Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Franchise Focus: Indianapolis Colts

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) invites Kevin Bowen (@KBowen1070) of FM1075 The Fan to discuss the upcoming season for the Indianapolis Colts. The Franchise Focus Podcast series is brought to you by Underdog Fantasy (@UnderdogFantasy). New users can sign up to Underdog using promo code FANTASYPTS for up to $100 in bonus cash on their first deposit. Visit fantasypoints.com/underdog for more info. The podcast series is also sponsored by Evan's Sports Cards & Collectibles (@evanscards). Follow @EvansCards on Twitter for weekly updates and card releases, Like on Facebook, and head to evanssportsnj.com for more info, including the always-updated eBay store. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast, brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. To the franchise-focused series of podcasts here at FantasyPoint.com, I think this might be the first one in a number of weeks where you might not not hear the residuals of COVID-19 in my voice. My name is Joe Dolan. Hey, the show must go on, though, and we've been covering all 32 NFL teams, and I'm really excited about today's guest, talking Indianapolis Colts. He has covered the Colts since 2011. This will be, well, that will make this,

his 12th season covering the Indianapolis Colts. His name is Kevin Bowen. You can follow him on Twitter at K Bowen 1070. He is the radio co-host of Kevin and Query. It's the more morning show in Indianapolis. He produces content at 1075 The Fan. And interestingly enough, similar to yours truly, he has taught journalism at a Big Ten school. He teaches sports journalism in the spring at Indiana Bloomington. Kevin, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. Good to be talking to a fellow educator. Obviously, we are shaping the young minds of America, which is probably scarier to those who know me than most. But I'm sure you do just a fine job there.

No, no, I think I would fall in the same boat. And I would say thankfully that, you know, for my resume of the football program, success does not matter for Indiana University versus Penn State there. But no, I'm glad you're feeling better, Joe. And thanks for having me on. Yeah, Kevin, it's been awesome. Just thank you for being flexible because obviously we're all busy at this time of year.

The franchise focus series of podcast is brought to you by Evan's sports cards and collectibles. It's the best place for cards, collectibles, autographs, and more. When we do a memorabilia giveaway at fantasy points, all of them are from Evans. And Evans always has the latest boxes and releases from Padini, Upper Deck, Tops, and more. And when you go to Evans, you'll realize it's a family-owned small business. You get to know the staff, not one of those super stores. It's really a great place to support. If you're in the Philadelphia area, go in person.

But if you're like me and Kevin and you're not in the Philadelphia area, it's just as good to visit the eBay store. Follow at Evans Cards on Twitter for weekly updates and card releases. You can also get that by liking them on Facebook and heading to Evansportsnj.com for more info, including that always updated eBay store. That's Evansportsnj.com online and at Evans Cards on Twitter. When you go there, tell them that the guys from Fantasy Points.com sent you. Kevin, I know you've been asked this question a million times, but I want to get it to the listeners here at the Fantasy Points podcast and the franchise. focus series. What happened with Carson Wentz? Because you look at the numbers and they're really not that bad. And our guy Greg Kosell at the website, it said, you know, there was more good than bad on tape for

Carson Wentz, but it seems like they couldn't wait to get rid of them. What happened there with Wentz and how big an upgrade do they think Matt Ryan's going to be for this offense? Yeah, I'd say so much of it boils down to the efficiency numbers. You know, touchdown interception ratio looks pretty good. But when you look at completion percentage, when you look at yards per attempt, a couple key metrics, the Colts monitor, those were not at the level they felt was where they needed to be. I would say in some clutch moments, you didn't feel like you had a ton of confidence in your quarterback as well. And then I think just kind of benefiting from Jonathan Taylor and taking advantage of the opportunities that, you know, just come with the passing game when

Taylor's are running back. I mean, favorable boxes and one-on-one matchups and all of that, your passing offense is not going to have a massive amount of yards or even touchdowns, but again, the efficiency should be there. And I think that was something that wasn't there to the level. And I think when they felt like they needed to make a move from how the season ended standpoint, they were pretty much going to go with just about anybody who was out there. And then, you know, decide to kind of sit back and say, all right, let's let these dominoes fall a little bit.

let's see what we could potentially get. And that's when obviously the Deshawn Watson domino led to Matt Ryan being available there. And I think what they're looking for is not someone that, again, is going to be 40, 200 yards and 30 some touchdowns. It's can you take advantage? Can you make the most out of the opportunities that are there when you have a guy that's capable of running for 15,000 yards and Jonathan Taylor? And now with Matt Ryan, we've heard the comments.

