State of the Colts...

[Fisticuffs111]

Yeah, I was also not huge on our draft this year. There's definitely potential, but I never thought guys like Rock or Banogu were gonna light it up immediately. And I thought it was interesting doubling up on LBer drafting both Speed and Okereke. Potentially good depth though, so no big problem there.

Willis has pleasantly surprised me though, potential future starting SS there.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

Ballard needs to sign a couple FA next season on defense. 

[Fisticuffs111]

One thing that's interesting, by all accounts our DL handled our OL in training camp. That's all we heard about on the trenches front. 

Makes you wonder...did our DL do well because they knew what to expect against our offense? I doubt it's that simple but still. Guys like Autry, Hunt, Lewis, Turay, even Banogu were names I remember being frequently mentioned.

I do remember that last year our DL, specifically Autry and Hunt, did really well when we lined them up on either side of the opposing teams center and attacked those gaps. Several games they'd show replays and talk about it. I wonder if that's been a big emphasis for teams to figure out.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

I am tired of players and coaches just saying we didn’t hit our gaps and stuff like that. When are coaches going to stop and realize it’s the players aren’t good enough or the scheme is bad.

[lennymoore24]

I think we watch the Colts with blinders on.  The offense has no explosion because that is not the player Brissett is.  Brissett is a dink and dunk, low risk QB.  Sure there were drops today.  The defense was horrible.  Brissett has inflated stats.  He didn't play well.  There is really chunk plays.  I am telling you right now, by the end of the year many of you will be calling for a new QB or hoping Luck comes back.  Brissett is David Garrard.  Look up his one good season.

[Rackeen305]

6 hours ago, coltfaninnewyork said:

I think we are a 8-8 team ,Ballard has work to do 

Because we all saw Luck retiring 2 weeks before the start of the season?

[csmopar]

2 hours ago, Moosejawcolt said:

Why??

 

2001, we had hall of famer Marvin Harrison, future HoFs in Peyton and were coming off one of the best years in Colts history, at the time., 10-6 

 

What happened? The wheels fell off and we went 6-10.  

 

My point is, even with the best team, stuff can and will happen. Patience 

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

44 minutes ago, lennymoore24 said:

I think we watch the Colts with blinders on.  The offense has no explosion because that is not the player Brissett is.  Brissett is a dink and dunk, low risk QB.  Sure there were drops today.  The defense was horrible.  Brissett has inflated stats.  He didn't play well.  There is really chunk plays.  I am telling you right now, by the end of the year many of you will be calling for a new QB or hoping Luck comes back.  Brissett is David Garrard.  Look up his one good season.

David Carr was also dink and dunk. Don’t underestimate not having your two best  WR. 

[John Hammonds]

8 hours ago, Chloe6124 said:

I am disappointed in Reich when he seen how bad the WR were that he stayed so vanilla and didn’t do any scheming to help them out. What happened to all the stuff Parris did at Osu that he could be implementing while learning the position.

I can remember (without researching) three plays that we ran for Parris that capitalized on his OSU stuff.  One was a receiver screen to the left that the Raiders sniffed out quickly, and stopped for like a 2 yard gain.  One was an underneath crossing route against man coverage that Parris exploited for like a 15 yard gain.  And one was an underneath route that resulted in like a 12 yard gain and a fumble.

The catch for running the OSU stuff is that it requires man underneath coverage, or it doesn't work.

[CoachLite]

One of my criticisms of Pagano was he didn't actively develop rookies faster. He just focused his efforts on (what he thought was) his starters. Bad idea. We need a better program to integrate rookies and newbies into a winning scheme faster and more effectively. I think the old concept of first string … third string is antiquated. There are different player packages with different strengths and weaknesses. One weakness is in not having these packages being prepared for a competitive NFL portfolio of games. Don't make the Pagano mistake.

[lollygagger8]

I hate to admit this, but......

 

Kinda felt like a Pagano game yesterday. 

[Lucky Colts Fan]

13 hours ago, indyagent17 said:

The fan base is not soft but you have to call crap fest a crap fest.

 

Well, I've been trying to keep my mouth shut, but if you insist...  This forum is a crap fest after a loss.

 

The "fans" that run to the front of the line to get their blue foam #1 finger and faces painted blue after a win are some of the same "fans" that run to the front of the line to get their torch and pitchfork after a loss.

 

It's disgraceful fairweather spoiled soft behavior.

