Takeaways from the game

[ColtsFanMikeC]

Defense

(1) Werner played his best game yet.  I hope he can keep this up, he seemed to have confidence and he was mauling the opposing blockers. 

(2) Our D's pass rush in general looks like it is improving.  We are getting creative and bringing pressure up the middle and doing a pretty good job about creating pressure off the edge. We should only improve upon Arthur Jones' return -- I haven't seen our D-line generate pressure like this in the Pagano era and we're missing Arthur who I think is our best rusher along the line.

(3) I hope Mathis' presence will help our guys -- on Werner's first sack and on Newsome's missed sack, I think Mathis could have had strip sacks -- Newsome looks good to me when he gets the chance, if he just went higher on Flacco to bring his arms down he would have had a huge sack and stopped one of their best plays (hopefully Mathis can mentor these guys a bit).

(4) Vontae is a stud -- that P.I. call late was probably justified but other than that he made no mistakes that I could see.

(5) Mike Adams is really coming into his own in this defense -- he is a solid tackler and I think has been one of our more underrated players this year.

(6) Sergio looked very good -- obviously the big sack, but he didn't let anything get behind him -- Flacco has one of the league's strongest arms and between Smith Sr., Smith, and Jones the Ravens have 3 very explosive players that have been able to take the top off other defenses this year -- the fact that we didn't let that happen makes me confident in Sergio.

(7) Toler and Butler are very solid #2, #3 CBs.  That P.I. call on Toler was a terrible call -- the only other real mistake Toler made today was on a missed tackle on Jacoby Jones -- otherwise he is a very solid counterpart to Davis and Butler continued to look very solid in the slot.

(8) Montori Hughes looks like a new player this year -- I think he still has room to improve but he is definitely learning how to use his size and seems to have improved his strength.

 

Special Teams

(1) Pat McAfee is tremendous, he is putting the ball at least 7 yards in the endzone on every kickoff and getting great distance and hang-time on his punts -- I don't think you can put a value on his contributions to us winning field position battles.

(2) Griff played terrible today, IMO -- the first punt he misjudged (after seeing Jacoby Jones misjudge one, I'm thinking the sunlight in the stadium may be a major issue, but still that is not a mistake that should be made, especially at home), the one he fumbled he had no right not fair-catching that, and the next kickoff I thought it was a terrible decision to run the ball out (I think he got the ball 9 yards deep in end zone and made it out to the 14 or 15).  I think we have guys who are capable of being bigger playmakers than Griff but thought the reason the coaches decided with Griff was that he makes very few mental mistakes and would not be a liability to have destructive plays.  I'm not saying we should pull him now, but if he has another week like that, I'd like to see us give Purifoy or someone with more explosiveness back there.

 

Offense

(1) I thought Harrison looked better than Shipley overall, other than 2 issues with timing and the 1 kinda high snap.  I am hoping this was just a result of first game jitters -- if he cuts those 2-3 plays out, I like him to stay at C moving forward over Shipley (I don't know what to think about Holmes at this point).

(2) Our TE's and RB's blocked very well today.  I was always pretty confident in Allen and Doyle's ability to block but Fleener made several good blocks today and I didn't see him miss any. 

(3) We are doing an excellent job at controlling the ball and keeping our D off the field, now we just have to learn how to hold onto the ball and hold our leads -- I had a deja vu type moment with Bradshaw's fumble and thinking back to Luck's pick at the end of the Philly game. 

(4) That is a top-tier defense we just played, so I think we were able to answer the questions of whether our big offensive numbers were due to playing poor D's.  Both RB's averaged over 4 yards/carry and were able to combine for over 100 yards and Luck threw for over 65% and broke 300 yards again.

(5) Luck is definitely doing a better job going through his progressions (I think a big part is due to improved protections) and I have to agree with the commentator that said he thought Luck might be the best QB in the league at throwing when he is under pressure. 

 

Overall

I think our team is really starting to come together -- if we can stay healthy, we should continue to improve as we get players back from injury.  Thanks to some help from Dallas, we are back  and tied for first in the AFC South.  If we win this week vs. Houston (I expect us to), I don't foresee us falling from the top of the AFC South this year.  I think the 4 hardest games on our schedule are Denver, Philly, Cincy and Baltimore -- we are through all of that except Cincy, while Houston still has Cincy, Philly, and Baltimore to play.

 

I think it is hard to blame Luck for either pick today, the first one was a great play by Ngata off a tipped ball and the second was probably a poor decision but there was a chance for Bradshaw to make a play on it.  We are lucky to have won after committing 4 turnovers, but the fact that we did is very good -- now if we just continue to minimize our turnovers and continue to improve our pass rush we should be able to win most of the turnover battles from here on out.

