable part of the secondary, and he was simply adequate. I have other thoughts about the roster, but going from 4 wins to 9 wins with a limited QB and a patchwork secondary isn't too shabby. I definitely wasn't expecting 9 wins and a legitimate shot at the division back in August. I don't think we hit any impressive highs this season; even the Ravens win, while nice and fun, didn't make me think the Colts were ready to force their way into the top four of the conference or anything. But there is a lot of promise for the future. I think the Colts should treat 2024 as if they know they have their QB of the future, and build around Richardson. I'm not saying get reckless and go crazy, but I think the time is right for some serious moves with the roster.

That's not how that went. Corey Simon was franchise tagged by the Eagles in offseason before the 2005 season. He held out of all offseason camps, and training camp. The Eagles rescinded the tag after training camp, before the regular season started, so he became a free agent. Then the Colts signed him right before the season started. So even the one high profile free agent signing that Polian made was kind of a weird circumstance. We didn't sign Simon in the frenzied high of free agency, like you would think. He was a late summer addition, only available after most teams' rosters were already set and there were probably no other bidders. https://www.espn.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=2145502 Simon wasn't in great shape for the Colts in 2005. He played 13 games, then had surgery in the offseason before the 2006 season. He went on PUP before the year, and wound up missing the entire year. He never reported to the Colts after the season. The Colts released him prior to the 2007 season.

Gary Brackett was a UDFA, so even he wouldn't count.