Colts/Pats Game Review - Painful

[BlueShoe]

Preface: I am just calling balls and strikes here, and this is what I saw. I know this is five days after the game, but with everything going on this week, and how bad we played... I almost did not even go back and re-watch the game. Probably shouldn't have. 

 

This was painful to re-watch and analyze. I can only imagine the players and coaches film review of this one. OUCH!

 

The good news is, all of it is correctable... Well except for Matt Pryor at right guard. He cannot play right guard in this league. I would be shocked if he starts this Sunday. No way Pinter is worse. Maybe we move Ryan to right guard and have Pinter at center. I do not know how to fix Matt Pryor and I am actually surprised he wasn't called several times for holding. 

 

The Patriots ran a lot games and stunts against us, and we had no answer in pass protection. They need to learn how to pass those rushers off. I bet Saturday spent a lot of time on correcting this. Watching the game live, we saw Judon get in the backfield, untouched a few times. Our backs played terrible in this game. I was concerned when I saw Jackson tweet something to the effect that we haven't seen anything yet. This dude needs to understand that his first priority is to pick up the blitz and/or free rushers. Get a little taste of success and try to be Superman... I hope he reads this too, because that little bit of success went straight to his head. I know he can pick up a free rusher better than that. We have seen him do it. But he wants to be a hero and maybe catch a pass three yards behind the line of scrimmage. He can act like he didn't see the rushers, but the tape does not lie. 

 

The run blocking is not as bad as it looked. The line created some holes, but the backs were too impatient. Our backs missed the holes when they were there, period! Take the 5 yards when it is there and stop trying to be hero's. It is clear as day why Saturday kicked Lindsay to the curb and brought in Jake Funk to replace him. Funk is not scared to hit a hole. I have no idea what happened to Lindsay, but he is absolutely gun shy. Nelson is blocking his butt off, but it goes unnoticed because the backs are not hitting the holes. We can still run the ball in between Nelson and Kelly. It was there quite a few times. I am sure Saturday saw this on the film too and has reinforced to the backs, to hit the hole! 

 

I am not sure if Reich gave up and said, the heck with it all... But running a 4-wide set on third and eleven, and having all of them run routes past the line to gain, with this offensive line struggling and no outlet... I don't know what to make of that. Someone has to clear underneath on that play, and last resort, dump it off and see if they can make a man miss. Yeah, I know we hear announcers complain about a pass no going deep enough... Yada, yada, yada... All noise. 

 

Sam made some bad choices too. He left some plays on the field. He was under a ton of pressure so he got used to tucking it and running. We can say that is a part of development. The good players learn from it. The biggest problem was in the play designs though. Where were the hot routes? It is impossible for a quarterback to burn a defense for blitzing, when the only outlet he has is to toss it to a back for a 3 yard loss. Where were the underneath routes? We can't play in this league only running posts and corners... Someone made a joke in a post the other day, about Frank spilling something on some pages in the playbook. Unfortunately, that analogy is not far from what happened here. 

 

This offense is more talented than it is playing right now. It is underachieving. Maybe Reich's message got stale... Maybe the players got tired of hearing the mountain speech... Every play takes eleven men going on a mission. Seemed like our offense was playing with about nine. 

 

I really do not like saying this... I think our biggest problem was Frank. I know it might sound like the easy thing to do (kick the man while he is down), but our play design was horrendous. If anyone can stomach it, then go back and watch the game. I will warn you that it is painful to watch though. This game was so bad that our owner called an ex-player during the game and asked him what was wrong with the offense. And then hired the ex-player to be the head coach, even though the ex-player wasn't even watching the game.