 

Overall, a good win versus a tough team.  Glad to see our O was able to move the ball effectively -- now we just have to limit our turnovers and get 7 on the board when we are in the redzone and we should be well on our way to staying atop the AFC South.

[HungarianColtsFan]

A nice sum up.

 

Thx!

[SubZero]

I agree and IMO I actually would like to see Montori play more than Chapman. Chapman is still getting pushed back and he isn't getting the penetration we need. Montori played really well run stopping and his penetration was really good against the Ravens OL.

[bigjim79]

Agree first victory against a really good team D played great , had there best game all year , Griff pushed to hard trying to make something happen , can't stress Mathis being back and around the defense enough he will help with his knowledge and attitude .

[AntonMcG]

Fair assessment.

[Nobody]

I agree and IMO I actually would like to see Montori play more than Chapman. Chapman is still getting pushed back and he isn't getting the penetration we need. Montori played really well run stopping and his penetration was really good against the Ravens OL.

#KERR4PRES

[MB-ColtsFan]

Nice summary!

 

I thought Werner was better against the run than I have seen to date.  His pressures were outstanding.  He was truly

a force in this game.

We still have some work to do on our LB's in coverage, but it didn't hurt us today.

The Ahm-ent (Ahmad & Trent) show was a thing of beauty today (aside from the Bradshaw fumble).  Both guys are

rounding out to be a ground and pound duo which will wear down offenses.

[BigQandTheManiac]

6 Ints in the last 3 games..wow...i love our secondary.....and mike adams has been a really nice addition

[ThE JoKeR]

The score didn't so how much we dominated the Ravens. The refs took away a TD for nothing and some of our turnovers looked like freak plays. Most of the time those plays result in common incompletions. Are offense was pretty good really.

[NewEra]

They keep improving this team will be scary good come playoff team. We're playing good ball but I think we can play better.

Allen looks like he is stating to look like he did last year. We are just loaded all over the place. Hard to game plan for us week in and week out. Moncrief didn't even see the field this week. I think Pep is starting to get it. Or more so the players are executing.

[hawkeyes]

Takeaway .... the officials did NOT get the point of emphasizing illegal contact in the preseason.   The Colts receivers were interfered with several times today ...

 

Biggest takeaway - the Ravens are NOT that good of a team!  Flacco did exactly what he always does - throws up bombs praying for luck and/or a flag... he got baled out one time with a flag where IMO there should not have been one.  

[BlueCollarColts]

Didn't people want Mike Adams benched like 2 weeks ago? lol

[Cynjin]

Didn't people want Mike Adams benched like 2 weeks ago? lol

 

Some wanted him benched right after the Colts signed him.

[ColtsFanMikeC]

They keep improving this team will be scary good come playoff team. We're playing good ball but I think we can play better.

Allen looks like he is stating to look like he did last year. We are just loaded all over the place. Hard to game plan for us week in and week out. Moncrief didn't even see the field this week. I think Pep is starting to get it. Or more so the players are executing.

 

The players are definitely executing (except the turnovers). I was kind of shocked to not see Moncrief in at all (at least I didn't seem him on offense, I saw him on a few punt coverages but that was it).  I would hope that Moncrief's size is something we can use to our advantage in the red zone in the not-so-distant future -- it seems to me like having the big bodies of him, Nicks, Fleener and Allen should help us down there but we struggled there all day today.

 

Takeaway .... the officials did NOT get the point of emphasizing illegal contact in the preseason.   The Colts receivers were interfered with several times today ...

 

Biggest takeaway - the Ravens are NOT that good of a team!  Flacco did exactly what he always does - throws up bombs praying for luck and/or a flag... he got baled out one time with a flag where IMO there should not have been one.  

 

I think the Ravens are a pretty solid team -- they were ranked 8th in total offense coming into today and we shut them down.  Flacco is a good QB -- he isn't in the elite group but he's definitely a good QB -- he is 2 years removed from being superbowl MVP perhaps the best playoff run in NFL history (only Montana ever threw 11 TDs and 0 INTs in a single playoff run) -- he came into today with a 93.4 QBR and averaging 260 yards/game.  Flacco has one of the top 3 strongest arms in the league and his WRs have been able to beat coverage and get under his balls all season until today.  I think our team deserves some credit for stopping their offense.

 

Didn't people want Mike Adams benched like 2 weeks ago? lol

 

I have liked Adams since he's been here -- he has made very few mistakes and now he is starting to actually make some big plays.  I was happy with him the first few weeks as he was doing his job and not making any mistakes, the past 2 weeks he's been doing his job and then some by creating turnovers and making big plays happen.

[bestQBever]

Our defense is beast. And honestly if anyone says our O line sucks, they don't watch our games. This is the best protection Andrew has gotten in his career and our run game isn't shabby at all.

