Biggest difference from the 1-5 team to now?

[Trace Pyott]

What do you guys think has been the number one factors to our team playing so much better lately compared to how they played early in the season?  To me it’s kind of tricky because luck has played pretty well all year long and so has Leonard and it hasn’t been something simple like one player coming from injury or has it?

 

   To me every loss has one thing in common if I can remember correctly....it’s the receivers either not getting open or dropping easy passes. So therefore  I think the answer is our wide receivers are actually catching the ball when thrown to and maybe that can be attributed to a few different things such as learning the play book, or for the younger guys the game slowing down for them and getting more experience. 

  Or maybe it’s something else entirely. It could be that our coaches better understand their players and can use them better. It’s crazy though because the team to me doesn’t look night and day different. It’s little things like a stupid offsides penalty here, a holding penalty there, a dropped pass on 3rd and 6.....little stuff like that has killed us all year.

 

 I guess it goes to show that it really is a game of inches and the smallest things can be the difference between a 4-12 team to a 12-4 team and that winning has to be sort of learned.   What do you guys think has been the main reasons for our turn around??

[NorthernBlue]

The receivers have been better, but they still lead the league in drops. There are a number of things I think that have lead to the turnaround.

 

1) The Oline coming together. Only 6 sacks since Jets game. They’ve really allowed the offense to reach greater heights and given us a run game.

2) More creativity to the defensive play calling. First half of the season we seemed quite vanilla, but now Eberflus is mixing in some man coverage and blitzes to confuse offenses and it’s working

3) Emergence of the Dline. Autry is a beast, Lewis and Turay show promise. Sheard is as solid as ever. No stars but there’s depth and they’re playing well. Big boost to the Defense.

4) Health. We were KILLED by injuries in the beginning. Remember that game up in Foxborough? Didn’t have TY, Doyle, Mack, AC, or Leonard. We lost Farley and Slauson for the season that game too. How we only lost that game by 2 scores is beyond me.

 

Those are the biggest reasons I think. Luck (not Andrew) has also somewhat shifted on our side recently.

[Trace Pyott]

9 minutes ago, NorthernBlue said:

The receivers have been better, but they still lead the league in drops. There are a number of things I think that have lead to the turnaround.

 

1) The Oline coming together. Only 6 sacks since Jets game. They’ve really allowed the offense to reach greater heights and given us a run game.

2) More creativity to the defensive play calling. First half of the season we seemed quite vanilla, but now Eberflus is mixing in some man coverage and blitzes to confuse offenses and it’s working

3) Emergence of the Dline. Autry is a beast, Lewis and Turay show promise. Sheard is as solid as ever. No stars but there’s depth and they’re playing well. Big boost to the Defense.

4) Health. We were KILLED by injuries in the beginning. Remember that game up in Foxborough? Didn’t have TY, Doyle, Mack, AC, or Leonard. We lost Farley and Slauson for the season that game too. How we only lost that game by 2 scores is beyond me.

 

Those are the biggest reasons I think. Luck (not Andrew) has also somewhat shifted on our side recently.

Good points. What do you think the reasons are for our o line getting better?  Is it just that they had continuity and a chance to get to know one another’s tendencies?   This could prob be another topic but does anyone know which team is thought of historically as having the best offensive line ever and what was their over all success as a team?  

[2006Coltsbestever]

41 minutes ago, Trace Pyott said:

Good points. What do you think the reasons are for our o line getting better?  Is it just that they had continuity and a chance to get to know one another’s tendencies?   This could prob be another topic but does anyone know which team is thought of historically as having the best offensive line ever and what was their over all success as a team?  

To me the 1995 Cowboys had the Greatest O.Line ever:

Eric Williams RT

Larry Allen RG

Ray Donaldson C

Nate Newton LG

Mark Tuinei LT

 

-Cowboys won the SB that season.

[Yoshinator]

46 minutes ago, Trace Pyott said:

Good points. What do you think the reasons are for our o line getting better?  Is it just that they had continuity and a chance to get to know one another’s tendencies?   This could prob be another topic but does anyone know which team is thought of historically as having the best offensive line ever and what was their over all success as a team?  

It was a combination of moving Braden Smith to RT, getting Costanzo back after the first month, and signing Glowinski and using him at RG. Nelson and Kelly were consistently good all year when they played. We had to get Constanzo back (and Kelly late), and figure out the right side. Now that we have our full O-Line, they are nearly unstoppable together, which is a big reason I hope we re-sign Glowinski to a long-term deal.

[pacolts56]

15 minutes ago, Trace Pyott said:

Good points. What do you think the reasons are for our o line getting better?  Is it just that they had continuity and a chance to get to know one another’s tendencies?   This could prob be another topic but does anyone know which team is thought of historically as having the best offensive line ever and what was their over all success as a team?  

To answer your “historical” question.... that could go in several directions.