Chris Ballard has been kind of been putting the Band-Aid on this quarter. position ever since the Andrew Lockbaum dropped. But do they feel like Matt Ryan is the 2022 quarterback, but also potentially 2023, 2024? Do they feel like this is a player who is going to age well within the context of this offense? I think they do. I mean, certainly Matt Ryan's durability throughout his career is, you know, pretty impressive. I don't think he's missed a game over a decade.

He's only missed a couple games in his career. Now he just turned 37 and the contract runs through 2023. And it's a significant cap number for next year. So I would say they firmly believe this is a two-year thing. Of course, they felt that with Carson Wentz. You could argue they felt that with Phillip Rivers. Now, the difference I think in Rivers and Ryan, that's a little bit more apples to apples. Rivers is a little bit older.

I think Rivers also had the family dynamic of wanting to coach his children in football at the high school level. And now they're getting there. Where's Matt Ryan's family situation is a little bit different. He's got two four-year-old sons, and that's, you know, that's him. So obviously, unless he's really itching to test out the old underhand dad pitch at the age of six or seven, I don't see him, you know, wanting to go there either. There's, you know, of course, the missing ingredient on his resume, similar to Rivers. But I think they firmly believe that this is a two-year thing.

It might be wishful thinking, but, you know, Jim Mersey, the team's owner probably thinks it could be longer than that. again, this team doesn't have, it's actually one of the odder, I think, quarterback situations in the league. But typically, I think when you have the older starter, somewhere on your depth chart is the young, let's say, second, third, fourth round pick, you know, something like that where you're potentially grooming. It can become that guy. Colts don't have that.

Nick Foles is the backup. Sam Ellinger is a six-rounder that I don't think has a very high ceiling. and he's going into his second season. So based off the financials, based off Ryan, based off even Nick Fulz's contract, that was a two-year deal. I think they believe, again, he'll be the backup for two years.

So I think by all accounts, definitely at least two years. And now, look, when you talk about the passing game, I think the big question is from a fantasy perspective. He was productive last year, but needing to take another step forward to being like that really good fantasy player is Michael Pittman. What is the internal feeling on Pittman?

Do they think this guy's a big, big time like X number one type of receiver? Yeah, they do. And Pittman's, you know, been pretty bullish on his own goals. You know, last year he wanted to double his production and catches, yards and touchdowns. And he did that. It was pretty impressive for him to take that big leap in year two.

Now, this year he says, I want to be the definite number one, a little bit more gray area when comes to that. But I would say, can he get up to, you know, 1,300, 300 yards? Last year, he just cracked 1,000. Can the touchdown number get closer to double digits? can the catch number get over 100? There's no TY Hilton here anymore. There's no Zach Paskill.

There's no Jack Doyle. So if you look at proven past catching wide receiver tied-in groups in the league, I don't think you'll find one that has less proven production. Again, wide receiver tied-in behind than what the Colts have here with both of those groups. So Pittman has to carry more of that burden this season. obviously we saw it this past off season. Year three for these wideouts nowadays, that's kind of the new contract year.

I mean, whether it's AJ Brown or Terry McLaurner or D.K. Metcalf, if you can show out in this third year, you're really going to cash in. So I think that also plays into it. Certainly a new quarterback, how much attention is going to be on him. Pitman, just because there isn't, you know, anyone that you would think is going to keep an offensive coordinator up at night

from our preparation standpoint, wide receiver tight end-wise, that will probably play into some things. But I think internally, and even with myself, I think Michael Pittman does have another gear that he can get to. So one of the more interesting players to me in this offense, within the context of, again, little proven production in the passing game, it's actually Naim Hines. We know that the offense, I don't care if Matt Ryan's an upgrade on Carson

Lentz or not. We know the offense is going to run through Jonathan Taylor. fantasy players are reacting as such. Jonathan Taylor is overwhelmingly the first pick in fantasy drafts. But Naim Hines with Carson Wensett quarterback, career lows across the board, targets, receptions and receiving yards. And I don't think to me that wasn't unexpected. You know, Wentz for better or worse, and oftentimes for worse, is not going to take that checkdown. He's going to try to make a play down the field, and we've seen situations where that hasn't exactly worked out for him.

But I would think, and correct me if you think I'm wrong here, I would think with Matt Ryan under center, Naim Hines could once again become, heck, maybe even somebody who's going to be second or third on this team in Target. So do you think that's a reasonable expectation? Yeah, I think it varies. I think you got a great pulse on it. You know, it's funny you missed that Joe. I actually wrote something for our website, 1075, TheFan.com earlier today on that.

