Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Crossover Special with Locked On Jets

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

On today's episode, Locked On Colts' Evan Sidery and Locked On Jets' John Butchko join forces for the latest LOPN Crossover Special to preview Colts vs. Jets on Sunday. In an important Week 3 matchup for both teams, how will they fare?Outside of rookie left tackle Mekhi Becton, there's been no bright spots for the Jets. Is Adam Gase about to get fired? Is Sam Darnold the next Josh Rosen? How will the Jets get out of rock bottom, and is it even possible?Moving over to Indy, this is an opportunity to make a statement. After an impressive victory over Minnesota, the ingredients are in place for another repeat performance. How has Philip Rivers fared with the Colts? Will Jonathan Taylor and Michael Pittman Jr. be relied upon throughout 2020 to be big weapons?All of this, plus so much more, as Evan and John dive deep into both sides and finish off with their predictions for Colts vs. Jets! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello everybody, welcome back to the latest crossover session in the Locked On NFL Podcast Network. I am Evan Cedria, the host of Locked On Colts, joined by Jon Butchko, the host of Locked On Jets. We're going to preview this week three matchup between the Colts and the Jets at Lucasolo Stadium here this Sunday at 4.05 Eastern Time. Jon, how are you doing today? I am doing well. The New York Jets, not so much. Yeah, yeah.

Definitely two teams going the opposite directions right now. I know that it was a rough start for this Colts team in week one, but they bounced back with a huge win, 28-11, over the Minnesota Vikings last week. The Jets look like they're on a downhill spiral at the moment. Adam Gase, who knows how long he's going to be the head coach there, a lot of turmoil over there in the Jets. We're going to talk about the Jets first here, John,

and then we'll talk about the Colts next time and then close with some predictions here heading into this week three matchup where the Colts, surprisingly enough, have the biggest spread of any team this week in Vegas odds, 10.5 point favorites over the Jets this upcoming Sunday. But let me ask you first off, John, just what's been your thoughts about this team so far, just two weeks in a row, where it just seems like they haven't shown up. We will see what happens over the final 14 games of the season, but through the first two games, this has all the makings of just one of those classic disaster seasons.

The Jets have not been competitive in either game, and they're not really executing in any aspect of the game. The offense has remained one of the worst units in the NFL, and that's a problem because they were one of the game. The offense has remained one of the worst units in the NFL, and that's a problem because they were one of the worst offenses in the league last year, and they spent the offseason trying to overhaul the unit. They have four new starters on the offensive line. They have a couple new starters at wide receiver, who part of the issue is that the Jets have suffered some injuries at the receiver position, but things just have not gotten better. Adam Gase bought himself a second year because the Jets played well down the stretch.

They finished last season 6-2 over their last eight games after a disastrous 1-7 start to the season. But it's looking like at this point, that was a mistake bringing him back. And when you look at that closing stretch last year, the Jets didn't win games, but the competition was not very good over the final eight games they had four games against the bottom five teams in the league they also had a game against the Buffalo Bills week 17 where the Bills had already clinched the playoff spot so they really played their backups so it was a little bit of a mirage

last year the offenses remained bad and the defense without Jamal Adams, who was traded before the start of training camp, has taken a step back so far. They've struggled tackling. I mean, they've struggled basic elements of the game. You look back to training camp, and this is something I've said on Locked On Jets, with no preseason this year, you're going to find out very early who the good coaching staffs are in this league, because whenever there's a new wrinkle in the way teams train, you find out which coaching staffs figure out how to work around it and which don't. And the Jets have not. I understand nobody in the league has had preseason, but I don't see teams missing tackles at the rate the Jets are on the defensive side of the ball. And now you've, over the last few days, you've had players who have called out the team's practice habits. Bradley McDougal, who came over from Seattle,

the Jamal Adams team, said the Jets are really not practicing to win games. And linebacker Avery Williamson agreed with him. So, I mean, you have everything going wrong. You have the offense playing poorly, the defense playing poorly, the coach on the hot seat, players questioning the team's practice habits. You name it, it's going wrong for the Jets right now.

Yeah, it really has. I've just been reading a lot of news stories, like you mentioned, out of Jets camp so far where it just seems like it's a lot of negatives, not too many positives right now as the season. It kind of is already on the ropes for the Jets already this year. But let me ask you this. I mean, like you mentioned, Adam Gase, he had a strong start – or excuse me, a strong finish to last year's season going six and two after that one and seven start

but looking forward here now to this Jets schedule they play obviously the Colts on Sunday is there a chance John that maybe if the Colts blow the doors off this Jets team and it's just so untenable that they lose by like 30 plus points that is Adam Gase so much in the hot seat already at this point of the year that he could be let go in a couple weeks? I normally would say no, because ever since the Johnson family bought the team, they have avoided making mid season changes, but this thing is getting to a point quickly where they may not have a choice.

