Anthony Walker

[Colt Overseas]

 

Although PFF grades should be taken with a grain of salt, for them to grade AW as the worst performing LB in the league is quite.. surprising.

 

I know himself and Leonard have not been at their best, but I must admit, I didnt notice Walker playing really terrible (according to PFF). He is also a locker room leader.

 

What are people's taughts of AW? Should we be considering starting Okereke? 

[NorthernColt]

He was great last year. I think he's earned the benefit of the doubt to give him a bit of time to figure it out. But if Okereke plays well this week with Leonard out, the pressure will be on Walker for sure.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

It’s ridiculous. He has played pretty well.

[Coffeedrinker]

It was more noticable in the Titans game, especially in the 2nd half, but Oke played some significant snaps on passing downs.

 

I'm not 100% sure how PFF calculates missed tackles, but in the Colts scheme it's more gap oriented so he may have hit his gap and PFF thinks he hit the wrong gap and thus it's a missed tackle.

 

That being said, I'm a huge Walker fan but so far he has not been playing as fast as last year, I don't know if he's thinking too much or trying to do too much, but he was as big a reason for the Colts run defense last year and anyone else and this year he doesn't seem to have it yet.

[Defjamz26]

Always take PFF with a grain of salt. Let’s see what he does against Atlanta. With Leonard out, he’ll really be under the microscope.

[coltsfeva]

   I wonder how equitable those stats are. For instance, if he gets in position to make more plays than other LBs on the list, but has a bad angle or gets blindsided, that could effect the grade. 

   From what I’ve seen, he’s a solid tackler and is around the ball a lot.

[coltfaninnewyork]

Hope he steps up Game we need him this Sunday .Go Colts !!

[ColtStrong2013]

18 hours ago, Colt Overseas said:

 

Although PFF grades should be taken with a grain of salt, for them to grade AW as the worst performing LB in the league is quite.. surprising.

 

I know himself and Leonard have not been at their best, but I must admit, I didnt notice Walker playing really terrible (according to PFF). He is also a locker room leader.

 

What are people's taughts of AW? Should we be considering starting Okereke? 

 

He's made some plays, but I definitely noticed mistakes and missed tackles against the Chargers. Some of those big runs were solely on Walker. 

 

He needs to step up this week. If okereke plays well, Walker could find himself playing fewer and fewer snaps once Leonard returns. 

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

28 minutes ago, ColtStrong2013 said:

 

He's made some plays, but I definitely noticed mistakes and missed tackles against the Chargers. Some of those big runs were solely on Walker. 

 

He needs to step up this week. If okereke plays well, Walker could find himself playing fewer and fewer snaps once Leonard returns. 

Take that chargers game out because a lot of players missed tackles. Leonard missed one that caused the TD.

[LuckyHorseShoe§]

Has anyone not named Autry played well on defense so far? Give the unit time before we launch any of them into the sun. I don’t think Desir or Kenny played well so far either, but I still have faith in them.

[B~Town]

50 minutes ago, LuckyHorseShoe§ said:

Has anyone not named Autry played well on defense so far? Give the unit time before we launch any of them into the sun. I don’t think Desir or Kenny played well so far either, but I still have faith in them.

It took untill week 6 for our d to gel really was hoping it would not be a trend that continues.  

[richard pallo]

As Gaethers is quickly finding out there are some very good backups behind some of our current starters.  If Okereke balls out we might find ourselves with two new starters in a few weeks.  Willis and Okereke. 

[EastStreet]

I honestly don't remember Walker looking that bad, but you can't discount "last" even if the stats aren't 100%. I've noticed Leonard looking bad more than anything else, even with 10 Ts last weekend. Okereke has had some big whiffs too. Overall, LB as a whole has a lot of room for improvement.

 

BUT.....

 

What I have noticed is that they've had a lot of different looks this year at LB. They played the SAM (Adams) a lot more this year (33% game 1 and 40% game 2), so I think Eberflus is toying with the sets a decent amount which means learning new packages, etc.. Opening up the playbook a little I guess.

[Moosejawcolt]

8 hours ago, ColtStrong2013 said:

 

He's made some plays, but I definitely noticed mistakes and missed tackles against the Chargers. Some of those big runs were solely on Walker. 

 

He needs to step up this week. If okereke plays well, Walker could find himself playing fewer and fewer snaps once Leonard returns. 

I just dont think it is just Walker who has to look over his shoulder.  To me Speed and Okereke have some very appealing traits.  Moving forward I would not b surprised to c these 2 being our starting linebackers.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

With no preseason games tackling hasn’t been the best. When you rely on gaps and speed you can see why it might take a couple games to get back into to. For all the Leonard hasn’t played great he is still on pace to have about the same amount of tackles as last year. 

[ColtStrong2013]

15 minutes ago, Moosejawcolt said:

I just dont think it is just Walker who has to look over his shoulder.  To me Speed and Okereke have some very appealing traits.  Moving forward I would not b surprised to c these 2 being our starting linebackers.

 

I could see Leonard, Speed and Okereke as our main backers. That's a lot of... speed. 

