Can the Colts make the playoffs @ 8-8?

[Superman]

15 hours ago, krunk said:

You've been pointing to the inferior for the entire season yet we've been in every game. No you wont have optimal performance all year, but if you are better at the little things you will come out better than your opponent more times than not even with a flawed roster. At least enough to be better than a 6 win team. The purpose of my post was to say a team can play better than their make up if they focus more on being excellent at the details. The Colts have shown for most of the season that mediocrity is more likely than excellence I get it. However the playoffs is 3 games and we've seen more than one Colt team fine tune their weak areas right on time for the run. Am I talking Super Bowl for this team?? At this point no I am not. What I am saying is its totally possible for this team to play really well details wise for 2-3 games. There's enough talent on this team to do so. Like you say we will see over the next couple weeks. If they tighten things up I expect good things will happen. If not then you have to live with the inevitable.

 

To the bolded, my point is simple: If the Colts at full strength play their best against the Raiders, Pats, Steelers or Chiefs best at full strength, the odds favor those other teams. Those teams have a combination of a better roster, particularly at important positions (like OL or pass rusher), and better coaching (especially the Pats). Those teams -- the team the Colts are most likely to meet in the playoffs, are better than the Colts. I don't think this is arguable, tbh.

 

And, like you said, the Colts have played below their ability more often than not this year, so expecting them to be at their best and at full strength against better teams is kind of far fetched.

 

Of course, football is about matchups, and any given Sunday, and all that. I'm a firm believer in that, so I'm not writing anyone off. I'm just saying that I don't expect the Colts to become something they haven't been most of this season. If they show signs of that for the next month -- beating the Raiders on the road would be convincing, IMO -- then maybe there's some hope for something big happening.

 

In all, though, I'm just saying that the difference between the Colts and what I consider to be the true contenders in the AFC is more than just dropped passes, missed tackles and penalties. I think those teams are better, all told. 

[Superman]

14 hours ago, krunk said:

Their defense is bad on the ground and through the air.

 

But they have game wrecking pass rushers, and the Colts have poor protection. That's a bad matchup for us.

[jskinnz]

15 hours ago, Bluefire4 said:

We're not winning the division at 8-8. Texans schedule is too easy after this game. We can beat the Texans this Sunday and still lose the division if we don't take care of either the Raiders or Vikings.

 

What have you seen from the Texans that suggests they are locks for anything?  They have lost 3 in a row and when they were 6-3 their point differential was astonishingly bad.  They are not a good team and quite capable of losing to anyone.  

[Bluefire4]

4 minutes ago, jskinnz said:

 

What have you seen from the Texans that suggests they are locks for anything?  They have lost 3 in a row and when they were 6-3 their point differential was astonishingly bad.  They are not a good team and quite capable of losing to anyone.  

The offense is pretty awful but that defense is great. They played 3 tough teams the last few weeks and played them all close. I just think they are better than the Jaguars, Bengals, and Titans and will win all three games if they get Clowney back and Joseph is healthy.

[jskinnz]

9 minutes ago, Bluefire4 said:

The offense is pretty awful but that defense is great. They played 3 tough teams the last few weeks and played them all close. I just think they are better than the Jaguars, Bengals, and Titans and will win all three games if they get Clowney back and Joseph is healthy.

 

I would bet all the tea in China that they don't win all of those last 3 games.  Matter of fact, if Indy wins on Sunday I would hedge towards them cashing in on the season much like the Jets did on Monday.  

[jseg18]

Playoff football is all about how teams play from November on. Teams stats should only be relevant from November on. Whoever gets hot, like they say. Analyst always they can't stop the run, or pass. Or, they can run the ball, or score in red zone etc... I wonder where we rank on both sides since November, and how they compare to the year accumulated.

*

[krunk]

12 minutes ago, Bluefire4 said:

The offense is pretty awful but that defense is great. They played 3 tough teams the last few weeks and played them all close. I just think they are better than the Jaguars, Bengals, and Titans and will win all three games if they get Clowney back and Joseph is healthy.

Sensible although I think Cincy could do it after watching what they did to Philly.

[Bluefire4]

1 minute ago, jskinnz said:

 

I would bet all the tea in China that they don't win all of those last 3 games.  Matter of fact, if Indy wins on Sunday I would hedge towards them cashing in on the season much like the Jets did on Monday.  

I think you are severely underrating this team but we will see.

[krunk]

52 minutes ago, Superman said:

 

But they have game wrecking pass rushers, and the Colts have poor protection. That's a bad matchup for us.

The Raiders have 21 sacks on the year and we've faced better fronts than the Raiders.  We have more sacks than the Raiders "game wreckers".

[PeterBowman]

12 minutes ago, krunk said:

The Raiders have 21 sacks on the year and we've faced better fronts than the Raiders.  We have more sacks than the Raiders "game wreckers".

plus the O line has played MUCH better the last month or so. There's been a drastic drop in pressures and sacks.

[Restored]

52 minutes ago, Bluefire4 said:

I think you are severely underrating this team but we will see.

 

They were better earlier in the season than they are now. Their defense is still playing but their offense is so bad that it doesn't matter. Brock has digressed beyond what anyone could've expected.

[braveheartcolt]

28 minutes ago, Restored said:

 

They were better earlier in the season than they are now. Their defense is still playing but their offense is so bad that it doesn't matter. Brock has digressed beyond what anyone could've expected.

Brock is playing just as expected. He was benched last year for a aging QB who could hardly throw a spiral. He'll go the same way as Schuab and company....