Now I don't think it's going to be this week. I think Adam Gase is going to remain the coach this week. I don't think he'll be fired next week either, but I think if we get to mid season and the Jets are having another one in Adam Gase is going to remain the coach this week. I don't think he'll be fired next week either, but I think if we get to mid-season and the Jets are having another one-in-seven, two-in-six kind of year, maybe we could get to that point because this is a very angry fan base. This is a fan base that did not want Adam Gase hired to begin with. The owner came in and sold the fan base on Gase being the guy to turn the offense around, the guy to develop Sam Darnold, and it has not happened.

The skepticism has been merited so far. There's really nothing. The thing with Adam Gase is there's nothing really you can hang your hat on with him and say he's making this better. The offense hasn't been better. That's supposed to be his specialty. And, you know, he's not really that great in the locker room. He did not come in with a great reputation working with players.

He's not really great developing young talent. The thing with a good coach is I think there has to be something you say, you know what, that guy's making the team better in this area. And I don't think you can really come up with any way Adam Gase is making the New York Jets better right now. Yeah, and that's the big question with Gase. We've seen already Ryan Tannehill, for example, when Gase used to be the coach of the Miami Dolphins.

He escaped out of there and went to Tennessee on a very cheap trade they had. I think it was a fifth-round pick they traded him for. And it turns out Tannehill now is one of the at least above average top 15 quarterbacks in the NFL now, very efficient in getting out of Gase's system. And let me ask you about this with Sam Darnold, too. Is that the case with Sam Darnold? I think, John, that obviously the Jets traded with the Colts in the 2018 draft. They moved up from six to three and traded multiple future second-round picks as well

and a couple of second-round picks that same year to go get Sam Darnold in that draft class. Do you think it's more so an Adam Gase issue or a Sam Darnold issue? I think it's difficult so an Adam Gase issue or a Sam Darnold issue? I think it's difficult to say right now. No, I think that Darnold has shown some disturbing tendencies that you can't really put on Gase. Week one against Buffalo, he threw just a terrible interception where he was rolling to his left and threw the ball back across the middle of the field late into coverage. Just something that can't happen year three. I don't care who your coach is but there's nothing that's really helping this quarterback out you look at the teams that have done a good job developing quarterbacks in this league whether it's baltimore

kansas city teams like that buffalo with josh allen who's really looking promising they've surrounded they put they put these teams in good situations they put them quality systems, and they've also surrounded them with quality supporting casts. They don't ask them to carry the entire load. And the Jets have just put too much on Sam Darnold. Darnold, pretty much for the Jets' offense to move, he has to do something special on every play. And I kind of wonder to what extent that helps result in some of the mistakes you made,

where Darnold's trying to force plays he really should not. Again, you can only put so much on Adam Gase, and you can only put so much on the supporting cast. I think the lack of a supporting cast has certainly hurt Darnold. I guess ultimately, it's very difficult to say because this situation has been so bad through these three years that it's almost impossible to separate and figure out how good Sam Darnold really is at this point. Yeah. And that's a question.

I think that's really concerning because you should know by this point of a player's career, especially a quarterback who started so many games like Sam Darnold has, whether or not he has the franchise juice or not, but it looks like so far maybe Adam Gase is kind of hiding out a little bit. Maybe if he escapes Adam Gase later on in his career Jets let him go maybe Darnold doesn't prove a little bit maybe it could be Darnold himself who has the issues and let me ask you this hypothetical question here John before we dive into some positives for this Jets team I know

there's a few of them I actually like a couple things on the Jets so far this year and one of them's gonna be their top draft pick Makaiton, who's on in the second here. But let's just say hypothetically, John, they start off like 1-8 or 0-9. They finish like a 3-13 record. They have a top two, maybe the number one pick in the draft. If you're GM Joe Douglas, if you're the Johnson family, do you move on from Sandaro and go for Trevor Lawrence? Do you think it's reached that point that maybe he could be the next Josh Rosen?

