Defense has yet to give up points in the fourth quarter

[GoColts8818]

So the offense has been taking it on the chin as it should but the defense has been playing really well.  They have yet to give up a point in the fourth quarter or overtime in a game this season.  Pretty impressive when you’d expect them to be wearing down by then because of how little help the offense is giving them.  
 

in fact they have given up only 23 second half points all year including 6 in the last three games combined.  
 

I just wanted to talk about something positive because those things are out there even as poorly as the offense is playing.  

[Solid84]

The defense is playing well. The first two games vs. the Texans and Jags were turds, but when Gus started making adjustments for the Chiefs game (and since) we’ve gotten better each game in my opinion. We’re even blitzing more from what I can tell. 
 

We need more turnovers though. Hope the Broncos game was an indicator of what’s to come. 
 

 

[LiveAndLetAddai]

  The defense has played well, despite all the turnovers and lack of movement by the offense.  

[CR91]

If only Ryan wasn't getting sacked 20 times a game

[sb41champs]

31 minutes ago, GoColts8818 said:

So the offense has been taking it on the chin as it should but the defense has been playing really well.  They have yet to give up a point in the fourth quarter or overtime in a game this season.  Pretty impressive when you’d expect them to be wearing down by then because of how little help the offense is giving them.  
 

in fact they have given up only 23 second half points all year including 6 in the last three games combined.  
 

I just wanted to talk about something positive because those things are out there even as poorly as the offense is playing.  

AMEN BROTHER GoColts8818!!

 

I am SICK of all the negativity!!

[holeymoley99]

Bringing in Gilmore and Rodney Mc was key to our DB room, Buckner playing well despite all the pain in the elbow. Paye was on fire (Hoping Dayo does well in his absence and Lewis returns soon). 

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

isn’t it nice compared to Eberflus. Also getting pressure with front hour when the only real player change has been Yannick. 

[richard pallo]

1 hour ago, Solid84 said:

The defense is playing well. The first two games vs. the Texans and Jags were turds, but when Gus started making adjustments for the Chiefs game (and since) we’ve gotten better each game in my opinion. We’re even blitzing more from what I can tell. 
 

We need more turnovers though. Hope the Broncos game was an indicator of what’s to come. 
 

 

Maybe so.  Gus has had time to see his defense in action and has made some adjustments.  I would expect us to be better prepared for the Jags and Titans coming up.  You can’t beat familiarity and having more tape for the second go around.

[Nesjan3]

Without this defense carrying the team we are 0-5

[AwesomeAustin]

It’s nice to see adjustments.  Too many times coaches are too sold on themselves and their scheme they force players to follow that instead of playing to their strengths.  

[RollerColt]

 

Props to the team defense wise. From

Ballard to Reich to Gus and the players. Seriously. The defense seems way ahead of the offense in terms of maturation performance wise. That’s a good stat. Let’s see what we do against the Jags at home. 

[adubb84]

I think Gus will cook up something good for the jags. Honestly it’s going to be harder for them to game plan against us as everything was working for them. Need more press and make Lawrence work for it.
 

It’s the offense I’m worried about…

[smittywerb]

5 hours ago, TaylorTheStudMuffin said:

isn’t it nice compared to Eberflus. Also getting pressure with front hour when the only real player change has been Yannick. 

and funny thing is he hasn’t been playing up to what is expected of him.  Sucks that Paye is out now but hopefully that will spark something in yannick to step up.  Dayo has been playing good in limited snaps so hopefully that Carries over into his increased workload 

[smittywerb]

Gotta give it up to Gus.  And give it up to Ballard.  Defense I definitely rocking.

 

see how things go when the HC isn’t in the way and allowing a DC to do his job.  Maybe he should try that with OC. Oh that’s right, our OC has never called plays.

[chad72]

That’s largely the biggest contrast between our 1-4 last year and 2-2-1 start this year. That’s really impressive. Hopefully Kwity’s injury doesn’t make us overcompensate somewhere else in a negative way.

[RobertAP]

I know it's sour milk at this point, but if not for a missed field goal, we'd be 3-2. IMHO, we haven't played well enough to deserve that record, but this team has heart.

