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Colts are #1 Defense through 2 weeks


PeterBowman

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https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/defense/table/passing/sort/netYardsPerGame/dir/asc

 

Yes I know it's early and there's a lot that can change and other context but when's the last time Colts fans could say this?

 

Not just #1 based on yardage but #1 by A LOT (by almost 100/ypg

#1 Pass D at 122/ypg

#3(tied)in passing yards per attempt at 6.2(an important stat)

#5 Rush D at 85/ypg

#3(tied) in sacks at 7

 

can they keep this up going forward? who knows, but there's a lot to be encouraged about...now cleaning up the redzone offense and this team could be a force. 

 

 

 

 

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Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

 

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  They were great yesterday.  Ball control is really a key.  Keep their defense on the field with long drives.

 

You're right, very encouraging!

 

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1 minute ago, Smonroe said:

Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

 

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  They were great yesterday.  Ball control is really a key.  Keep their defense on the field with long drives.

 

You're right, very encouraging!

 

That's very true, the O constantly sustaining drives also helps the D as well. Keeps them fresh...That's why football is the ultimate team sport. 

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8 minutes ago, Smonroe said:

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  

 

I generally agree with you, but it's worth noting that Jacksonville outgained Tennessee 480 yards (315 passing, 165 rushing) to 354 while losing 33-30 yesterday. I agree the 241 yards the Jaguars gained against the Colts was misleading, but I also think that Jacksonville having an effective offensive game against Indy may turn out to not be as terrible as many initially thought because the Jaguars offense may be better than anybody expected. 

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3 minutes ago, BeanDiasucci said:

I generally agree with you, but it's worth noting that Jacksonville outgained Tennessee 480 yards (315 passing, 165 rushing) to 354 while losing 33-30 yesterday. I agree the 241 yards the Jaguars gained against the Colts was misleading, but I also think that Jacksonville having an effective offensive game against Indy may turn out to not be as terrible as many initially thought because the Jaguars offense may be better than anybody expected. 

 

We may have to face facts that Minshew is a good QB!  And I agree that the Jags may have a better O than anyone would have guessed.

 

All that said, there were obvious flaws in the D in that game.  Jags receivers were wide open, missed coverages, etc.  The run D was bad in the first half but they fixed that and it stayed fixed.

 

If you want to see something funny, go to the YouTube video where Moss, Ryan, and others were picking the Colts/Vikes game.  I think Ryan said if some undrafted rookie RB is going to run on the Colts, then Cook will run wild.  

 

The four guys picked the Vikings.  Sam Ponder picked the Colts, mostly to go against them.

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I think the entire world underestimated the Jags. And looking back at it, I honestly don't know why. Their offense looks good on paper and people viewed them as the worst in the league for some reason.

  • Minshew is a very effective passer and won Rookie of the Week several times before the front office foolishly benched him to save face for an ugly Foles contract.
  • Their receivers are great with solid depth and a talented rookie.
  • The running game was ineffective with an underwhelming Fournette so its not a huge surprise that they got better with him out of the picture and their rookie tearing it up. 
  • Eifert has always been great when healthy
  • Their offensive line had its struggles last year due to injury but was supposed to be very good. And its showing so far.

Their defense is weaker but did surprise me in some aspects. Mainly how impressed I have been with Henderson immediately making an impact. 

 

I'm starting to feel better about losing a close game to a sneaky good Jags team. 

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7 minutes ago, TheMose said:

I think the entire world underestimated the Jags. And looking back at it, I honestly don't know why. Their offense looks good on paper and people viewed them as the worst in the league for some reason.

  • Minshew is a very effective passer and won Rookie of the Week several times before the front office foolishly benched him to save face for an ugly Foles contract.
  • Their receivers are great with solid depth and a talented rookie.
  • The running game was ineffective with an underwhelming Fournette so its not a huge surprise that they got better with him out of the picture and their rookie tearing it up. 
  • Eifert has always been great when healthy
  • Their offensive line had its struggles last year due to injury but was supposed to be very good. And its showing so far.

