what the heck happened to our defense?

[SilentHill]

No more days off I hope, big mistake by Pagano.

[3nk1du]

1 thing that's being overlooked is how poorly our LB's claimed their coverage assignments. 

 

I feel our coaches let us down more than anything when it came to blocking assignments on offense. The playcalling was asking for too much time for routes to develop. 

 

Yep D'Qwell give up many 3rd and long letting the TE catch and run for the first down, and i saw a couple of plays where they LB blitzed and the DLine stand up to cover and i was like what the heck is Redding doing on cover, i think Werner still needs to work on coverage he can't cover.

[Superman]

It means they aren't as good as everyone thought they were and that things always level out. Did you really think they were the best third down team in the NFL? Did you think they were a good sack team? The other shoe just dropped.

 

Umm, yeah, they were the best third down team in the league. That's a stat, not a judgment. Still are, I believe.

 

Good sack team? Well yeah, again, that's a stat. The numbers are what they are.

 

I never thought the defense was the absolute best in the league, that we'd throttle everyone we played and never give up a third down again. The defense always had vulnerabilities (every defense does, really). I don't know how that means they were/are "frauds." That's not what that word means.

[Superman]

No more days off I hope, big mistake by Pagano.

 

What days off?

[newb767]

I'll throw in my 2cents.. Do you think the loss of Roberts mother had anything to do with it? I'm not sure if he was on the side lines. As the team has always preached is family.. Maybe they too were affected? Still was a bad game but that happens!

[ruksak]

 i think Werner still needs to work on coverage he can't cover.

Boy ...he got fooled hard on that late game 4th&1 conversion for a TD, didn't he? Miller wraped around real sneaky like and Wener was completely lost. To his credit, that was an excellent call with superb execution. 

[ruksak]

I'll throw in my 2cents.. Do you think the loss of Roberts mother had anything to do with it? 

Not even a little bit. 

[Darryl C. Patrick]

OK, I have an observation. After spending many years in the Military in a leadership role, around Sailors and Marines, SEALS, etc. the one conclusion I have come to is that the difference between high performance teams like the SEALS and RECON and high performance defenses in the NFL is the identity/mental factor. Military teams have an identity that they totally buy into 100% of the time. The Colts defense isn't that way and here's why. 

 

Being "humble" is great in theory. Being a GOD fearing man, I get why that's necessary to speak to. But, in a professional sport such as football, being humble can be misconstrued. If you dominate one game and suck the next, its because you haven't totally bought in to the mentality it takes to BE dominant...at ALL times, game in and game out. Every astute observer knows its a mental thing. The dominant defenses of the past bought in to the belief that they were dominant ALL the time and they didn't apologize for that, or ask for humility. I never heard SEALS or RECON saying, "hey, we're the best at what we do, but we should remain humble".  This sends a subconscious message that 'hey, we actually aren't as good as we think, we just had ONE great game, so we should remain humble and not really buy into the idea that we ARE great'. That duality cant coexist in the mind. The underlying notion is that the dominance was really a surprise, instead of whats expected ALL of the time.This makes for hesitant responses when confronted with challenge.  And any split second mental hesitation can get you killed. There is no other rational explanation as to why the Steelers completely dominated us up front on both sides of the ball unless its mental. They weren't any bigger or stronger than the Bengal offensive line. They just bought into the notion that they were better then our lineman and they were not going to be denied or beaten with no reservations about it.

 

You never hear teams like the Patriots or Steelers or any other perennially powerful teams ever apologize or downgrade a dominant performance. They don't place a humility stamp on it because they know better. Yes, they may be considered arrogant or whatever, but you have to respect the fact that they bring it most of the time. They expect that to happen every time they take the field. That's what the great Military teams, the SEALS and Marines do year in and year out. Until our defensive mindset takes that turn, we'll see more up and down performances like the last two weeks from now on.  The coaches need to teach greatness into the mindset of the players and once a great performance happens, they should say, "that's who we are", not "well, we're starting to get to be what we want, but we aren't really there yet". The defensive team, from the players to the coaches should understand, "HELL yeah, THAT'S  the defensive team we ARE and that's the team that's going to show up EVERY week. Nobody is going to win them all since yes, this IS the NFL, but you'd see more outstanding performances more often than not.