As a transplanted fan from Falconville, my suggestion at this point would be to run an up-tempo, no-huddle offense early. It forces the defense to be more vanilla, and puts Ryan in command of the game. We've seen what Ryan has done in the 4th quarter this year. Let him get the offense clicking early rather than waiting for the 4th quarter. Also, I've been super unimpressed with the play calling. I think that a change of pace would be welcome.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

36 minutes ago, smittywerb said:

and funny thing is he hasn’t been playing up to what is expected of him.  Sucks that Paye is out now but hopefully that will spark something in yannick to step up.  Dayo has been playing good in limited snaps so hopefully that Carries over into his increased workload 

I still think he will get usual ten sacks. I think we are going to see Dayo more on run downs since he is better against the young and is looking real good.. still sad about Paye as he was on pace for double digit sacks.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

5 minutes ago, RobertAP said:

I know it's sour milk at this point, but if not for a missed field goal, we'd be 3-2. IMHO, we haven't played well enough to deserve that record, but this team has heart.

As a transplanted fan from Falconville, my suggestion at this point would be to run an up-tempo, no-huddle offense early. It forces the defense to be more vanilla, and puts Ryan in command of the game. We've seen what Ryan has done in the 4th quarter this year. Let him get the offense clicking early rather than waiting for the 4th quarter. Also, I've been super unimpressed with the play calling. I think that a change of pace would be welcome.

Ryan did say something that is really true. You have to win while improving.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

I am sure Gilmore has also helped the pass rush.

 

Bradley is learning all his players  and what they do best. We should of realized that might take a couple games.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

3 hours ago, adubb84 said:

I think Gus will cook up something good for the jags. Honestly it’s going to be harder for them to game plan against us as everything was working for them. Need more press and make Lawrence work for it.
 

It’s the offense I’m worried about…

Can’t let them get into that quick game because it then negates the pass rush. Keep Lawrence in the well.

[craigerb]

...and 0 in 2 OTs.

[Two_pound]

The defense has been very impressive and that has been without Leonard, Moore not trying, Rodgers not on the field enough, and too many lapses where it looks like everyone is napping. Dayo has been especially impressive. I would like to see Domann get some defensive snaps. And Leonard needs to move back outside when he returns.

[DiogoSales]

Great topic! Give Gus some Love, he adjusted W3 and we're playing much better!

[coltsfan77]

Wow! Caught up in all the short comings of the offense so far this season, never realized the D was playing that well in the second half. Still flashbacks from jax and Texans game blinded me, lol. Thanks for the post. 

[chad72]

15 hours ago, Nesjan3 said:

Without this defense carrying the team we are 0-5

Lets not forget special teams blocked FG vs Broncos and other sound field positions related plays like Matt Haack punting in Chiefs game or recovering special teams fumble in Chiefs game.

 

Also a good correlation where Matt Ryan hasn’t lost the ball in the 4th quarter except for a meaningless fourth quarter vs Jaguars. Games are first “not lost” before they’re won.

[w87r]

5 minutes ago, chad72 said:

Lets not forget special teams blocked FG vs Broncos that kept the 4th quarter streak alive

You known what is funny about this? Well at least to me.

 

 

Right before this kick they showed a fan in the stands, showing his wife his phone.

 

I told my boys it looked like he said they missed the kick(before it even happened).

 

I said he must of got the update on the ESPN app, as it always updates before the game I am watching.

 

 

IDK? I just thought it was funny and then we blocked it...

[chad72]

Just now, w87r said:

You known what is funny about this? Well at least to me.

 

 

Right before this kick they showed a fan in the stands, showing his wife his phone.

 

I told my boys it looked like he said they missed the kick(before it even happened).

 

I said he must of got the update on the ESPN app, as it always updates before the game I am watching.

 

 

IDK? I just thought it was funny and then we blocked it...

It was in the 3rd quarter, i was wrong there but funny nevertheless. Special teams has been special throughout all games and that has kept us in games.

[w87r]

2 minutes ago, chad72 said:

It was in the 3rd quarter, i was wrong there but funny nevertheless. Special teams has been special throughout all games and that has kept us in games.

Still helped the 2nd half scoring and only 6pts in last 3 games stat.

[w87r]

Defense has looked good, despite some of the things listed in the OP.

 

No Shaq

Kenny going through motions(hope he knows that isn't the way to get paid)

Rodgers getting too few snaps

 

 

Looked forward to it improving even more as season goes along and we get Shaq back, Rodgers works his way to 100% snaps.

 

Kenny played a little better last game. Made a few big plays 

[shakedownstreet]

13 hours ago, adubb84 said:

think Gus will cook up something good for the jags

 

[w87r]

2 minutes ago, shakedownstreet said:

 

[Solid84]

13 minutes ago, shakedownstreet said:

 

Cthulhu Turkey. 

[csmopar]

18 hours ago, Solid84 said:

The defense is playing well. The first two games vs. the Texans and Jags were turds, but when Gus started making adjustments for the Chiefs game (and since) we’ve gotten better each game in my opinion. We’re even blitzing more from what I can tell. 
 