Their defense is weaker but did surprise me in some aspects. Mainly how impressed I have been with Henderson immediately making an impact. 

 

I'm starting to feel better about losing a close game to a sneaky good Jags team. 

The GM could prove to be a genius if this works out for them.  If the team is a pretty good team while sitting with the most salary cap space in 2021.  They have Their 1st and 2nd round picks next draft.  They also have the Rams 1st round pick and the Vikings 2nd round pick.  

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Will Rock be ok against the Jets this next week? That really caught me off guard that he got sick before yesterday's game. The defense could be even better with him playing as well. That's the scary thing, he was out last week and we still shut Cousins down. Amazing what a great game plan can do from one week to another.

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I'm gonna hold my breath here a bit.  We need to see us against the elite teams before we can decide.  Last year vs KC was great but we fell apart at some point during the Pittsburgh game against a backup QB thereafter.  Colts and consistency have been at odds for longer than I can remember really.   But when we are consistently good against the league's elite, that's when I'll settle on us being legit.

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3 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

I've said that for decades. That said, if one should temper their labels....such as Colts have the best defense, it would be equally wise for fans (not saying you) to not use statements like "We just lost to the Jags who are the worse team in the NFL", and "Minshew sucks". Both ideas are uninformed, and a major reach. I said GM was a good QB last year. He looked even better first game this year. 

When fans get that little chub about tearing at the Colts, they are sometimes blind as a bat. 

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4 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

 

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  They were great yesterday.  Ball control is really a key.  Keep their defense on the field with long drives.

 

You're right, very encouraging!

 

 

I agree in principal but points are a worse indicator than yards (IMO) unless the rankings are done fantasy football style.

 

For example the Seahawks "defense" gave up 30 points last night but the reality is 7 of those points came from a pick 6 thrown by Wilson. The Seahawks defense wasn't even on the field but their defensive ranking took a hit. That's WAY more misrepresentative than a team giving up few yards but points (due to turnovers, ala Colts).

 

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4 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

 

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  They were great yesterday.  Ball control is really a key.  Keep their defense on the field with long drives.

 

You're right, very encouraging!

 

 

So true in so many ways.

 

The offense can help the defense so much by controlling the clock and limiting possessions.  And a high scoring team who have leads most of the game can have terrible defensive stats because the other team is always throwing and getting garbage yards.

 

It comes down to two things - do they give up points and can they make the stop when they absolutely have to have it.  Yesterday was a good start but I am not at all convinced those two areas describe the Colts.

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4 hours ago, PeterBowman said:

That's very true, the O constantly sustaining drives also helps the D as well. Keeps them fresh...That's why football is the ultimate team sport. 

 

Keeps the D fresh, limits the amount of plays the other team has, typically when the time of possession is that dominant the field position game is also won (i.e., even if we're not scoring a TD every drive, if we're moving down the field effectively it's not like we're typically going to be punting from inside our own 20 every time).

 

4 hours ago, chad72 said:

Let us see if they can limit the Ravens, Packers and Steelers to 20 points or less, then we can talk. 

 

Funny how different game planning by Eberflus can show results:

 

https://www.1075thefan.com/kevins-sports-news/hits-and-misses-worrying-about-t-y-hiltons-drops/

 

 

A few things to 'Flus' credit -- (1) he had several key new additions who he had never really seen in a live game playing week 1, (2) Rivers threw a couple of very costly and untimely picks which not only killed momentum as the team as a whole (so did the failed 4th down conversion and missed FG) but also left our D with bad field position, (3) the Jags probably really are not as bad as advertised... that said, we should never see a QB complete 19-20 passes.  'Flus improved his game plan in week 2, but he also didn't have the O shooting the D in the foot near as much.

 

20 minutes ago, jskinnz said:

 

So true in so many ways.