[#12]

I believe Chuck said they needed to stay humble and work hard.  Judging by this performance, perhaps that didn't happen. 

 

You need years - a large body of work - to have true confidence, like that of the Steelers and Ravens of the past.  Otherwise, it's just false bravado everyone can see through anyway.  A 3 game stretch won't do it. 

[James Harden]

They need the mentality "We are the BEAST" "Nobody can stop us" "We are the best in the business". The team can be humble later after scoring a blowout like 35-0. Then send in the second unit to do all the humbling.

[coltsfanatic24]

There was no pass rush and the blitzes were late, Jackson being on the field on 3rd downs hurt as well because he can't cover.  Big Ben had too much time in the pocket, hard for any CB to cover for 5 seconds. We were just out coached. Tomlin, Haley, and Lebeau showed the rest of the league the blueprint on how to beat the Colts.

[3nk1du]

Boy ...he got fooled hard on that late game 4th&1 conversion for a TD, didn't he? Miller wraped around real sneaky like and Wener was completely lost. To his credit, that was an excellent call with superb execution. 

He also dropped to cover and cos he has no experience on cover A. Brown caught a ball within 1yrd from Wener, actually all the LB played awful no pressure no coverage no game.

[Archangel]

I do have to agree we got beat good hope they take this to heart and remember you have to play every game no matter who you face

[TAPLOOK]

Umm, yeah, they were the best third down team in the league. That's a stat, not a judgment. Still are, I believe.

 

Good sack team? Well yeah, again, that's a stat. The numbers are what they are.

 

I never thought the defense was the absolute best in the league, that we'd throttle everyone we played and never give up a third down again. The defense always had vulnerabilities (every defense does, really). I don't know how that means they were/are "frauds." That's not what that word means.

 

 

I know the stats but they won't finish there. You know exactly what I meant. Is HOAX a better word?

[Superman]

I know the stats but they won't finish there. You know exactly what I meant. Is HOAX a better word?

Neither of those words make sense. They both refer to a deliberate attempt to mislead.

[Thewholefnshow28]

Our biggest weakness was exploited and we knew going into this season that our pass rush was going to struggle without Mathis.  We have nobody that could replace Mathis' production and Werner is not ready to be a consistent pass rusher.  Pittsburgh's offensive line man handled us out there and when you cannot get after the QB you are going to get ripped to shreds.  Even if Davis was out there we would have still got ripped.  DBs cannot guard these WRs forever and Brown's second TD was an example.  

 

Our DB did a good job covering him, but because he had almost six seconds to sit back there Brown was able to improvise and get open for an easy touchdown.  

 

We are not as bad as we were last night, but I do not think we are as great as we thought we were during our win streak. 

[TAPLOOK]

Neither of those words make sense. They both refer to a deliberate attempt to mislead.

 

 

Ok. Those early stats were misleading...not deliberately though.

[ThaCaliColt]

Blitzing was ineffective all afternoon and left large holes in the middle. It was clear early on that front seven was not going to penetrate the Steeler offensive line. And still we threw blitz after blitz at them. So ineffeffective was the blitz that Ben calmly stood back in the pocket and delivered the ball with ease.

[wesd2890]

Vontae Davis happened.

When our secondary can't cover the receivers, our long developing blitz schemes no longer work.

Their part I don't understand, is why we put Butler on the outside and Gordy in the slot. This makes zero sense. Gordy should've been outside and Butler left in the slot.

I would've rather just seen Purifoy come in for Davis and left everyone else in the same spot.