[Imped]

Sergio looked fast and energetic, tackled well, and played aggressively. As far as I'm concerned, keep him there. 

 

Werner played like a bat out of hell today. He looked more explosive than he ever has and just flat out beat his man today. 

 

The announcers were unbelievably annoying--all they kept talking about was how great the Ravens D was, blah blah blah. Look at the stats. Our defense dominated their offense. Our offense beat their defense. We won the game and never conceded the lead. Eat % announcers. 

[backshoulderfade]

I felt our secondary functioned better with Brown back there. Need more time to properly evaluate though

[Surge89]

I'd like to single out two players today.

WERNER! I'm so excited to see him look like he belongs! He did great and can only improve if the trend continues.

FLEENER! I've been so down on Fleener lately, but he deserves mad props for his blocking today!

[Dark Superman]

It's just great to season the defense playing as a whole and having fun. They are abusing offensive lines, pushing and bullying their way to the opposing quarterbacks, and it's coming from all three levels of the defense. It's good to see the younger guys, even the backups, are making plays when their number is called.

I can't wait to see this defense when Mathis returns with a few new additions.

[GoColts8818]

The Colts domanated this game from start to finish except for the mistakes. They have to get this cleaned up. Even if they just kicked field goals they left 9 points on the field with redzone turnovers and the fourth down stop. This game should have not been close.

Also the Colts D is rock solid. I thought they were the stars today.

[GoColts8818]

I felt our secondary functioned better with Brown back there. Need more time to properly evaluate though

i turned to my friend today and said you know what one player I haven't missed today? Landry. I don't think he makes it through the off-season this year. The Colts are getting zero return on their investment in him.

[ColtsFanMikeC]

I felt our secondary functioned better with Brown back there. Need more time to properly evaluate though

I felt the same way last year when Howell replaced Landry.

 

I'd like to see Brown play another couple games before I make my decision, but he seemed to keep everything in front of him and played very solid football. They tried to go at him a few times and he rose to the challenge.

 

Landry has a knack for making high-light reel plays, but often times it is because he got out of position or he makes a lot of bad plays that don't get shown on the high-lights before he makes a very athletic looking play or a major hit.  I'd much rather see very few errors with no high-light reels than a lot of errors with an occasional high-light reel play.  If Sergio keeps it up and continues to improve, I'd be all for letting him keep playing back there when Landry returns.

[Jason_]

How many people would have tried to have me institutionalized if I'd predicted fleener could stonewall dumerville in a one on one situation?

His blocking is definitely improving. Hopefully he'll be able to sustain and continue to improve....and yes I realize this is the most important part.

[Smonroe]

Nice job Mike. I'm not sure I can agree about Harrison, but I need to watch the game again.

[Colts_Fan12]

I agree about Harrison more practice and snaps will clean up the count problems it was his first start ill take it we ran pretty dang good!

[jmac_48]

Agree with the OP's evaluation.

 

But, I gotta go with what Coach said: This was a great TEAM WIN!

 

There were mistakes made in all phases of the game but overall the TEAM played well enough to come out with the WIN!

 

Clean up the mistakes and mental errors and this TEAM is just going to be awesome!

 

Bravo     :clap: 

[C0LT5]

The announcers were unbelievably annoying--all they kept talking about was how great the Ravens D was, blah blah blah. Look at the stats. Our defense dominated their offense. Our offense beat their defense. We won the game and never conceded the lead. Eat % announcers. 

 

Their offense had a bad day though. Our defense had nothing to do with it.

[deedub75]

I think the best decision was made by whomever decided to close the roof at halftime.  I think Irsay calleicd in and said close the roof and pump in more artificial crowd noise. 

[Virtuoso80]

Nice summary!

I thought Werner was better against the run than I have seen to date. His pressures were outstanding. He was truly

a force in this game.

We still have some work to do on our LB's in coverage, but it didn't hurt us today.

The Ahm-ent (Ahmad & Trent) show was a thing of beauty today (aside from the Bradshaw fumble). Both guys are

rounding out to be a ground and pound duo which will wear down offenses.

you mean wear down defenses?

[IndyD4U]

Our defense is beast. And honestly if anyone says our O line sucks, they don't watch our games. This is the best protection Andrew has gotten in his career and our run game isn't shabby at all.

He had a beautiful pocket several times today!

[sfergson727]

Sergio looked fast and energetic, tackled well, and played aggressively. As far as I'm concerned, keep him there. 

 

Werner played like a bat out of hell today. He looked more explosive than he ever has and just flat out beat his man today. 