 

The offense can help the defense so much by controlling the clock and limiting possessions.  And a high scoring team who have leads most of the game can have terrible defensive stats because the other team is always throwing and getting garbage yards.

 

It comes down to two things - do they give up points and can they make the stop when they absolutely have to have it.  Yesterday was a good start but I am not at all convinced those two areas describe the Colts.

 

Yes, the time difference and possession limitation are huge... and I get what you're saying with sometimes seeing the opposing O picking up junk yards.... however, when our O is also scoring and helping the STs win the field position battle, it makes the opposing O more one-dimensional and therefore makes our D gameplan simpler.  For example, Freeney was terrible against the rush but he was a terrific pass rusher... more often than not during the Peyton era the Colts were playing with a lead, which forces teams to become reliant on the passing game with their offense, therefore allowing the pass rushers to pin their ears back and go full speed at the QB..  in games where we were playing tight games or from behind, teams could run at Freeney basically at will, when we were playing with a lead they would abandon their run game and Freeney could focus almost solely on getting to the QB.

 

Cousins did not have a good game yesterday, and our D did play well.. we sacked him 3 times and knocked him down 7 times.  It seems like we can hit the other QB with our front 4 based on weeks 1 and 2.  If we can continue playing with leads, I expect our pass rush will put up better numbers and in turn result in more turnovers, etc..

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6 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Those are all nice stats, and they can be misleading.   The only one that really matters is how many points they give up.

 

The D was horrible against the Jags but it didn't reflect in the the stats.  They were great yesterday.  Ball control is really a key.  Keep their defense on the field with long drives.

 

You're right, very encouraging!

 

IMO the Colts D wasn't that horrible against Jax.

They held them to 91 yds rushing and 173 passing yds.  4 sacks also. 

Some are complaining about the zone defense but 2 of the Jax TDs came with man to man coverage. 

Not playing any pre season games hurt this team playing as a unit together. 

 

I think going into this game there were entirely way too many who assumed the Jags were a very bad team and were going to tank the season.  That was dead wrong. Yesterdays game proved that.  Minshew has proven he is a better QB than advertised.

So far I can pick a few teams I think are worse than the Jags. 

 

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Green Bay has a solid D and the Vikings did quite well on offense in that game. Cousins 76% 259 yards and 2 tds while they ran for 134 yards on 22 carries  compared to yesterday Cousins 43% 113 yards 0 tds and 3 ints and rushing 80 yards on 18 carries........not sure that Minnesota offense is bad, i expect them to get a win this week. Cook is an elite player.

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Very difficult to tell what's what right now, but I can guarantee you this: if the stats were the other way around people would be saying they suck without reservation.  Some already do.  So you have to take what you have and evaluate it.  What we have now is a defense that is statistically the best in the league so far.  Do I think they will end the season that way?  No.  But that is where they are right now.  I think another way you can look at it is how they did vs. these teams compared to other teams.  It's a limited sample size thus far but it can be done for comparison.

 

The Jags managed only 241 total yards vs. the Colts and were sacked 4 times.  They generated 480 yards (nearly TWICE the yardage allowed by the Colts by my math) against Tenn and the Titans sacked them 2 times.

 

The Vikings were held to 175 total yards by the Colts and were sacked 3 times and picked 3 times (although one of those was a throw at the end of the half).  The Packers allowed 382 total yards (more than twice the yards) and sacked the Vikings 2 times and got 1 INT.

 

To me, thus far, the problem with the Colts isn't the defense.  Even though they allowed the Jags an insane 19-20 passing, how many of those throws were past the LOS?  They didn't allow much after except for a couple of miscommunications.  The offense put the defense in a couple of bad situations with turnovers, which made the scoring look way worse than it was.  That didn't happen as much in the Vikings game and you saw the results.  