 

I know that the Redskins collection of “Hogs”.... the Raiders OL, and of course the Steelers OLs of the 70s .... as well as the Cowboys of the early-mid 90s. And I’m sure there are others.... but these great OLs were huge pieces of the puzzle for those Super Bowl champions.

[2006Coltsbestever]

4 minutes ago, pacolts56 said:

To answer your “historical” question.... that could go in several directions.

 

I know that the Redskins collection of “Hogs”.... the Raiders OL, and of course the Steelers OLs of the 70s .... as well as the Cowboys of the early-mid 90s. And I’m sure there are others.... but these great OLs were huge pieces of the puzzle for those Super Bowl champions.

The Hogs in 1991 are way up there, I agree. Jacoby was the man!

[ColtsBlueFL]

2 hours ago, Trace Pyott said:

 I guess it goes to show that it really is a game of inches and the smallest things can be the difference between a 4-12 team to a 12-4 team and that winning has to be sort of learned.  

 

That is the goal of the NFL, and they refer to it as 'Competitive Balance'. (Not Parity)

 

This team is confident (Colture!) and 'finishes' much better now.

[SteelCityColt]

18 minutes ago, ColtsBlueFL said:

 

That is the goal of the NFL, and they refer to it as 'Competitive Balance'. (Not Parity)

 

This team is confident (Colture!) and 'finishes' much better now.

 

I think we see it more in the consistency of teams going from bottom to playoffs year to year. 

 

To even get to the NFL you must have talent and it really is small margins or occurances (injuries!) that can make large differences to the outcomes. 

 

Also refs have too much influence on games with interpretational calls. DPI is a huge game changer at times.  

[csmopar]

Injuries come backs aside, I think it’s the players gelling and trusting each other. Knowing who’s gonna be where subconsciously. Plus we had a LOT of starting rookies and 2nd year players on both sides, especially on D. The game has slowed down somewhat for them. It’s like anything, practice and more practice improves results. 

[LockeDown]

We had the talent on Oline when we were losing and now we have confidence and experience . I think this group isn’t afraid of anyone. 

[Dingus McGirt]

Going for the win in the first Houston game...

[coltsva]

Continuity and health on the Oline and pressure from the Dline.

[HarryTheCat]

2 hours ago, pacolts56 said:

To answer your “historical” question.... that could go in several directions.

 

I know that the Redskins collection of “Hogs”.... the Raiders OL, and of course the Steelers OLs of the 70s .... as well as the Cowboys of the early-mid 90s. And I’m sure there are others.... but these great OLs were huge pieces of the puzzle for those Super Bowl champions.

I watched that 70s-vintage Raiders O-line from a seat in the second deck, and it was truly awesome, but I think this Colts O-line is even better than what the Raiders had. It's hard to compare this era to the 70s, where the great O-lineman of that day might have weighed only about 255-260, and they didn't live in the weight rooms in the offseason like they do today. Gene Upshaw (LG) and Art Shell (LT) are in the HOF, and Jim Otto (C) probably should be there too. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see at least a couple of these current Colts go into the HOF someday in the future too. And some other grandpa will be telling his grandchildren, "I saw them play".

[Lucky Colts Fan]

[Trace Pyott]

You know I totally forgot didn’t Ac miss a lot of the beginning of the season?  It seemed like once he came back our team started playing much much better. You know years ago I would of said the key to being good in the nfl is skill players like qb and wide receiver but now after seeing this team I’m starting to think maybe the nfl cheat code is to use every resource to get an pro bowl level guy or all pro at every position on your o line and get a stud rb and good defense and just hand the ball off and maul them for 4.5 yards a carry. It’s like they know what you are going to do but they are children going against men and we all know the men win that matchup. This team has really opened my eyes.  The question is, if another Nelson was attainable in this years draft would you take him with our 1st and have two maulers at both guard positions?

[Scott Pennock]

Two things...

 

1. The close losses to the Bengals, Eagles and Texans galvanized them...

 

2. The defense started trusting in one another and that each level could trust that the one behind is in the right spot...

[chad72]

O-line, the top 2 out of 3 rookie OL in the entire league are on the Colts:

 

 

[CR91]

Well one thing is, We didn't have AC for I believe the first three games. No one seems to understand how important AC is. Another thing is, we're finishing games. If you look at the bengals texans and eagles games, we didnt finish.

[zibby43]

1. Experience for all of the young players on both sides of the ball (Leonard, Hines, Nelson, Smith, Wilkins, Turay, etc.).

 

2. Health (Getting AC back, Luck's arm strength improvement, getting Lewis back, getting Hooker back up to speed, etc.).

 

 

[MB-ColtsFan]

Agree about AC returning as being a major factor for the OLine.  Also, Andrew stopped throwing as many really questionable (okay, some were really dumb)  interceptions.

One factor I really think helped us that the D finally stopped extending drives.  How many of those early games did they string together PI calls on 3rd and long?

It was extremely frustrating to watch, but they finally figured it out.

[coltsnation]

The players only meeting after the jets game.  Also obvious ones like health, experience, and overall defense.