You go back to January, well before the Matt Ryan arrival happened. in February at the Combine, again, well before that as well. Chris Ballard, Frank Wright, they are mentioning, we've got to get Heinz more involved. And if you look at Heinz's career, four years in the league, I think he had over 60 catches in two of those seasons. Ironically, those quarterbacks, Philip Rivers and Andrew Locke, when he dipped down in like the 40 catch range,

his quarterbacks for Jacoby Brissette and Carson Wentz. So you would just think with a little bit more of an upper-level quarterback play, his catch number should come up. And then I'll go back to what I said earlier. Again, no proven whiteout move, no proven tight end move. Yes, they drafted Alec Pierce. They drafted Jalani Woods on day two. But still, I mean, expectations for rookies should be tempered.

So I think Naim Hines, even saw it in the spring. I was out there for some of their mini camp. You look over there and boom, there he is doing positional drills with the wideouts. You know, he's got a little receiver background at NC State. So I still think he can be a really nice, versatile weapon for this offense. But certainly he is going to be involved more. And if he finished second on this team and catches, it would not be a surprise to me at all. So we knew that wide receiver was going to be a position they were going to have to attack in the NFL draft,

not having a first round pick. But in the second round, grab a talented guy in Alec Pierce. What has Chris Ballard and Frank Reich said about Alec Pierce? And what have been some of your observations of him and maybe what little you've seen of him in OTAs and mini camps. Yeah, I think the first thing you notice is just a really smooth athlete. He comes from a family of athletes. You know, he looks like a guy that's been in the backyard. catching a whole lot of balls growing up and both of his brothers are college basketball players.

So you certainly see that. There's some volleyball background as well. And what I noticed in minicamp, and again, it's minicamp. But you noticed him doing a little bit more of the underneath stuff, a little bit more of the normal wide receiver stuff, which is not something he necessarily flashed a ton of on film at Cincinnati. It was a lot more vertical, a lot more down the field. You know, can he just outjump people? And he did that, you know, again, with tremendous success.

at Cincinnati. He's going to get an opportunity here. I talked about it earlier. He will get plenty of chances, certainly, to make an impression. Rookie wide-out production here in Indy, and I think largely around the league is probably a little bit more scaled back than I think a lot of fans would think. So he should be in the mix for number two, number three wide receiver reps. It's just, can you translate that into some production? I mean, still pretty young and being a full-time, you know, top. flight sort of light out. You know, Cincinnati kind of grew into that role.

He didn't have a ton of receiver background there, but he's going to get plenty of opportunities to be that number two guy behind Michael Pittman. Jonathan Taylor, obviously, again, we know the offense is going to be built around him. Do the Colts have any internal concerns about workload, though, because, you know, this day and age, the shelf life for running backs isn't all that long. We got somebody who touched the ball 370 times last year. do they still think that's a viable option for him or would they like maybe to scale that back just a little bit? Yeah, I don't think they have a ton of desire to scale it back much.

I mean, you know, I'm sure you get to a point where you'd love to be up a couple scores in a fourth quarter and not have to run him into the ground or, you know, pursue all of the four-minute offense type stuff. But he's a special talent and durability and work-class. load has never been an issue for him dating back to his days at Wisconsin. Now, we saw last year Derek Henry at some point, Father Time, you know, gets to everybody at that position. But, you know, this is an offense that's built around him. It's built around wanting to run the football at a really high level.

And without a whole lot of fear at wide receiver and tied end, you need Jonathan Taylor to be dynamic because your passing game depends so much upon it as well. So, you know, maybe a little bit. but with Heinz being a versatile option, you know, I don't know, maybe Philip Lindsay will get a carrier to a game, but I can't see too much there. So I think they want to continue to give Taylor the football as much as he can handle. More along those lines as well with the run game, how concerned are you about the offensive line, which has long been a strength, or at least in the last number of years, a strength

for the Indianapolis Colts, but he started to see some cracks in the foundation there last year. Yeah, they're going to have two new starters. At left tackle, it's going to be either Matt Pryor or a rookie and Bernard Ryman, a third-round pick out of Central Michigan. Obviously, a rookie third-round pick, they don't usually start at left tackle. Matt Pryor, I think only has two left tackle starts in his entire career. So that is a position that definitely will bear monitoring throughout training camp. And then at right guard, they'll have a new starter in all likelihood. Probably a first-time starter there as well.