 

To me, this team has a problem on offense and much of it is just situational and can't really be blamed on the GM.  Your franchise QB retired just over a year ago.  The backup was elevated to starting QB and it didn't work out.  A vet QB was brought in and is in the twilight of his career and his arm strength is clearly not what it once was.  The #1 WR is aging.  The #2 WR has been bitten by the injury bug since coming into the league.  The #1 RB is lost for the season.  The #1 TE can't stay healthy.  They are counting on a lot of young, unproven talent to help them and it could go either way.  Luckily, the OL is very solid, maybe the best in the league.  That helps.  But there are a LOT of unknowns on offense and they are going to have some rough times.  This is not the high-octane offenses we are used to with Manning and Luck.  If the defense can continue to play at this level, they will be in almost any game they play.  If they regress, or the numbers don't indicate what they really are, or injuries decimate them, then this team will struggle.  

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So we've played the #16 and #20 teams in offense from last year, 

 

We should be absolutely improved, but I'm going to hold on all the crazy talk until we play some good Os.

 

The Jets were very last in the league in O last year. The Bears were 4th worst. 

 

The next couple weeks gonna be fun to see all the 85 Bears comparisons lol.... 

 

giphy.gif

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12 hours ago, EastStreet said:

So we've played the #16 and #20 teams in offense from last year, 

 

We should be absolutely improved, but I'm going to hold on all the crazy talk until we play some good Os.

 

The Jets were very last in the league in O last year. The Bears were 4th worst. 

 

The next couple weeks gonna be fun to see all the 85 Bears comparisons lol.... 

 

giphy.gif

It is fun to bask a little now though.  

Almost 200 yards less than the next team.   

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13 hours ago, EastStreet said:

So we've played the #16 and #20 teams in offense from last year, 

 

We should be absolutely improved, but I'm going to hold on all the crazy talk until we play some good Os.

 

The Jets were very last in the league in O last year. The Bears were 4th worst. 

 

The next couple weeks gonna be fun to see all the 85 Bears comparisons lol.... 

 

giphy.gif


It’s also a TWO game sample. If we look at efficiency...DVOA had them at #28 after the JAC game...and this MIN game jumped them up to #5. 
 

So you basically have two different ends of the spectrum...and we don’t know yet what is the more likely defense. Typically it’s somewhere in the middle.

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16 hours ago, Myles said:

It is fun to bask a little now though.  

Almost 200 yards less than the next team.   

After our first 4 games, given the teams we play, if we're not top 5 in D, we better be pretty scared for a lot of the teams the rest of the year.

 

I do think our D will be good though. And I'm thankful we have some poor Os to start with, that allows us to get our chemistry worked out. I'm actually predicting we do well, or at least better than most, when we play the Ravens. I think it's a good match up for us. That assumes though we play more man at times.

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15 hours ago, shasta519 said:


It’s also a TWO game sample. If we look at efficiency...DVOA had them at #28 after the JAC game...and this MIN game jumped them up to #5. 
 

So you basically have two different ends of the spectrum...and we don’t know yet what is the more likely defense. Typically it’s somewhere in the middle.

DVOA isn't really good looking at just one or two games either. The D wasn't 28th last week. Our loss was more a product of giving short fields, giving up very few 10+ yard passes (that unfortunately were TDs), and playing with way too much cushion that allowed Minshew to look like a surgeon. Sure we had some execution issues, but IMO we were outcoached more than anything. 

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On 9/21/2020 at 6:04 PM, holeymoley99 said:

Green Bay has a solid D and the Vikings did quite well on offense in that game. Cousins 76% 259 yards and 2 tds while they ran for 134 yards on 22 carries  compared to yesterday Cousins 43% 113 yards 0 tds and 3 ints and rushing 80 yards on 18 carries........not sure that Minnesota offense is bad, i expect them to get a win this week. Cook is an elite player.

And Cook whom we bottled up running over Titans, Cousin who seemed lost ripping the Tenn D with rookie Jefferson..seems maybe over D played even better than some realized 

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55 minutes ago, JediXMan said:

Even though it was the Jets these are the type of games you dominate on D. Two in a row keep that momentum onto the Bears next week.