[HeSoColt]

I think we need to take the Colts for what we are... they are going to hover around .500 and lose some game they should win. This is a young team, with alot of injuries right now. 

 

Relax folks!

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

1 hour ago, lollygagger8 said:

I hate to admit this, but......

 

Kinda felt like a Pagano game yesterday. 

It did. Reichs offensive game plan was so predictable.

[ClaytonColt]

I kinda feel okay with where we are. I expected a worse start than 0.500 tbh so I'm pleasantly surprised in reality.

 

I think that a lot of the disappointment on the forum comes from people who have no middle ground.

 

A month ago there were people who expected JB to be like Dak or Brady. People complementing our stable of offensive weapons. People comparing our defense to the 85 Bears. 

 

Now reality is striking there's a depression setting in that rather than these All-World superstars we are pretty much just middle of the road.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

Turay again only had thirteen snaps. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because of their run game.

[indyagent17]

1 hour ago, Chloe6124 said:

It did. Reichs offensive game plan was so predictable.

I was thinking the same thing, Frank was outcoached today by a long shot 

[JR Indy]

The problem with the Colts Defense is how the Defensive Line is constructed. You can not win a HEAVYWEIGHT FIGHT with lightweight players. The Colts got rid of their heavier DT’s, in order to get faster. But this has backfired badly, because that type of line opens our LB’s and Safeties up for injuries 

[DerekDiggler]

12 hours ago, CoachLite said:

One of my criticisms of Pagano was he didn't actively develop rookies faster. He just focused his efforts on (what he thought was) his starters. Bad idea. We need a better program to integrate rookies and newbies into a winning scheme faster and more effectively. I think the old concept of first string … third string is antiquated. There are different player packages with different strengths and weaknesses. One weakness is in not having these packages being prepared for a competitive NFL portfolio of games. Don't make the Pagano mistake.

He was spot on with Quincy Wilson though. He sucks and therefore didn’t play.     This coming from someone that couldn’t stand Pagano. At least he was right about something 

[Freenyfan102]

On 9/29/2019 at 6:00 PM, Moosejawcolt said:

 I love what he is doing on offense. He wants to limit the defensive snaps as they r a fast and lighter on the D side of the ball.

That the problem with this stupid team defense. We seen this before with the colts going Lighter and faster Defense. Higher injuries and get pushed around by bigger men on offense. The colt defense is Insanity.

[Nickster]

On 9/29/2019 at 9:36 PM, EastStreet said:

Both offenses rely on a lot of short passes, so no mystery there. Gruden just picked on the right areas. And it's not like Carr had a lot of yards. The running is probably what truly beat us. And one of the weaknesses of a cover 2 is vs the run. But really, nothing too out of the norm in terms of our D vs their O. Having Hooker and Leonard would have likely impacted the score by 7.

 

I know you don't like to hear it, but Gruden game planned more on D than anything else. And all teams will as long as it works. Teams will continue to stack vs our run, with a decent amount of blitzing. They also play their DBs shallow to congest the lanes (making it hard on our WRs/TEs). That means they respect your run, and don't respect your QB. 

 

This is exactly what will continue to happen as long as JB continues to fail to read and react downfield.  He is like Trubisky.  Slow to react.  When he went down the O immediately looked better with journeyman Daniel looking downfield a little against a good D.

 

Its only going to get worse unless JB gets better.  Last week he was pretty good, but even then it’s schemes open 1st read stuff.

 

The D was never great, but losing Malik is devastating.  Thought the pass rush would be decent, it was for 2 games and has now disappeared.

 

can talk till blue in the face about scheme, aggressiveness, etc. but nothin defensively work In the NFL without a rush.

[krunk]

On 9/29/2019 at 8:00 PM, EastStreet said:

You're blaming everyone but JB. He had a bad game too. Funch had in 20% drop rate in his limited time so while you blast everyone else for poor stats, you think he would have made a huge difference? That's comical.

 

We pay almost more than anyone on TE, and have two high paid guys. TEs are big guys in the middle. And Pascal played the outside pretty decent. You act like every pass JB threw was perfect and that is far from the truth. Keep banging that drum.

When did Funch drop a single pass with the Colts?  He only played one game and as far as I remember he caught everything thrown his way.   Where do you get the 20 percent drop rate from?  Actually I remember maybe one near the goal line on a back shoulder that was kind of hard but that's about it. 