You know, I think the issue is that if the Jets are in a position to draft Trevor Lawrence by the end of the year, it's probably a sign that Darnold has not shown any progress. Because as much as people like to separate the quarterback from the team's quality of play, and I hear this all the time with the Jets, people say, you know, I'd rather go 4-12, have Darnold develop, and go 11 and five and Darnold to show no progress. The thing is, if Sam Darnold is showing, if Sam Darnold is showing no progress, you're not going to go 11 and five. If Sam Darnold is really showing progress, you're probably not going to go four and 12. So I think ultimately, if the Jets are in that position, it's a sign they probably are going to need to draft a quarterback. And you hope you're not at that

point because Jets actually have some good pieces this offseason. The Jamal Adams trade, while it did take away one of the top defensive players in football, gave them a lot of draft capital. And they're also going to enter this offseason with a lot of salary cap space. And one thing I've been saying on Locked on Jets is, you know, you look at the league's financial situation. It's one thing to have a lot of salary cap space in a typical year when the cap's going up and pretty much every team has money to spend. This is going to be the type of off season where there are not going to be a ton of teams that have a lot of cap space. So this could be a rare buyer's market of free agency this year.

So you'd like to see Darnold grow and you'd like to see the Jets be able to fill in the pieces around him. But I think it's an open question right now. It's not, like I said earlier, it's difficult to say at this point whether Darnold's going to continue to be the guy after this year yeah something definitely gonna be watching me before here's a national NFL storyline if this Jets slide continues what happens with Sam Darnold if they get in a position to draft the Trevor Lawrence of Justin Fields what do the Jets end up doing in that situation here but

like I mentioned before I asked you the hypothetical John I think the one big positive for this Jets team so far has been their top draft pick, Makai Beckton. He's already making viral flips like Quentin Nelson does with the Colts, just moving guys across the line of scrimmage, just being a monster out there. We saw the combine, he blew that up with his really fast 40 time for a guy his size, around 375 pounds. What's been your assessment of Makai Beckton so far?

He looks every bit the part of a future franchise left tackle and arguably one of the best left tackles in the league here very soon. Well said, Evan. I've been very impressed with Makai Becton. When the Jets drafted him, I think most analysts felt like of the big four tackles who were in last year's draft, along with Thomas, Wills, and Wirfs, that Becton was the guy who maybe had the highest ceiling, but also the guy who probably needed the most technical refinement

entering the league. And he's been ahead of where I thought he'd be. At Louisville, he did not have a lot of natural pass sets. He's looked pretty good so far. He looks like he's handled it pretty well. I just wish the Jets would run behind him more. Adam Gase said to the press this week that Becton's always telling him, run behind me,

and he's moving guys in the run game that just barely run the ball behind him, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Sorry, I don't mean to segue into another Adam Gase rant, but the Jets don't have a lot of great run blockers on this offensive line, and I think the Jets should utilize him more in the run game. But to answer your question, he's ahead of schedule right now. I think that this has been the best case scenario for Mekhi Becta. He's one of the few Jets where you can say that guy's really living up to preseason expectations. He looks like a future building block for this Jets team

moving forward in the offense, whether Sam Darn and other guys are in that pictured long-term is to be determined here. And we could go on and on, John, about other topics of this Jets team, just how dysfunctional it's been so far. But I don't want to run you too long on the Jets side of things here. So we're going to move on to the Colts and discuss them with John and I, and we'll end it with our predictions here. Before we do so, I wanted to have a quick reminder here from our sponsors.

Be back in just a moment here as we hear from our sponsors. See all the action for every game with full game replays. You can also replay an entire game and catch all the plays in just 45 minutes with condensed games. Go to NFL.com slash Game Pass to start your free trial today. NFL Game Pass, where football never stops. All righty, we are back for segment two of our crossover special here. We're going to dive in now to the other side of the coin of this Colts versus Jets matchup. John, I'll give you the floor here to ask you some Colts questions. Well, Evan, I guess the first question naturally

is about the quarterback position for the Colts. Obviously, they bring in Phillip Rivers this offseason. How has he looked so far? He's been great. I mean, comparing him overall to Jacoby Brissett last year, who was one of the more inconsistent quarterbacks in the NFL last year. He had a hot start. I think he was benefited a lot by the offensive line, by that running game to have Marlon Mack going. Of course, Mack's not for the year with the torn Achilles in 2020. But I think it was very necessary

for the Colts to go out and upgrade the way they did with Phillip Rivers, who has a relationship with Frank Wright, the offensive coordinator, Nick Sirianni, from their San Diego days. And so far, Rivers has been everything and more as far as advertising. He has three interceptions in two games so far, but two of those interceptions weren't his fault.

The last game against Minnesota, he threw a pick, and Molly Cox dropped it right into the defender's hands. So it really wasn't Rivers' fault at all. And the efficiency to this, the offense is so much more rhythmic compared to last year. And that just goes to show you how impactful Rivers has been so far. He makes a decision. He goes and fires it when he sees his opening.