[shasta519]

Not that surprising he has graded low...I have never been high on him...but lowest grade is a bit jarring.

 

Low coverage grades aren’t a shock...it’s not his game. But I am surprised he has missed that many tackles (if that stat is correct)...that’s typically what he does well.

 

On the LB group overall (and this mostly applies to Leonard)...but I have seen a lot of hand swatting at the ball.

[ty4atd]

Last season he was a good run defender so I expect that to improve but he was constantly torched by RBs and TEs in the pass game.

[dodsworth]

I'm gonna wait until the defense gels 5 games in before I give a trusted defender any negativity.

 

Who really knows if some of his bad plays are because of overcompesating for our other new defenders miscues?

[waka waka]

On 9/20/2019 at 1:28 PM, Chloe6124 said:

It’s ridiculous. He has played pretty well.

Yeah I didn't think he was bad last week. But the first week they all looked like they were not ready for the season to start.

[Mr.NotSoCreative]

Dont really care what his grade was or played past couple of weeks. We really need him to play like a beast tomorrow. This LB core knows they are down their leader so time to step up.

[jameszeigler834]

On 9/20/2019 at 2:32 PM, Coffeedrinker said:

It was more noticable in the Titans game, especially in the 2nd half, but Oke played some significant snaps on passing downs.

 

I'm not 100% sure how PFF calculates missed tackles, but in the Colts scheme it's more gap oriented so he may have hit his gap and PFF thinks he hit the wrong gap and thus it's a missed tackle.

 

That being said, I'm a huge Walker fan but so far he has not been playing as fast as last year, I don't know if he's thinking too much or trying to do too much, but he was as big a reason for the Colts run defense last year and anyone else and this year he doesn't seem to have it yet.

He is good against the run most of the time but he sucks in coverage.

[Imgrandojji]

SSS

 

Everyone, I hear a snake.  it says SSS.

 

(for the non-insane, I'm saying 2 games is a Small Sample Size for football analytics. Small samples lead to disproportionate or inaccurate results)

[colt18]

Our line backers are going to be iffy this week. I don’t see them playing as well without Leonard.

 

Kinda shocked that some of you are downplaying his value to this defense but then again some of you don’t understand football forreal...smh

[DerekDiggler]

On 9/20/2019 at 2:28 PM, Chloe6124 said:

It’s ridiculous. He has played pretty well.

No he didn’t  stop being a homer!!!!

[DerekDiggler]

5 hours ago, Moosejawcolt said:

I just dont think it is just Walker who has to look over his shoulder.  To me Speed and Okereke have some very appealing traits.  Moving forward I would not b surprised to c these 2 being our starting linebackers.

We basically only play 2 LB Do you think one of them is beating out Leonard?

 

not happening 

[ty4atd]

If Orekeke or Speed can play well this week next to Walker especially in coverage then Walker might need a move to Sam and come off in our nickle package.

[compuls1v3]

On 9/20/2019 at 12:32 PM, Coffeedrinker said:

It was more noticable in the Titans game, especially in the 2nd half, but Oke played some significant snaps on passing downs.

 

I'm not 100% sure how PFF calculates missed tackles, but in the Colts scheme it's more gap oriented so he may have hit his gap and PFF thinks he hit the wrong gap and thus it's a missed tackle.

 

That being said, I'm a huge Walker fan but so far he has not been playing as fast as last year, I don't know if he's thinking too much or trying to do too much, but he was as big a reason for the Colts run defense last year and anyone else and this year he doesn't seem to have it yet.

I could be wrong, but I think he started slow last year as well.  It will come.  Our defense will shine this game.  Opening day they will be pumped!!

[Moosejawcolt]

33 minutes ago, DerekDiggler said:

We basically only play 2 LB Do you think one of them is beating out Leonard?

 

not happening 

We shall c

33 minutes ago, DerekDiggler said:

We basically only play 2 LB Do you think one of them is beating out Leonard?

 

not happening 

We shall c

[compuls1v3]

He had one heck of  day today. 14 solid tackles!

[MB-ColtsFan]

12 minutes ago, compuls1v3 said:

He had one heck of  day today. 14 solid tackles!

Yeah, he was a bit of a force out there today.

Okereke didn't have a bad game either.  He was around the action a lot.  6 tackles and 2 assists is not a bad day.  No one was particularly good in pass defense today, but I'll try to look at the film later this week.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

Wow that is great. OKereke held his own and looked great at times.

[Imgrandojji]

It's a little reminiscent of last year's AFCCG.  The defense kept the opposing quarterback off balance long enough to amass a 3 score lead, then the opposing quarterback was able to get in the game and make a comeback.

 

The difference is, unlike the Pats giving up the lead to Mahomes, we never lost the lead to Ryan.

 

But just like that game, if the D doesn't do what it did in the first half, we don't win.  So they got gashed by the end, but they still did a lot of good to keep Ryan quiet as long as they did.

 

This team is mentally tough.  We've already fought 3 teams that could wind up being playoff auditions, won 2 and lost 1 by a coin flip.

 

This could be a special year.

[lollygagger8]

I still don't understand how PFF even gets listened to.