We need more turnovers though. Hope the Broncos game was an indicator of what’s to come. 
 

 

We’re actually blitzing less but generating more push with the front 4. Without Paye, imagine that’s gonna hurt our D

[Solid84]

Just now, csmopar said:

We’re actually blitzing less but generating more push with the front 4. Without Paye, imagine that’s gonna hurt our D

I may just be seeing things. Looks to me like the SAM lb, safeties and Moore are getting more shots at getting the QB

[w87r]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.si.com/nfl/colts/.amp/film/gus-bradley-colts-shine-3rd-down

 

 

 

Seems to be good place for this. Nice article going into Bradley mixing up coverages. Video examples.

 

I will post one here, have to go check out the rest there.

 

 

[Boondoggle]

Defense deserves credit for us being where we are, I agree.  Without them we're a winless team for sure and I am happy with the job our new DC has done thus far.

 

But that said there are some problem indicators, such as QB rating against, where 92.3 is not good.  That puts us in the bottom third defensively.  Generally when I see a high QB rating against with a defense the first place I go is pressures and in that regard we see a commensurate problem, where the Colts defense is similarly ranked around the top of that bottom third.

 

Third down conversion rate is excellent thus far, and that's a stat that I value a little higher than the others if/when I have a good offense on the other side.  Because if you can get the ball back in the hands of your offense for an extra possession and you have a strong offense that is an enormous amount of additional pressure on opponents.  The Colts offense unfortunately is not there yet, but 31% is quite good (7th in NFL) and noticeably better than last season.

 

Part of the reason why we have an excellent 3rd down conversion rate against while being a little porous vs the pass is because of the run defense.  Where we rank 3rd NFL at 3.4 ypc allowed.  This of course means teams are dealing with longer chains on third downs vs our defense and boosts that other metric.

 

Redzone defense is an enormous consideration in any year but in the modern NFL you have offenses where a win is holding them to FG's.  There are some offenses that are going to eat yards if you have anything other than a generational defensive unit.  We already faced one of those offenses in the Chiefs, and overall are T-17th in the NFL at 57.17% rate of surrendering TDs in the redzone.  

 

Looking at this defense as a whole the obvious area where they can improve is pressures.  And if they can improve on pressures then both QB rating against and redzone TDs surrendered rates will both go down.  This means they are very close to being an elite defense.  And points against bear that out, with 18.8 thus far which is good in any season and currently ranks them 11th in the NFL.

 

The obvious word of caution here is that NFL teams have a tendency nowadays of limiting starters in preseason.  So the old NFL saying re: good teams getting serious around week 6 applies here.  Things obviously will change as we go forward but the signs are there for the Colts to have a fine defense this season.

[coming on strong]

gus bradly has been improving a lot , he is being more aggressive lately on blitzes and its paying off.   i just worry about losing paye for a month he has improved a lot 3 sacks in 5 games on pace for over 10 being the injury .  plus he was amazing in the run game .    i wanna see dayo who has shown flashes i really hope lewis isnt starting over dayo next week

[GoColts8818]

 

[Smonroe]

On 10/8/2022 at 3:22 PM, GoColts8818 said:

So the offense has been taking it on the chin as it should but the defense has been playing really well.  They have yet to give up a point in the fourth quarter or overtime in a game this season.  Pretty impressive when you’d expect them to be wearing down by then because of how little help the offense is giving them.  
 

in fact they have given up only 23 second half points all year including 6 in the last three games combined.  
 

I just wanted to talk about something positive because those things are out there even as poorly as the offense is playing.  

 

Way to jinx us @GoColts8818  Now, because of you, we'll blow a 30 point lead going into the 4th Q. 

 

We all know that what we say, what we wear, where we sit, and what we eat prior to game time has a great effect on the outcome of every game.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

On 10/9/2022 at 6:31 PM, coming on strong said:

gus bradly has been improving a lot , he is being more aggressive lately on blitzes and its paying off.   i just worry about losing paye for a month he has improved a lot 3 sacks in 5 games on pace for over 10 being the injury .  plus he was amazing in the run game .    i wanna see dayo who has shown flashes i really hope lewis isnt starting over dayo next week

Dayo has looked really good. I expect to see him a lot on Sunday. Bradley gave Lewis huge praise in his presser Tuesday too.   I think it just took Gus a couple games to learn his players strengths ect. It’s been fun to see. Such a change from last season. If we had last years first half offense with this years 4th quarter defense we would be unstoppable.