Colts Recap: Week 12

[Andy]

Indianapolis Colts 20 vs Buffalo Bills 13

Scoring Summary

1st Quarter

TD T.Hilton 75 yd. punt return (A.Vinatieri kick)

FG R.Lindell 33 yd. Field Goal (11-65, 5:28)

2nd Quarter

FG A.Vinatieri 25 yd. Field Goal (12-82, 6:03)

FG R.Lindell 31 yd. Field Goal (5-67, 1:52)

FG A.Vinatieri 19 yd. Field Goal (5-50, 0:32)

3rd Quarter

TD T.Hilton 8 yd. pass from A.Luck (A.Vinatieri kick) (15-87, 8:04)

4th Quarter

TD L.Smith 1 yd. pass from R.Fitzpatrick (R.Lindell kick) (8-78, 4:36)

What the Colts did Right

Well the Colts won the game so that's a big positive. They are now 7-4.

Andrew Luck had a fairly good game. He made some very nice throws to guys like Reggie Wayne, TY Hilton and Dwayne Allen. He also showed great running ability scrambling a few times, and one of those times for a first down. He stayed calm and scrambled well. What was good was that Luck targeted Reggie Wayne a bit less this week. That's good.

Vick Ballard had a nice game. That's two in a row for him. If it weren't for one run where he made a bad decision and lost 7 yards, his statline would be much better. He showed his patience and his good speed. He's fast for a big man. He has good cuts too. Donald Brown had some runs too, but Ballard was the better of the two. I like the way Arians used both of them. They really compliment each other well.

Reggie Wayne had a very good game. He had 10 big catches and had some key first down catches (one that he bobbled ). He ran beautiful routes and found the open holes in their defense.

TY Hilton had a very remarkable game. He gets a punt return for a touchdown, gets knocked out of the game because of another return, then comes back and scores a receiving touchdown. The Colts would not have won had he not get that punt return touchdown. Also, guess what? He didn't drop a pass either. He had 3 targets and he caught all of them.

The O-line did a good job the majority of the time when it came to run blocking. Anthony Castonzo had a nice game pass blocking and run blocking.

The playcalling was very good throughout the day. They mixed it up well.

Now the defense. In general, the defense as a whole had a pretty good game. They contained CJ Spiller, and they did a pretty nice job pressuring the QB.

Good performances on the D-line came from Fili Moala, Cory Redding. Redding was disruptive and was a force. They started out with single teams but the Bills needed center Eric Wood to help block him. Fili Moala made some nice tackles on Spiller and Jackson.

The linebackers had a great game. Jerrell Freeman was the best of them all. He had 16 tackles, did a very good job in coverage against Scott Chandler, and did a nice job containing Spiller. On top of that, he did a fantastic job blitzing the quarterback, and he even sacked Fitzpatrick once. Freeney had a good game too. Although he didn't record a sack, he had a lot of pressures, knockdowns, and hurries. Cordy Glenn had a tough time stopping him. Kavell Conner had a good day stopping run. He had some key tackles on third down. Finally, Robert Mathis was able to record a sack and a get few pressures.

There were some good performances in the secondary. Cassius Vaughn had a pretty good game all in all. He did a nice job against his receiver (Donald Jones for most of the game). He made a key tackle late in the game to seal the win for the Colts. Antoine Bethea had a good game too, making key tackle after key tackle. Tommy Z had a nice game too. He had a good pick (although he fumbled) and was good in coverage.

The defensive gameplan was pretty good. I loved the aggressiveness; I believe you have to be aggressive if you want a good defense, and the Colts were aggressive today and it worked.

Special teams were great. There was that punt return for a TD. Adam made 2 field goals, Pat had some good punts, and the big one was how the coverage teams played. They were oustanding against the Bills special teams who with Brad Smith and Leodis McKelvin are very good.

What the Colts did Wrong

Well, let's just say Andrew Luck had a few bad moments. He made some pretty bad decisions at times, and when faced with pressure, he had a horrendous 7.9 passer rating (2 completions, 7 yards, and a pick). The interception he threw was mostly his fault. It wasn't a great route by Reggie, but Luck threw it way behind him and a tipped put it right into the defenders hands. Not a good throw or decision.

The O-line did not have a good game pass blocking. Winston Justice, who establish himself on this Colts line as probably the best pass protector, had a terrible game against Mario Williams. Williams constantly beat him and got 2 sacks on him. This was Justice's worst game of the year. The guards didn't have a good game, especially Mike McGlynn. Marcel Dareus is a mediocre player with a lot potential. He completely destroyed McGlynn. He was constantly in the backfield. There were a few plays where all Dareus needed was one swipe and McGlynn was behind him. Samson Satele had a terrible game too. He allowed a sack and was man-handled by Kyle Williams in the running game. Maybe it's to go back to AQ Shipley.

As for the defense, there were a few broken plays. Those lead to big plays by the Bills. Spiller had a 42 yard run on a broken play and Stevie Johnson had a big 63 yard play. Speaking of Stevie Johnson, he had a very good game. Darius Butler covered him for most of the game and had a tough time against him. Butler was constantly beat with Johnson's crisp routes. He was completely faked out on that "Stop N Go" by Stevie Johnson.

That "Stop N Go" beat the Colts quite a few times.

Game Ball

This week's game ball goes to Jerrell Freeman who had 16 tackles, a sack and played well in coverage. This was arguably his best game this year.

[oldunclemark]

When a QB throws the ball behind the receiver....I'm sensing its often because he expects him to 'sit' or stop in a zone hole..

Its semantics somewhat..but those arent bad throws..just incorrect reads..

[TKnight24]

WHOA!!!!!!!!!!! Jerrell Freeman had 16 TACKLES??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

His BEST Game so far & I miss it??!!!!!!

[HtownColt]

Dwight Freeney can't get no love lol? He had his best game all year.

Freeney knocked Fitzpatrick to the ground twice and was directly responsible for the interception by zbikowski "With Ryan Fitzpatrick cocked to throw he was hit by Dwight Freeney which turned him around and took all of the power from the pass and caused it to die a good 5 yards short of Johnson’s route — right into the waiting arms of Tom Zbikowski, who set off on a return." He also recorded four hurries. and he had the highest pass rushing grade sunday according to Pro Football Focus