So, you know, it isn't the same continuity. really had since Frank Reich took over. It was kind of October-ish of that first Reich year in 2018 where they found their starting five, and that became their starting five for the vast majority of this Reich era. Now, again, can Matt Ryan help alleviate maybe some of that offensive line? You know, struggles that it would be too harsh for a term to use for last year, but I don't think we, I don't think we're at the standpoint now, Joe, where we call the Colts an elite offensive line. I think they're a good offensive line. Yes. But I think they're in the prove-it stage and getting back to that elite level.

Kevin, I've been asking everybody on the franchise focus podcast series when I wrap up the interview, maybe one player on the lower end, who we haven't maybe talked about yet on the podcast, who has a chance to put up numbers in this offense. As you mentioned, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for targets here if somebody steps up. Who is somebody who maybe internally the Colts are high-owned or you just have a hunch about who might be able to put up numbers here in 2022? too. Yeah, I would go with Paris Campbell. Now, he's a former second round pick, so that should resonate. Injuries have decimated his first three seasons in the NFL. If you look at the

injuries, a lot of it can be kind of like freak, borderline, flukeish stuff. So, you know, if healthy, win healthy, you know, this is a guy that Frank Reich believes a whole lot in. He would provide an element to this offense that they don't currently have. The drafting of Alex Pierce, I don't think really impacts him too much. They're very different wideouts and how you want to utilize their skill sets. But it's just been health. I want to say he's played 15 games in three years. So, you know, monitor that and, you know, kind of enter at your own risk.

You know, maybe I'll go back to the rookie in Jolani Woods. You know, I'm not super high on this tied-in group in general. But maybe he would be the one that I would go with if there is an injury to Moe Wally Cox or something, and we know that Frank Reich loves to use tight ends, and Jolani Woods is 6-7, you know, could he catch a handful of touchdowns and be an important guy for you. But I think for the most part, you know what you're getting with this skill group. It's going to be heavy Taylor.

It's going to be heavy pitman. Heinz is going to be key, especially in the PPR leagues and things like that. But white out wise, you know, it's one of those depth charts that if Pittman were to go down, you know, now you're kind of scrambling because, you know, in years past, it was like, oh wow, Zach Pascal is going to play 90% of the snaps for the Colt. Well, he's no longer here. And again, CY Hilton right now is a free agent. The Colts did not make that veteran wide out room.

So, or move, I should say. So I will go with Paris Campbell. Yeah, I'm really intrigued by Jolani Woods, especially for those of you in Dynasty League, if you all know, the tight end position can be hard to find there. But that kid is a monster. I will be monitoring him during training camp. And if you want to monitor Jolani Woods,

you want to monitor Paris Campbell. You want to monitor Matt Ryan and see how he's doing into his late 30s. You're going to want to follow Kevin Bowen on Twitter at K. Bowen, 1070. Check out his work at 107-5, The Fan. And heck, if you like this interview, just go enroll in Indiana Bloomington and go get taking sports writing class in the spring. I mean, Kevin, we're learning from the best here. As somebody who's taught as well in the past, I really like the double duty.

and I also love how, like me, you only taught in the spring because you know how busy we are in the fall. Oh, it is spring. It's second eight weeks in the spring as well. So it's a busy two months when I do it, but I was talking to you a little bit before. I'm the son of two teachers. I know education is big, not only with you, but your entire family.

So important. I love it. But at the same time, once I get through July 4th, I kind of itch towards training camp starting. And I'm really looking forward to this season. I think from a cult standpoint, I think there's probably the most optimism there's been entering a year in quite some time. Obviously, you had some Andrew Luck issues there that kind of impacted that.

But a lot of optimism to finally win the division. I think an offense that could have a little bit more balanced than it has had in years past. Once I don't get that little itch to watch football anymore in July. And like, I know when we work in the football industry, we all get sick of it at some point. That's usually Thanksgiving for me. But once I don't get that itch in July, I know I'm in the wrong industry. I have not, I've continued to get that itch every single July wanting to see how all these pieces come together. I'm going to be really excited to see all the pieces come together for the Colts.

Kevin, thank you so much for everything you've done on the podcast. And we'll talk to you down the line. You bet. Thanks for having me, Joe. All right, that's Kevin Bowen. My name's Joe Dolan. Follow me on Twitter at FG underscore Dolan. If you want to check out more about the Indianapolis Colts, well, our franchise focus article is up on the website.

Actually, you know what? Use the code 22 Dolan 10, and you're going to get 10% off at FantasyPoint.com. My name is Joe Dolan. His name is Kevin Bowen. Thanks, everybody, for listening. And we will catch y'all a little bit later this week with more franchise movies. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform.

And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com. I don't know.