So your saying put the 3rd cb on the 3rd wr. And put the 4th cb on the 2nd wr? How does that make sense.. lets put the worse cb on the better wr.. thatll work

[ThaCaliColt]

As much as I like Werner, the guy has proven to be little more than average. Will he continue to progress? Perhaps. I say yes, but we can't afford to lose more time in the absense of a real threat at pass rusher. We need guys that shake blocks. This isn't happening on a consistent enough basis.

[RockThatBlue]

1 thing that's being overlooked is how poorly our LB's claimed their coverage assignments.

I feel our coaches let us down more than anything when it came to blocking assignments on offense. The playcalling was asking for too much time for routes to develop.

Whoever was supposed to cover Heath Miller was a huge failure. He was open all game long.

[Johnny colt]

One of hte better QBs in the league had a career night.  I mean, our defense wasn't playing well and we didn't get much pass rush.  But worse defenses have done better against even Peyton Manning.  You just can't defend 80% completion rate for 500 some yards and 6-0 TDs/INTs.  When a guy (and his offense for that matter) is just THAT in the zone, you're not going to win.  Like, they kicked us in the teeth on a night that wasn't our best night.  Yeah, we could hvae played better, but even if we did, would it really have mattered?  They aren't 20-some points better than us, it was just their night.  It happens.  Just forget it and move on to the next guy.  We'll be fine.

"Yeah, we could hvae played better, but even if we did, would it really have mattered" ummm,is that a trick question?Yes.Most of the time playing good is better than playing badly.

[mintor]

Do you even watch football? Dude threw for 400 yards with horrible protection all day. Maybe it was the D giving up 6 TD passes that was the problem, huh?

[masterlock]

I think losing Vontae hurt big time.

The marched right down the field and scored even with Vontae in. With absolutely zero pressure on Ben, I doubt he would have been very effective. Same for toller. Give any QB 7 seconds to throw and receivers are going to get open.

[coltsfan1157]

It seems to me whenever Reggie Wayne doesn't play this defense becomes mediocre, probably just a coincidence.  Either way Denver, Philly, and Pitt took advantage of our weaknesses and told the league how to beat us, I can't imagine what New England is going to do.

[alawai]

OK, I have an observation. After spending many years in the Military in a leadership role, around Sailors and Marines, SEALS, etc. the one conclusion I have come to is that the difference between high performance teams like the SEALS and RECON and high performance defenses in the NFL is the identity/mental factor. Military teams have an identity that they totally buy into 100% of the time. The Colts defense isn't that way and here's why. 

 

Being "humble" is great in theory. Being a GOD fearing man, I get why that's necessary to speak to. But, in a professional sport such as football, being humble can be misconstrued. If you dominate one game and suck the next, its because you haven't totally bought in to the mentality it takes to BE dominant...at ALL times, game in and game out. Every astute observer knows its a mental thing. The dominant defenses of the past bought in to the belief that they were dominant ALL the time and they didn't apologize for that, or ask for humility. I never heard SEALS or RECON saying, "hey, we're the best at what we do, but we should remain humble".  This sends a subconscious message that 'hey, we actually aren't as good as we think, we just had ONE great game, so we should remain humble and not really buy into the idea that we ARE great'. That duality cant coexist in the mind. The underlying notion is that the dominance was really a surprise, instead of whats expected ALL of the time.This makes for hesitant responses when confronted with challenge.  And any split second mental hesitation can get you killed. There is no other rational explanation as to why the Steelers completely dominated us up front on both sides of the ball unless its mental. They weren't any bigger or stronger than the Bengal offensive line. They just bought into the notion that they were better then our lineman and they were not going to be denied or beaten with no reservations about it.