Outside of the two INTs, which can’t be understated, I didn’t think the defense played that great in the first half.  With that said they made the right adjustments at halftime but have to clean up the tackling on QBs.

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On 9/21/2020 at 5:22 PM, AZColt11 said:

Very difficult to tell what's what right now, but I can guarantee you this: if the stats were the other way around people would be saying they suck without reservation.  Some already do.  So you have to take what you have and evaluate it.  What we have now is a defense that is statistically the best in the league so far.  Do I think they will end the season that way?  No.  But that is where they are right now.  I think another way you can look at it is how they did vs. these teams compared to other teams.  It's a limited sample size thus far but it can be done for comparison.

 

The Jags managed only 241 total yards vs. the Colts and were sacked 4 times.  They generated 480 yards (nearly TWICE the yardage allowed by the Colts by my math) against Tenn and the Titans sacked them 2 times.

 

The Vikings were held to 175 total yards by the Colts and were sacked 3 times and picked 3 times (although one of those was a throw at the end of the half).  The Packers allowed 382 total yards (more than twice the yards) and sacked the Vikings 2 times and got 1 INT.

 

To me, thus far, the problem with the Colts isn't the defense.  Even though they allowed the Jags an insane 19-20 passing, how many of those throws were past the LOS?  They didn't allow much after except for a couple of miscommunications.  The offense put the defense in a couple of bad situations with turnovers, which made the scoring look way worse than it was.  That didn't happen as much in the Vikings game and you saw the results.  

 

To me, this team has a problem on offense and much of it is just situational and can't really be blamed on the GM.  Your franchise QB retired just over a year ago.  The backup was elevated to starting QB and it didn't work out.  A vet QB was brought in and is in the twilight of his career and his arm strength is clearly not what it once was.  The #1 WR is aging.  The #2 WR has been bitten by the injury bug since coming into the league.  The #1 RB is lost for the season.  The #1 TE can't stay healthy.  They are counting on a lot of young, unproven talent to help them and it could go either way.  Luckily, the OL is very solid, maybe the best in the league.  That helps.  But there are a LOT of unknowns on offense and they are going to have some rough times.  This is not the high-octane offenses we are used to with Manning and Luck.  If the defense can continue to play at this level, they will be in almost any game they play.  If they regress, or the numbers don't indicate what they really are, or injuries decimate them, then this team will struggle.  

Oh my.  I cannot wait till this D plays a balanced offense and the wheels come off. I think the Browns games is probably the 1st game that will tell  us where the D is at. I just dont expect great results as the year goes on. Look at the defences that play this style of D. They r getting carved up 

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4 minutes ago, Moosejawcolt said:

Oh my.  I cannot wait till this D plays a balanced offense and the wheels come off. I think the Browns games is probably the 1st game that will tell  us where the D is at. I just dont expect great results as the year goes on. Look at the defences that play this style of D. They r getting carved up 

Must you always be so negative? Can’t you just enjoy a win? I’m not saying our defense is the best in the league, I mean our opponents combined record is like 1-9 so something like that, but come on, at least give it a day before starting to root for the team you’re allegedly a fan of to suck bad 

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2 minutes ago, Moosejawcolt said:

Oh my.  I cannot wait till this D plays a balanced offense and the wheels come off. I think the Browns games is probably the 1st game that will tell  us where the D is at. I just dont expect great results as the year goes on. Look at the defences that play this style of D. They r getting carved up 

I would agree.  That's why I'm quietly reserving hope for this defense.  They haven't really played top notch offenses yet, although the Vikings did move the ball and score a bunch on the Packers and Titans.  But we haven't played anybody near the level of the Chiefs, Ravens, Steelers, etc. yet.  When we look like this while playing those types of teams THEN I will be beating my chest.  Until then.......

 

However, as I said, if we looked terrible and were still playing these teams then everyone would say they suck.  They haven't.  So basically all they have done so far is do what they SHOULD be doing.  We will know more as the season progresses.

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