The "horrible" Defense....

[MCurtis32]

Get Fisher or Gruden in here. Let one of them hire thier people for coaching. Teams play with a coaches personality. The defense could be so much better with a nasty attitude. Sanders was the only guy with this attitude. It was infectious and everyone played better. Let one of these coaches work his magic with these guys.Dungy was quiet, yet had everyones attention and respect. Caldwell is low key, but something is missing. He may be a hard worker and all that, but I do not think he can inspire players to "work" for him like a great boss can. Remember, these are professonal athletes with lots of money. Love of the game is what seperates the good from the exceptional player. Inspiration is what they need. Even with manning, some of these problems would have raised its head anyway.

[Superman]

I was more or less proud of the Colts run defense Sunday, but our offense gave the Browns too many possessions. The passing defense could've played better but again if our offense was alittle more in sync and completed more 3 rd Downs, our pass def wouldve looked better.

I did see progress, just have to get rolling in all aspects, not just some.

This. The defense did fine on Sunday. They even did fine last week against the Texans. Sure, they could do a few things better here and there, but the defense really isn't the problem at this point. They've been hung out on the field for a ton of plays the past two weeks, and been put in short yardage situations due to blown kick coverage and turnovers. Don't talk to me about points allowed.

[Superman]

Get Fisher or Gruden in here. Let one of them hire thier people for coaching. Teams play with a coaches personality. The defense could be so much better with a nasty attitude. Sanders was the only guy with this attitude. It was infectious and everyone played better. Let one of these coaches work his magic with these guys.Dungy was quiet, yet had everyones attention and respect. Caldwell is low key, but something is missing. He may be a hard worker and all that, but I do not think he can inspire players to "work" for him like a great boss can. Remember, these are professonal athletes with lots of money. Love of the game is what seperates the good from the exceptional player. Inspiration is what they need. Even with manning, some of these problems would have raised its head anyway.

Nonsense.

And again, people keep pushing Fisher and talking about how great he is as a defensive coach. The results and the records don't back up this line of reasoning. If you want a good head coach, you can do a lot better than Jeff Fisher. And if you want a good defense, you need to make personnel changes and maybe change your coordinator. But don't tell me that if you get a coach with an attitude that it's going to somehow make the defense better.

[rockywoj]

Special teams kick & punt coverage ... that's the biggest issue facing our defense. Difficult to keep coming up with defensive stands with their backs always shadowing their own endzone.

I agree that the D needs to become more aggressive and attacking in nature. They made strides to that end in Coyer's 1st year, but then regressed last year, mostly due to necessity because of the vast plethora of injuries. No injury pass this year. Coyer has to turn things up!

[Superman]

Special teams kick & punt coverage ... that's the biggest issue facing our defense. Difficult to keep coming up with defensive stands with their backs always shadowing their own endzone.

I agree that the D needs to become more aggressive and attacking in nature. They made strides to that end in Coyer's 1st year, but then regressed last year, mostly due to necessity because of the vast plethora of injuries. No injury pass this year. Coyer has to turn things up!

I wouldn't want to be more aggressive when my team is tackling like pop warner kids. The defense tackled terribly last week. Peyton Hillis might have broken more tackles this week than the Texans did, but we kept him bottled up, and much of his yardage was earned by leaning and falling forward after a stop. That's what 250 pounds gets you. But the tackling was much better, with just a couple of exceptions.

We also blew a couple of coverages in both man and zone, this week and last. I wouldn't feel comfortable dialing up pressure, playing Cover 1 or especially Cover 0 when the secondary and linebackers are making mistakes in simple zone coverage. I hate the cushions, but if they prevent blown coverages over the top, then I get it.

I agree with you on Coyer. He won us the game against the Patriots in 2009 with his blitzing on 3rd and 4th down. I've said this many times. He regressed last year, and the coverage suffered. We even gave up big yardage against max protect offense, which should never happen when you play zone defense. Hopefully he'll open the playbook a little more, though I don't think it will happen against the Steelers next week. I think we'll look to contain Roethlisberger and play conservative in the secondary. I don't like it, but I don't blame him, not when we're struggling with our tackling and basic coverages.

[MCurtis32]

I wouldn't want to be more aggressive when my team is tackling like pop warner kids. The defense tackled terribly last week. Peyton Hillis might have broken more tackles this week than the Texans did, but we kept him bottled up, and much of his yardage was earned by leaning and falling forward after a stop. That's what 250 pounds gets you. But the tackling was much better, with just a couple of exceptions.

We also blew a couple of coverages in both man and zone, this week and last. I wouldn't feel comfortable dialing up pressure, playing Cover 1 or especially Cover 0 when the secondary and linebackers are making mistakes in simple zone coverage. I hate the cushions, but if they prevent blown coverages over the top, then I get it.