 

You never hear teams like the Patriots or Steelers or any other perennially powerful teams ever apologize or downgrade a dominant performance. They don't place a humility stamp on it because they know better. Yes, they may be considered arrogant or whatever, but you have to respect the fact that they bring it most of the time. They expect that to happen every time they take the field. That's what the great Military teams, the SEALS and Marines do year in and year out. Until our defensive mindset takes that turn, we'll see more up and down performances like the last two weeks from now on.  The coaches need to teach greatness into the mindset of the players and once a great performance happens, they should say, "that's who we are", not "well, we're starting to get to be what we want, but we aren't really there yet". The defensive team, from the players to the coaches should understand, "HELL yeah, THAT'S  the defensive team we ARE and that's the team that's going to show up EVERY week. Nobody is going to win them all since yes, this IS the NFL, but you'd see more outstanding performances more often than not.

Thanks Darry! "All In" was another quote that I remembered! I was at a workshop and John Mackey was the speaker and one of his quotes was, " Practice does not make perfect but perfect practice makes perfect". I have family members that were/are on the police SWAT team and they say train train train until you can't train then take a 5 minute break and start your training again. You've got to be one team, one mindset and complete the mission!

[OffensivelyPC]

"Yeah, we could hvae played better, but even if we did, would it really have mattered" ummm,is that a trick question?Yes.Most of the time playing good is better than playing badly.

Name a game where a QB played as good or better than Ben did yesterday and (EDIT:) lost.  The score might have been closer, but that's about it.

[Malakai432]

Boy ...he got fooled hard on that late game 4th&1 conversion for a TD, didn't he? Miller wraped around real sneaky like and Wener was completely lost. To his credit, that was an excellent call with superb execution.

Yeah he did but that was overall just a great play, who would've expected the pass. I thought they were just going to run it up the gut, and when you have two monster RBs that's what I thought was going to happen. Play took me by surprise big time, but then again I'm not an NFL player, ....

[Johnny colt]

Name a game where a QB played as good or better than Ben did yesterday and (EDIT:) lost.  The score might have been closer, but that's about it.

Never.You are correct.But thats not the point.Point is when you play GOOD ball on D,the other qb shouldnt have a game like that.

[OffensivelyPC]

Never.You are correct.But thats not the point.Point is when you play GOOD ball on D,the other qb shouldnt have a game like that.

We're saying the same thing with different words.  But fine, I don't really care how you phrase it.  It's the same result.  Either the QB plays so good that there's nothing you can do to stop it and it makes the defense look horrible or the defense plays so bad that the QB looks impossible to stop and has  a career game. 

[Chucklez]

I know we had injuries but jeez, 51 points?

The lack of a true pass rush was magnified when Vontae was taken out and our press coverage could no longer contain their WR's with Toler and Gordy back there. The reason our D was getting sacks the past few weeks was because Vontae was shutting down opposing teams WR1's and Toler could handle their 2nd and 3rd options. This gave our pass rush the time to get to the QB... The second Vontae was taken out of the equation (Erik Walden was out as well which just compounded things) it all went to hell....

If you give any QB, let alone Big Ben,the amount of time that he had against us and they will tear you apart, just like Big Ben in fact did....

[lollygagger8]

So your saying put the 3rd cb on the 3rd wr. And put the 4th cb on the 2nd wr? How does that make sense.. lets put the worse cb on the better wr.. thatll work

 

You should try actually watching the Colts play.  

 

 

Vontae stays on the left and Toler stays on the right regardless of who the team's #1, #2 WR's are.

 

When Vontae went out, we had brainiac move to shuffle everyone all over the field instead of just replacing Vontae. 

[Jason_]

Do you even watch football? Dude threw for 400 yards with horrible protection all day. Maybe it was the D giving up 6 TD passes that was the problem, huh?

 

How many threads have you posted this exact comment in?

[throwing BBZ]

I know we had injuries but jeez, 51 points?

 

 What happened with the best ILB combo in the League? ;)

 Was there a worse pair yesterday?? Stunk against the run and ____ against the pass.

  JMO but Pitt has the perfect O setup to play us and the Coaches on both sides of the ball to exploit our weaknesses.

  

   A reality/humility check that came at the right time.