And that's been just a huge sigh of relief for this Colts offense. They are way more aggressive. Frank Reich trusts Phillip Rivers completely, unlike he did Jacoby Brissett last year. I think he kind of played away from Brissett most of the season last year after Andrew Luck's shocking retirement. And actually, Phillip Rivers is third in the NFL in non-completion percentage at 77.5% behind Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson. If he didn't include those drops in there as well, John, he'd be right there with Russell Wilson above 80% completion percentage so far. So it's been a great fit on paper for both sides and on the field between Phil Burrows and the Colts.

I think as Rivers gets more and more adjusted to the scheme and as they open up more play action game, which I think they'll do more and more often throughout the next couple of weeks, I think Rivers has shown that this could be more than just a one-year band-aid for this Colts team. It could be a multiple-year relationship if all goes well. Now, week one, the Colts lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars,

one of the most surprising outcomes of the league's opening week in 2020. But they bounced back week two. So talk a little bit about what went wrong in the opener and how things got better the second week. Yeah, week one was a disaster for this Colts defense. The offense moved the ball at will. They had 450-plus yards. They didn't pump the ball once.

Of course, Rivers turned the ball over twice to some interceptions, which were costly. It allowed the Jaguars to get 10 easy points on the board there. But the defense was just a disaster. Garvin mentioned in 19 of 20, he had an incompletion in the first quarter there for me, and he completed 14 straight passes to end the game there, really reminiscent of the Drew Brees game that we saw from the Colts defense last year in December, where he went 29 of 30, just inexcusable for the pass defense for this Colts team at points. If you have a smart quarterback

that goes against them, they can really scheme up against a zone cover two team and really just find the zones and find those soft spots. That's what Gardner Minshew did week one. And really the opposite happened in week two. Kirk Cousins wasn't able to find those zones. The Colts were more exotic in their looks. They ran a lot more man coverage, which I think is a necessity for them moving forward. They can't just be 75% or 80% of the time be in soft zone coverage because teams will just pick you apart.

They have a competent quarterback back there like we saw in week one. Also, a huge factor from the turnaround in week one to week two was the front four. Justin Houston, DeForest Buckner had disappointing openings for this Colts team in Jacksonville. But then this past week, DeForest Buckner was completely unblockable against the Minnesota Vikings offensive line. He had that viral clip of him doing the Reggie White hump move against Drew Samia. He just threw him out of the club, so to say. And it was just a rough outing for the Vikings offensive line. And Buckner had four quarterback hits, a sack and a half.

Justin Houston chipped in a sack as well. If those two are humming at full speed, I think it could be a really rough game for this Jets offensive line that, like you mentioned at the top of the show, John, there's some injuries there on the offensive line right now, and Buckner and Houston can take advantage of that. Most people know that the Colts have one of the best offensive lines in the NFL. Could you talk about the impact that they have for this offense?

Oh, it's gigantic. The offense runs through the offensive line. That's a shocking thing to say after the Andrew Luck era where the offensive line was neglected for so many years and ended up costing Andrew Luck his career. Unfortunately, I think they made the offensive line the way it is too late because he had that one great year in 2018, one comeback player of the year then unfortunately just due to another injury in training camp, he decided to hang up his cleats and retire for good. Quentin Nelson had completely

changed his team overnight when he was drafted in 2018 when they moved back from 3-6. Just the mentality, the nastiness in the offensive line is completely different now. They have road graders up front. They have Ryan Kelly to new extension at center. Anthony Costanza decided to stay around a couple more years as well. I think he's one of our underrated left tacklers in the NFL as well. Braden Smith at the right side at right tackle. He's very underrated. He's going to get a handsome payday here next offseason when

he's up for a contract extension. You just see this offensive line just gel the way it has so far. And a lot of that's due to Quentin Nelson, just his mentality, that blue chip, blue collar, hard hat, lunch pail sort of mentality brings his offense to the line. It was really contagious when he stepped into the facility on day one. And we saw last year multiple 150-plus rushing yard games, a couple 200-plus rushing yard games. Andrew Luck was barely touched in 2018. I think Jacoby Brissett barely got touched in a lot of games either,

but he just held the ball too long. And so far through two games, Rivers has been sacked twice, two last week, zero against Jacksonville. And I think moving forward with how quick decision-maker Phillip Rivers is, this offensive line could be in for a bounce-back year as far as sack tolls go. I can see them probably being around 15 to 18 sacks allowed this year. And this offensive line really is the heartbeat of this offense. And will they be rushing the ball or passing the ball? they're one of the best units in the NFL for sure

who are some of the players the Colts are looking to take the next step and become impact guys this year oh it's a really good question because unfortunately I would have answered Paris Campbell for that one but he's now out for indefinitely due to the injury suffered last week with his knee injury a PC PCL-MCL sprain. It's undetermined how long he's going to be out just yet, but I think he would have been my guy to pick there for a breakout player in year two to really ascend into this Colts offense. But I'm going to go with some rookies here, honestly.

