Why Did the Chargers Have Our Number During the Manning Era?

[tucky89]

The 06 team was very lucky not to get them. Let's be honest: We likely don't win the SB if we play them. Including the 07 & 08 playoffs, why did we always struggle against them? They gave Manning fits.

 

Btw, Merry Christmas to y'all.

[Lucky Colts Fan]

21 minutes ago, tucky89 said:

We likely don't win the SB if we play them.

 

We likely were supposed to be one-and-done in the playoffs in '06 with the worst run-defense to ever make the playoffs...

 

We beat the Chiefs, Ravens, and Pats.  We would have beat the Chargers playing like we did.

 

We would have beat any team we lined up against the way we played during that SB run.

 

 

[BOTT]

Having a more talented roster had something to do with it. And Darren Sproles........

[Shive]

I think they just matched up very well  against our personnel and schemes. Some teams just have other teams' numbers and the Chargers during that time always had ours. I remember them having pretty shaky teams a few years where we should have crushed them, but they just handled us.

[AwesomeAustin]

I catch hell all the time bc I’m I huge University of Tennessee fan.  I was never impressed with Manning during big games. He could never beat Florida and the year after he leaves we win the national championship.  However, he was just part of the reason.  The colts teams were built to win in the regular season and in the playoffs everything slows down.  You are playing against good offenses and defenses every week and weaknesses are exploited.  I felt our defenses could not stop anyone and our finesse offense would get pushed around. 

[Shive]

3 minutes ago, BOTT said:

Having a more talented roster had something to do with it. And Darren Sproles........

Sproles was a big part of it, mainly because he was the type of player that could shred our Tampa 2.

 

It was also their defense too. I remember Cromartie feasting on Manning INTs. They just knew how to rattle him, give us really good looks in coverage, and shut down the most talented portion of our roster.

[Boiler_Colt]

7 minutes ago, BOTT said:

Having a more talented roster had something to do with it. And Darren Sproles........

Yep, Cromartie when he had a normal number of children and Merriman when he had the good juice.

[#12.]

Some of it was luck.  In one game, we were 12-4, had to play an 8-8 team on the road and essentially lost a game to a punter.

 

We might have had trouble against them, but we went to two Super Bowls, winning one, while they did nothing.  

[Pelt]

It's kinda like how we always seem to have KC's number.

[IinD]

They were stacked back then. Tomlinson, Merriman was a beast, Sproles, Castillo on D was solid as well. I don't remember his name, but they always had literally a 350lb NT who would always clog that middle.

 

Decent CB's with Jammer/Cromartie out there as well.

[chad72]

I can go down a laundry list of reasons why we did not match up well vs Chargers:

 

1. Their tall wide outs and us not playing press coverage with our smaller CBs allowed Vincent Jackson and Malcom Floyd to roam free for completions inside our zones. We never blitzed, even when we had man CBs drafted in Marlin Jackson and Kelvin Hayden, and gave those eternal cushions. We were the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

2. Our special teams - whether it is punt/kick return coverage vs Sproles or pressuring punts vs Scifres, we flat out SUCKED in those areas, thanks Mr. Polian

3.  Shaun Philips and Shawn Merriman on the outside were very good at tipping or disrupting our passes and when you have man CBs like Cromartie and Jammer, and have a pass rush like that, you have to get rid of the ball quickly and we could not run the ball against them while the Patriots could. Peyton could not roll out of the pocket like Luck could to extend plays against them after initial reads were jammed.

4. Plus, our speedy defenders were prone to misdirection that Norv Turner utilized real well against us and our LBs, we did not want to pay our good LBs (Peterson, Thornton etc.) and when I saw Sproles being handled by the Steelers or Patriots LBs with discipline, I always shook my head. Mathis and Freeney would also take themselves out of run plays that teams used to run draw plays against us consistently.

 

A lot of the above reasons were why we did not do well in the playoffs too, IMO. The match ups were bad on offense, defense and special teams vs the Chargers. With the Patriots, we could at least move the ball on offense and get stops on defense at least at home, due to which we matched up OK vs them. We did not use as many 3 heavy TE personnel to run block much against anyone in the Peyton-Dungy era in the playoffs, from my recollection. If our 5 OL could handle the run game fine, we were fine, otherwise our TEs did not contribute heavily on that front. We finally ran the ball well with Addai and Rhodes in our 2006 run but our special teams still sucked (see Ellis Hobbs returns against us in AFCCG) and our zone coverage, if Mathis and Freeney were nullified, still had a shortage of play making possibilities.

 

Our biggest breaks in 2006 were - Patriots taking down the Chargers on the road so that we could host the AFCCG, and Rodney Harrison blowing his knee out vs Titans in their last regular season game and thus allowing Dallas Clark to have a field day against the Patriots without him in the 2006 AFCCG. In 2007, when he came back during the Patriots 18-1 season, his coverage vs Dallas Clark allowed them to win 24-20 against us at the RCA dome. When the Patriots could not pass vs the Chargers in 2007 AFCCG and were turning it over, they deployed those 3 TE sets and continually ran against them to reach the SB. 