 

[krunk]

Brock isn't as bad as everybody says.   His receivers don't always come through for him like they need to either.   I still expect to win though.

[Superman]

2 hours ago, krunk said:

The Raiders have 21 sacks on the year and we've faced better fronts than the Raiders.  We have more sacks than the Raiders "game wreckers".

 

Yeah, let's see what happens if the Colts leave Mack or Irvin single blocked late in the game... 

[krunk]

6 minutes ago, Superman said:

 

Yeah, let's see what happens if the Colts leave Mack or Irvin single blocked late in the game... 

There's nothing there that we hadn't seen this year.  You could have said that about Orakpo, Morgan,  Clowney,  Mercilus.

[Superman]

2 minutes ago, krunk said:

There's nothing there that we hadn't seen this year.  You could have said that about Orakpo, Morgan,  Clowney,  Mercilus.

 

Mack is better than all of them, and because he plays opposite of Mack, Irvin is more dangerous than all of them. 

 

Without Ware at the end of the Denver game, Miller ended the game because he wasn't blocked properly, but he also had two other sacks. 

[krunk]

1 minute ago, Superman said:

 

Mack is better than all of them, and because he plays opposite of Mack, Irvin is more dangerous than all of them. 

 

Without Ware at the end of the Denver game, Miller ended the game because he wasn't blocked properly, but he also had two other sacks. 

Why has the Raiders sack production been so poor the entire year?  I respect Mack a whole lot more than I do Irvin.   I don't think the impact will be any more than what we've seen already.    Just my take.

[Superman]

1 minute ago, krunk said:

Why has the Raiders sack production been so poor the entire year?  I respect Mack a whole lot more than I do Irvin.   I don't think the impact will be any more than what we've seen already.    Just my take.

 

Do you think that matters? You don't think that because they only have 21 sacks so far that it means they won't be able to create a lot of pressure against the Colts, do you?

 

All I'm saying is that any team with good edge rushers is going to create a problem against the Colts.

[krunk]

5 minutes ago, Superman said:

 

Do you think that matters? You don't think that because they only have 21 sacks so far that it means they won't be able to create a lot of pressure against the Colts, do you?

 

All I'm saying is that any team with good edge rushers is going to create a problem against the Colts.

No what I believe is the pressure they'll create is no more than what we've seen out of the teams that we've faced that have better production than them.   Their defense is worse than the Colts defense.  Those two guys aren't going to magically make them into the Ravens.

[krunk]

And their run defense is worse than the Colts so it ain't like we got to sit back there in Shotgun all day leaving the tackles exposed on an island.  Mix it up like we did on Monday night.  

[oldunclemark]

6 hours ago, Bluefire4 said:

I think our only hope is the Bengals to be honest. The Titans will be out of it by week 17 and won't play with enough effort against the Texans without something being on the line.

That's a good point......

If Tenn is at 7-8 with one game left and the Colts are 8-7, since the Titans cant win a tiebreaker involving the Colts and they would be mathematically eliminated before the Houston-Tennessee game even begins

[Bluefire4]

1 hour ago, oldunclemark said:

That's a good point......

If Tenn is at 7-8 with one game left and the Colts are 8-7, since the Titans cant win a tiebreaker involving the Colts and they would be mathematically eliminated before the Houston-Tennessee game even begins

Exactly and they will definitely lose the next two games and they didn't even beat us last year in week 17 when we had two quarterbacks on the roster that were here less than a week because they weren't trying.

[Restored]

18 hours ago, braveheartcolt said:

Brock is playing just as expected. He was benched last year for a aging QB who could hardly throw a spiral. He'll go the same way as Schuab and company....

 

 

He had it made in Denver. QB-friendly system with two good WR's and a stingy defense. Hope that extra couple million dollars was worth it.

[krunk]

16 hours ago, Bluefire4 said:

Exactly and they will definitely lose the next two games and they didn't even beat us last year in week 17 when we had two quarterbacks on the roster that were here less than a week because they weren't trying.

I said they would lose against KC and Denver, but I just don't know about that Denver game anymore.  Tenn can ground and pound out a couple touch downs against that Denver defense in the same way the Raiders did.  Denvers offense is anemic.  They had to compete a full 60 minutes just to get a win over Jacksonville so I'm not totally sure anymore.  If Tenn plays any kind of defense in that one it's possible they could pull it out in front of the home crowd.   Denver is going to have to play really good football over these next couple of games or they may wind up on the outside looking in their own selves.

[Bluefire4]

14 minutes ago, krunk said:

I said they would lose against KC and Denver, but I just don't know about that Denver game anymore.  Tenn can ground and pound out a couple touch downs against that Denver defense in the same way the Raiders did.  Denvers offense is anemic.  They had to compete a full 60 minutes just to get a win over Jacksonville so I'm not totally sure anymore.  If Tenn plays any kind of defense in that one it's possible they could pull it out in front of the home crowd.   Denver is going to have to play really good football over these next couple of games or they may wind up on the outside looking in their own selves.

Last week Paxton Lynch was starting and he was obviously not ready. After seeing what Siemian did to the Bengals and other teams I have complete faith that he will be able to beat up on the Titans defense.

[krunk]

22 minutes ago, Bluefire4 said:

Last week Paxton Lynch was starting and he was obviously not ready. After seeing what Siemian did to the Bengals and other teams I have complete faith that he will be able to beat up on the Titans defense.

Broncos have some issues on their line though.  Orakpo and Morgan might get after him.