[EastStreet]

10 hours ago, krunk said:

When did Funch drop a single pass with the Colts?  He only played one game and as far as I remember he caught everything thrown his way.   Where do you get the 20 percent drop rate from?  Actually I remember maybe one near the goal line on a back shoulder that was kind of hard but that's about it. 

 

He dropped one first game. He was targeted 5 times. 1/5 = 20%

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/stats?season=2019&week=100&category=RECEIVING&opp=0&sort=10&qualified=0&sortOrder=0&page=2

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

This is a great article. Seems we weren’t correct in a vanilla system.

 

 

[EastStreet]

14 hours ago, Nickster said:

 

This is exactly what will continue to happen as long as JB continues to fail to read and react downfield.  He is like Trubisky.  Slow to react.  When he went down the O immediately looked better with journeyman Daniel looking downfield a little against a good D.

 

Its only going to get worse unless JB gets better.  Last week he was pretty good, but even then it’s schemes open 1st read stuff.

 

The D was never great, but losing Malik is devastating.  Thought the pass rush would be decent, it was for 2 games and has now disappeared.

 

can talk till blue in the face about scheme, aggressiveness, etc. but nothin defensively work In the NFL without a rush.

 

Yup. Teams have a blueprint now to defend us. It's going to make things tough on the running game. I'm sure Reich realizes it. Honestly, if a QB struggles with read progressions, it's not the kind of thing they can improve quickly. I don't want to say it's a natural gift, but it's not easily learned either (at least at this stage in one's career). 

 

On today's NFL Live, they showed the updated odds of the Colts vs each of the their remaining opponents. The crew picked us to go 8-8. They had the Jags winning the AFCS, and Houston coming in 2nd (potential WC).

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

5 minutes ago, EastStreet said:

 

Yup. Teams have a blueprint now to defend us. It's going to make things tough on the running game. I'm sure Reich realizes it. Honestly, if a QB struggles with read progressions, it's not the kind of thing they can improve quickly. I don't want to say it's a natural gift, but it's not easily learned either (at least at this stage in one's career). 

 

On today's NFL Live, they showed the updated odds of the Colts vs each of the their remaining opponents. The crew picked us to go 8-8. They had the Jags winning the AFCS, and Houston coming in 2nd (potential WC).

Atlanta did the same thing. The difference against Oakland is we had no TY and dropped balls. I really don’t care what espn guys say. They are just going off the game Sunday. We beat KC and we will be great again. 

[Imgrandojji]

On 9/29/2019 at 11:08 PM, Fisticuffs111 said:

One thing that's interesting, by all accounts our DL handled our OL in training camp. That's all we heard about on the trenches front. 

Makes you wonder...did our DL do well because they knew what to expect against our offense? I doubt it's that simple but still. Guys like Autry, Hunt, Lewis, Turay, even Banogu were names I remember being frequently mentioned.

I do remember that last year our DL, specifically Autry and Hunt, did really well when we lined them up on either side of the opposing teams center and attacked those gaps. Several games they'd show replays and talk about it. I wonder if that's been a big emphasis for teams to figure out.

Eh.  I don't think DL is our actual big issue. We're a little dinged up at LB, and weren't that deep there to begin with, thus the 4-3 defense.  Attrition there is what's really hurting us right now

 

IMHO the weakness at LB is exposing our DL a bit.  In a 4-3 you're counting on your LB to punch above their weight a bit and without Leonard out there that's kind of not happening.  Since LB do a bit of everything a compromised linebacker corps tends to show up in the areas of the field LBs support the most.  In this case we're missing our best pass rushing LB and it's exposing the DL a bit.

[EastStreet]

37 minutes ago, Chloe6124 said:

Atlanta did the same thing. The difference against Oakland is we had no TY and dropped balls. I really don’t care what espn guys say. They are just going off the game Sunday. We beat KC and we will be great again. 

 

Problem is, both ATL and the Raiders are both bad teams. And we barely beat ATL at home with TY.

 

I don't really care about talking heads in general, but I think 8-8 is fair. I would not be surprised at anything in the range of 6-10 to 10-6.

[2006Coltsbestever]

17 minutes ago, EastStreet said:

 

Problem is, both ATL and the Raiders are both bad teams. And we barely beat ATL at home with TY.

 

I don't really care about talking heads in general, but I think 8-8 is fair. I would not be surprised at anything in the range of 6-10 to 10-6.