 

The announcers were unbelievably annoying--all they kept talking about was how great the Ravens D was, blah blah blah. Look at the stats. Our defense dominated their offense. Our offense beat their defense. We won the game and never conceded the lead. Eat % announcers. 

Exactly why I took the delay penalty and timed my Directv up with the stream from 1070.  I was about 3 minutes behind everyone in the chat room, but at least I didn't have to listen to the * announcers.  I'll take Bob any day.

 

Very pleased with the defensive effort today, offense has some work to do before thursday...

[ruksak]

The biggest takeaway today were all the takeaways, ironically enough. 

[Narcosys]

No way I'm going to quote the op. But you're wrong in one sense. Harrison was not better. We had better runs when Shipley was in.

[ColtsFanMikeC]

No way I'm going to quote the op. But you're wrong in one sense. Harrison was not better. We had better runs when Shipley was in.

 

We averaged over 4 yards per carry on runs by our RBs against by far the best run-stopping front 7 we've played so far.  Harrison made a couple mistakes, but overall, I think we'll stick with him over Shipley.  Getting Mewhort back and removing Louis from the line-up will produce bigger benefits than removing Harrison from C for Shipley.

[CroatianColtsFan21]

Our defense is beast. And honestly if anyone says our O line sucks, they don't watch our games. This is the best protection Andrew has gotten in his career and our run game isn't shabby at all.

 

agree, and i liked harrison at center too.. that's why i was shocked to read this bit from josh wilson on stampede blue:

 

"A bad decision by Pagano today?  Starting undrafted rookie Jonotthan Harrison at center over A.Q. Shipley.  Harrison was bad today - there's no other way to put it.  ..."

 

i know he had one bad snap and a couple of false starts/timing issues, but aside from that i thought he played a very good game 

[crazycolt1]

Didn't people want Mike Adams benched like 2 weeks ago? lol

Some were complaining he should have never been signed. Just goes to show the armchair GMs are not as smart as they think they are. There kind of even with the armchair QBs and coaches?

[crazycolt1]

No way I'm going to quote the op. But you're wrong in one sense. Harrison was not better. We had better runs when Shipley was in.

But the protection of Luck was a lot better. This is the best the offensive line has looked in a long time. I guess you either didn't know or had forgotten who the Colts played yesterday. The Raven's have one of the better defenses in the AFC in case you hadn't noticed.

[Gabriel Alexander Morillo]

Some were complaining he should have never been signed. Just goes to show the armchair GMs are not as smart as they think they are. There kind of even with the armchair QBs and coaches?

Just like the "armchair gms" were completely wrong about Zibikowski, or Satele? Eh?

[NagelHausForge]

I hate to say it but one of my biggest takeaways from today was just how bad these refs are.  I never like to blame the refs and feel that if a team plays solid football it wont be an issue, but it seems more and more these refs are making calls that just don't make sense.

 

That PI call on Toler when he was clearly looking back for the ball...The few times where our receivers were just mugged and there was no call... The Bradshaw run on 4th and 1 where it looked to me that with the second effort he made it over the line...

 

I dunno, it just seemed like these refs, and not just in the Colts games, are getting worse and worse. 

 

I did however want to mention one other takeaway... the 12th Freakin Man.  I was at the game and the crowd was PUMPED!  Especially after a couple nonsense penalty calls.  It seemed like the stands were going to come down.  I loved it. 

 

Anyways, really fun game to watch.  I can't talk this morning, which makes my job as an investigator interesting... Might have to learn sign language. 

 

I thought the D was just lights out today.  Almost a perfect game by them. 

 

The Offense did very well considering the Ravens were one of the best redzone D's in the league.  I was overall happy with Harrisson's play.  The guy just needs more snaps.  The O-line gave Luck all day to throw for the most part and the running lanes were there.

 

Didn't like Griffer today.  He needs to not try to be so cute and just focus on securing the ball.  That is his only job.  I am sure he will get coached up and do better on Thursday.

 

Didn't miss Landry at all.  Brown played very very well and even got a sack.  Will be interesting to see how the next 3 games go with him in there.

 

Werner... What can ya say.  It seems like it finally clicked for him today.  Flacco had been sacked only 3 or 4 times this whole year and Werner got to him twice.  They should play "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones every time he gets a sack...

 

Dwayne Allen was amazing today.  He was everywhere on the field.  Fleener did nice blocking and had a solid catch.  Didnt see much of Doyle outside of blocking. 

 

Again, all in all a good grinding win.  The score should have been about 35 to 10 but it is what it is.

[BleedBlu8792]

Just like the "armchair gms" were completely wrong about Zibikowski, or Satele? Eh?

Well, neither made it all the way through their contracts. For everyone of those there is a "Mike Adams/Antoine Bethea"-type who comes in and does well when it wasn't really foreseen. Its part of the business...