I agree with you on Coyer. He won us the game against the Patriots in 2009 with his blitzing on 3rd and 4th down. I've said this many times. He regressed last year, and the coverage suffered. We even gave up big yardage against max protect offense, which should never happen when you play zone defense. Hopefully he'll open the playbook a little more, though I don't think it will happen against the Steelers next week. I think we'll look to contain Roethlisberger and play conservative in the secondary. I don't like it, but I don't blame him, not when we're struggling with our tackling and basic coverages.

The Colts defense tackles like pop warner kids because of coaching. And they are not much bigger or stronger. this Club is soft, small and unispired. There needs to be a change in philosophy and attitude. Nonsense huh. Nonsense is putting lipstick on a pig and thinking your with the best date in the house. No matter how you paint this defense, it does not work.

[Superman]

The Colts defense tackles like pop warner kids because of coaching. And they are not much bigger or stronger. this Club is soft, small and unispired. There needs to be a change in philosophy and attitude. Nonsense huh. Nonsense is putting lipstick on a pig and thinking your with the best date in the house. No matter how you paint this defense, it does not work.

The Colts defensive tackles have played just fine this season, through two games. And if the problem is coaching, then what difference does it make that they are, in your words, "not much bigger or stronger"? Our defensive line has been our best unit this season.

I don't know how to quantify "soft," nor do I think it's relevant. I do agree that our defense is smaller than average defenses, and particularly at linebacker, it's a problem. The team may be uninspired, but I don't know how to quantify that, either, nor do I think inspiration wins football games. Attitude doesn't win football games. Philosophy, maybe, but this is a team that's employed a philosophy that's led to them having one of the best records in the NFL over the past several years. So what change in philosophy are you talking about? Or do you just like the way it sounds?

The defense played just fine for three and a half quarters on Sunday. Then they missed a tackle because of one blown assignment and gave up a back-breaking touchdown. They got put in bad situations time and again, and responded with several stops in crucial situations. All this complaining about the defense seems strange to me these past two weeks, when the problem has been special teams and ineffective offense. The defense is getting the short end.

[Jason_]

The Colts defense tackles like pop warner kids because of coaching. And they are not much bigger or stronger. this Club is soft, small and unispired. There needs to be a change in philosophy and attitude. Nonsense huh. Nonsense is putting lipstick on a pig and thinking your with the best date in the house. No matter how you paint this defense, it does not work.

Actually the defense is quite a bit bigger than they were under Dungy. I posted a detailed comparison here:

I compared every defensive position from the starters this year compared to the players that went into '06 (the SB year) as the starters. To summarize though, our 2 DE's are the same, but our 2 starting DT's now are 310 and 303 lbs whereas in '06 they were 285 and 274 lbs. So in total we gained 55 lbs in the middle of the DL. The starting LB's in '06 were 227, 228 and 235 lbs whereas our starters this year are 235, 235 and 242 (with Brackett out and Wheeler in the starting LB's are 235, 240 and 242).

The Colts defensive tackles have played just fine this season, through two games. And if the problem is coaching, then what difference does it make that they are, in your words, "not much bigger or stronger"? Our defensive line has been our best unit this season.

I think you misunderstood what he said...and I think this because I did the exact same thing the first time I read his post and I had to go back and re-read to figure out what he meant. He said that the "Colts defense" tackles like pop warner kids....as in the entire defense, not specifically the defensive tackles. Like I said, when I first read his post I thought the exact same thing you did. lol

[oldunclemark]

And games are, unfortunately, four quarters.

Offense was the problem..not defense...

...Our offense set up Cleveland TDs

[Portage Coltfans]

The name of our defense should be called the "Manning 2" not the "Tampa 2". The only goal, is to protect the lead and bend/don't break.

Without a high powered Offense, this defense struggles. It always struggled, but now they are just hung out to dry.

I am still stunned that they didn't address our secondary at all via draft/free agency, not to mention the LB core.

Has anyone ever seen Wheeler make a solo tackle? i'm sure he has, but its never at the line of scrimmage or behind it.

[Jason_]

The name of our defense should be called the "Manning 2" not the "Tampa 2". The only goal, is to protect the lead and bend/don't break.

Without a high powered Offense, this defense struggles. It always struggled, but now they are just hung out to dry.

I am still stunned that they didn't address our secondary at all via draft/free agency, not to mention the LB core.

Has anyone ever seen Wheeler make a solo tackle? i'm sure he has, but its never at the line of scrimmage or behind it.

And I've got answers to both of those...Manti Te'o MLB, 6'2" 250 lbs in round 1 of the 2012 draft (as much of a clone of Urlacher as you can get) and hopefully Morris Claiborne CB 6'0" 185 lbs slips to the early second but if not there are a lot of good CB prospects so we'd be able to get quality talent in the first, second or possibly even third round since we'll most likely be drafting at the beginning of the round instead of the end.