After we lost Luck I picked us to go 8-8. With Luck I had 11-5. I disagree though that Atlanta is a bad team. They have a very good QB and have a dangerous offense. It seems like everytime we beat someone, a lot of the forum always says it was because the other team was bad. Tennessee isn't bad either IMO and we won that game on the road. Half the forum picked Atlanta and Tennessee to beat us if you go back and look at those game threads. So apparently neither is bad in reality.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

34 minutes ago, EastStreet said:

 

Problem is, both ATL and the Raiders are both bad teams. And we barely beat ATL at home with TY.

 

I don't really care about talking heads in general, but I think 8-8 is fair. I would not be surprised at anything in the range of 6-10 to 10-6.

Just like we aren’t as bad as we looked Sunday the raiders aren’t as bad as you think.

[EastStreet]

1 minute ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

After we lost Luck I picked us to go 8-8. With Luck I had 11-5. I disagree though that Atlanta is a bad team. They have a very good QB and have a dangerous offense. It seems like everytime we beat someone, a lot of the forum always says it was because the other team was bad. Tennessee isn't bad either IMO and we won that game on the road. Half the forum picked Atlanta and Tennessee to beat us if you go back and look at those game threads. So apparently neither is bad in reality.

 

ATL is a bad team in reality. I thought they might be a little better this year, but they aren't.  I watch them a lot (they are on local TV every week). They have a good (but inconsistent) QB, a great WR, but after that, very mediocre. And they have one of the worst OLs in the league. The have a couple nice pieces on D (Grady is great), but overall pretty bad.

 

Full disclosure, I had us 2-2 at this point, but I had us losing to TN and beating the Raiders. Truth is, we've played 4 mediocre to bad teams, and we're 2-2. I don't see any of those teams making the playoffs, do you?

[2006Coltsbestever]

1 minute ago, EastStreet said:

 

ATL is a bad team in reality. I thought they might be a little better this year, but they aren't.  I watch them a lot (they are on local TV every week). They have a good (but inconsistent) QB, a great WR, but after that, very mediocre. And they have one of the worst OLs in the league. The have a couple nice pieces on D (Grady is great), but overall pretty bad.

 

Full disclosure, I had us 2-2 at this point, but I had us losing to TN and beating the Raiders. Truth is, we've played 4 mediocre to bad teams, and we're 2-2. I don't see any of those teams making the playoffs, do you?

I see the Chargers making the playoffs easily as a WCard and we lost to them in OT because of missed kicks. We played them evenly and I am not counting Atlanta out yet. We beat Tennessee on the road as an underdog as well.

[EastStreet]

9 minutes ago, Chloe6124 said:

Just like we aren’t as bad as we looked Sunday the raiders aren’t as bad as you think.

The raiders are bad. I do agree we are better than we looked last week.

[EastStreet]

3 minutes ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

I see the Chargers making the playoffs easily as a WCard and we lost to them in OT because of missed kicks. We played them evenly and I am not counting Atlanta out yet. We beat Tennessee on the road as an underdog as well.

 

Take a look at LAC's schedule. I don't see them being any better than 8-8. I could actually see them 6-10.

[2006Coltsbestever]

1 minute ago, EastStreet said:

 

Take a look at LAC's schedule. I don't see them being any better than 8-8. I could actually see them 6-10.

I still have them going 10-6. Rivers usually starts slow and Gordon is back now. I bet that will be one of KC's losses as well.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

Chargers have a couple game stretch here where they can gain confidence. I was really surprised at how long they left Miami in that game. They didn’t put them away until the third or fourth quarter.

[CanuckColtsFan]

This is a young team. They are 2 and 2. I can see 3 and 3 in the next 3 weeks. At that point we could be tied for 1st in the div. From there  maybe the young team gels. Maybe Funchess gets back week 8. If we go 6 and 4 the last 10 games I think we get in the playoffs. 

[IndyScribe]

On 9/29/2019 at 11:00 PM, Fisticuffs111 said:

Yeah, I was also not huge on our draft this year. There's definitely potential, but I never thought guys like Rock or Banogu were gonna light it up immediately. And I thought it was interesting doubling up on LBer drafting both Speed and Okereke. Potentially good depth though, so no big problem there.

Willis has pleasantly surprised me though, potential future starting SS there.

I think that was the point there. You were never going to find am impact player at where we drafted.