 

It also helped drawing 3 one dimensional offenses in the Chiefs, Ravens and Bears en route to the SB. Any type of balanced offense, we struggled against.

[Clem-Dog]

51 minutes ago, Pelt said:

It's kinda like how we always seem to have KC's number.

 

Add BMore and the AFC South

[pacolts56]

One thing that I remember was their ability to collapse the interior line on pass plays and disrupt Manning... who, let’s be honest... became quite pedestrian when flushed out of the pocket.

 

This is EXACTLY why I’m excited about the current edition of the Colts. Not only does Andrew Luck have mobility as a passer and the escapability to run, when necessary.... he now plays behind an O-line that is physically battering their opponents.

 

Neither was the case during the 2006>>> segment of Peyton Manning’s career vs the Chargers.

 

In the coming years.... and maybe even this year.... the Chargers will have to figure out some other way to scheme against us because Andrew Luck playing behind BigQ and company is a completely different animal.

 

And we’re just getting started. 

[NannyMcafee]

The chargers did have our number. But boy did we have a lot of teams numbers. Specifically the broncos.

[ColtsBlitz]

I’m sure it was something like the Bears defense did to Goff to trick him into playing his worst game of the year. Manning likes to hit the middle to deep routes if im remembering correctly. I’m sure the Chargers planned to take anything deep away and make Manning throw underneath, which our offense wasn’t designed for.

 

If you can make a team move away from their biggest strength you create their biggest weakness

[Tsarquise]

Chargers really should have lost both games in 07, and the one in 08. 

[DougDew]

The word at the time was that Manning would struggle more against 34 defenses.  Chargers, Pitt, and NE had 34 defenses.  And they were very talented of course.

[GoColts8818]

They just weren’t a good match up for the Colts.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

4 hours ago, Lucky Colts Fan said:

 

We likely were supposed to be one-and-done in the playoffs in '06 with the worst run-defense to ever make the playoffs...

 

We beat the Chiefs, Ravens, and Pats.  We would have beat the Chargers playing like we did.

 

We would have beat any team we lined up against the way we played during that SB run.

 

 

This. Our defense was so bad. When the playoffs started we played like a new team. Manning had a terrible playoffs in 06. The defense won us that Super Bowl. The only exception might of been that NE game.

[horseshoecrabs]

Match ups Match ups . No matter how you are as a team , certain match ups plays a significate roll in how you fair against teams sometimes.  Our match ups made us struggle against the Chargers .  

[CR91]

Greg manusky imo has given peyton the most fits. Him and romeo creenel

[Matthew Gilbert]

One thing not mentioned above that I always noticed was LB Stephen Cooper. It seemed like he knew Manning like the back of his hand. Every time Manning barked out anything at the line of scrimmage, Cooper would always scream out the right adjustments to his defense every time. I'm not sure if Cooper ever even made a Pro Bowl but I swear he would morph into Ray Lewis when he played against the Colts.

[Smoke317]

Peyton struggled against 3-4 defenses.  Chargers, Pats, Steelers, & Ravens were  very talented on that side of the ball.  They knew to collapse the pocket up the middle and press our receivers to throw Peyton’s timing off.  Plus they’d stand up all of those big line backers & linemen and not let Peyton do what he does best & that’s analyze the defense pre snap and get us in the right call. 

[horseshoecrabs]

Different match ups mean all the world,  sometimes in the NFL That why you can't say if this team loses against  this team that we have had no trouble beating, that we should have no trouble beating the other. 

[Smonroe]

Didn’t they play at least one of those games without LT, and maybe a hurt Rivers?

 

I just remembered their lines beating ours on both sides of the ball.  

[Boiler_Colt]

3 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Didn’t they play at least one of those games without LT, and maybe a hurt Rivers?

 

I just remembered their lines beating ours on both sides of the ball.  

Yep. The Billy Freaking Volek game.

[2006Coltsbestever]

They were a matchup nightmare with their fast LB's playing a 3-4. Sproles killed us too, he was a guy we had no answer for. In 2008 even their Punter was a huge reason why they beat us.

[Pacergeek]

Stupid OT rules. We lost one playoff game because of a coin flip. 

[jskinnz]

Thinking too much into this.

 

1) That they had the Colts # is overstated.  The Colts lost two playoff games by a total of 10 points.

 

2) In 07, the Colts are driving to make it 14-0 but Harrison fumbles.  Two more turnovers doomed their chances - both deep into SD territory.

 

3) In 08, the SD punter had the greatest game ever and constantly pinned Indy way deep.

 

4) Both losses were in the playoffs - i.e. SD was a good team too.

 

There you go - two losses.  One of largely the Colts doing and the other by an all time great game.