I think it's going to be Jonathan Taylor at running back with Marlon Mack now for the year with a torn Achilles. He had 28 touches last week. He's already the bell cow of this offense with Mack gone. And I'd say Michael Pittman Jr., the Colts' top draft pick as well, number 34 overall. Taylor, of course, was 41 overall. Those two guys, the two high draft picks for this Colts team, they're now with Campbell out, with Mack out,

they're now in really heavy, really pressurized moments for this Colts offense. For them to be a 10-plus win team this year, which I think they can be, I think Michael Pittman Jr. and Jonathan Taylor have to be stars of this offense. And so far, it's been a good sign for Pittman. Week one, he didn't really do much. Week two, he had a couple of big moments. Jonathan Taylor, like I mentioned, is already getting 25-plus touches a game. I could see the same thing happening next week against this Jets team.

I think those two have a lot on their shoulders now, especially with those injuries occurring. If those guys can be legit, all-rookie-type players and really make instant impacts, which we saw last week against Minnesota and continue throughout the year, this Colts offense really won't miss a beat without guys like Mack and Campbell in there. How are the Colts on special teams? Really good. Really good. They finally got rid of Adam Benetario. It was long overdue after last year. I know he's the greatest kicker of all time, but just the leg strength wasn't there last year at age 46. He had a lot of fluttering balls off his foot. But Rodrigo Blankenship, hot rod, as I like to call him here in India, the Georgia kicker who went undrafted that signed a UDFA deal with the Colts, he's been great so far.

He missed one kick in the opener, but outside of that, he was 6 of 6 on extra points and two goals last week for the Colts against the Vikings. I think just comparing him to Vinatieri straight up, it's a massive upgrade. And Rigoberto Sanchez is one of the more underrated punters in the NFL. He replaced Pat McAfee, of course, a couple years ago, but he's been maybe on the same level as McAfee before he retired. And Luke Rhodes, of course, is one of the best long snappers in the NFL too. So this special teams unit was very much in need of an upgrade kicker

and Blankenship, even though he's just a rookie, undrafted rookie, he's been a huge upgrade out of Vinatieri. All right, great information there from Evan. And ahead here, we will close out this crossover Thursday episode between Locked On Jets and Locked On Colts by making some predictions. Yeah, let's go ahead, John, and do that, because I'm actually checking out DraftKings right now. I know gambling is illegal in Indiana.

I don't know about New York as far as being able to use sites like DraftKings, stuff like that. But I'm looking at the spread for the game right now, 10.5 points. The over-under is 43.5. I like to use the point spreads. You can go straight up if you want to, John. But I think this game, honestly, I talk about it all week. I don't think it's going to be that close.

I think the Jets' spiral continues here. I'm going to go 31-17. I don't know if the Jets can get 17 points on the board if this defense looks like we saw last week against Minnesota. I think this offense will be very good. It's going to be hard for this Jets defense to stop. This Colts offense is not balanced. They're already with Jonathan Taylor, Phillip Rivers.

Maybe it doesn't get touched much at all. I'm going 31-17. The Colts cover the spread. What say you, John? I don't think it matters whether you're asking me who's going to win the game who's going to cover the spread i think the answer is the same i'm taking the colts either way this is typically where you talk about what matchups one of the teams may be able to exploit i i think it's simpler than that this just team i i don't think you could pick this

team against anybody in the nfl right now the way they've looked the first two weeks. They've looked totally disorganized. They just have looked not ready to play. They've been non-competitive. I really don't like this matchup against Phillip Rivers. The Jets have been shredded in the secondary by Jimmy Garoppolo and Josh Allen,

both of whom are decent quarterbacks, but against a veteran like Rivers, I think it's going to be a long day. I don't think the Jets will be able to generate any pressure. Jets' offense is a mess right now. I don't see how the Jets are competitive in this game. I think it's going to be a 27-13 kind of game. Yeah, we're both in agreement there, and unfortunately,

the spiral for the Jets likely continues Sunday if our predictions are right. This Colts team could be in for a huge bounce back on Sunday. You guys can go read and listen to John's work over at Locked on Jets. And you can also, if you're a Jets fan listening, you can also go follow our Twitter page at Locked on Colts. You can go subscribe to our podcast at Locked on Colts. John, I appreciate the time, and thanks for doing this crossover. My pleasure, Evan.