Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts, Anthony Richardson Win Another UGLY Performance vs. Miami Dolphins

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Colts got the win today against the Miami Dolphins, but not all wins feel the same. This one comes with some much desired improvement moving forward. Let's get to it. You are locked on Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right. Thanks for joining us for your first post-game listen of the day. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network,

Starting point is 00:00:38 your team every day. We are here to talk about a win, but it's not necessarily a win that gives you the warm and fuzzies. Welcome to it today. This is Jake Arthur and Zach Hicks at HorseshoeHuddle.com. So a 16-10 win for the Colts. They do move to four and three on the season. Houston lost today as well, and then they go head-to-head. The Colts are now a game back, so this can make things super interesting next week. But yeah, this was a big win, but a lot of wins. Yeah, but they got to do this. And yeesh.

Starting point is 00:01:19 I mean, 16-10, it's not at all what it should have looked like. The Colts held a lot of advantages in this one. And the only true huge advantage Miami had was having Tyree kill and Jalen waddle. They didn't have the quarterback to deliver the ball to him like that, but that's like a clear advantage that they had. And the Colts shut those guys down to two catches, but everything else around them was so ugly. I mean,

Starting point is 00:01:40 the defense kind of stepped up and did enough. The offense we're going to get into more detail here, but my God, they didn't really find much life at all until the fourth quarter. This was Anthony Richardson's first game back since week four. He has basically missed the vast majority of the last three games. Looked like he had some rust, but I don't think it was just him. I think some of this was coaching as well, Zach. Richardson didn't deliver. There was a pretty big lack of execution from him as a passer,

Starting point is 00:02:14 but schematically things just seemed to not be functioning properly either. Yeah, let me get the two quick positives for Richardson out of the way to start, and then we'll get to all the negatives with him and with the offense. And gosh, I mean, what we had to watch today when it comes to when it came to this Colts offense. Two quick positives, though. It is nice having a mobile quarterback where when you have a day like this, when the passing game is not remotely good, like whatsoever, at least he can supplement it a little bit with the running game. Like it wasn't this elite rushing, you know, advantage that Richardson gave the Colts, but 14 for 56 converted, I think three third downs of his legs in this game that did help. It did help. Now, again, they dug themselves into the hole because of how in depth the passing game was, but at least having that to fall back on to dig yourself out of these holes is an advantage, obviously with the mobile passer.

Starting point is 00:03:08 And then look again for how awful he was for majority of the day, those last two drives that the Colts had, I think he was five or six on his final six passes, got the Colts in a field goal range on both of those drives. And the Colts were able to get enough points to win this game. Again, I like seeing that resilience out of him. We mentioned this in the Packers game.

Starting point is 00:03:26 We mentioned this, honestly, just in general with him, where he has these games with the Colts so far where he's just been dreadful to start games. Like this was a dreadful, dreadful performance early in this one. But doing just enough leg to get the win, I'll take that at this age. You know, again, you got to see a little bit more. You got to see a lot more, honestly, but I am glad he was able to turn out some productive drives at the end to get the Colts the win. Now getting to the negatives, though, it's just

Starting point is 00:03:55 another inefficient day with too many three and outs and really low success rate for this offense with Richardson at the helm. and look I know progression isn't linear you know you're not going to get better every single week sometimes there's there's peaks sometimes there's valleys and overall you just want to move that mean up and up and that's what the real definition of real definition of progression is it's not always going to be this perfect rise into stardom but you you want to see at least a little bit of glimmer of hope in some of these games. And it's hard every single week now where we're just kind of grasping onto a couple throws a week rather than like, oh, this was a good week from Richardson.

Starting point is 00:04:34 It's more so like, oh, here's like two or three throws from Richardson that were good out of the 24 that he threw. So it just was not a good, efficient day at all from the offense from Anthony Richardson. I will say this, this game didn't really feel like there were too many like inaccurate throws, if that makes sense. Like, like we saw in the Chicago Bears game, a lot of throws going over receivers heads, a lot of open receivers that were just not getting hit. In this game, it was a lot of pass breakups, a lot of throwaways, a lot of plays where he's getting hit and he has to just get the ball out of his hands. So it kind of, again, this whole game was

Starting point is 00:05:09 more from a functional standpoint. The entire offense was not functional. Richardson, though, was not good. He couldn't overcome those issues, which is what you want to see out of your quarterback. And the Colts escaped with a win, but it was an ugly, ugly one. You have a stat in here that nine of the 12 drives that the Colts had in this game lasted five plays or less, and they had six three and outs. Now, I think two of those drives that were not under five plays were near the end of the game, which got them the win. So that's the positive.

Starting point is 00:05:38 But the negative is you had nine of 10 drives aside from the final two or whatever, where you couldn't get anything going whatsoever on offense. And that's ultimately down to the play caller and the quarterback. Like those are the drivers of your offense. So yeah, Richardson, not good enough. You want to see better play from him. We're in it for the long haul. So the long haul means the end of this season, maybe even the end of next season, but you want to see more flashes. You want to see more glimpses. You want to turn these flashes from like,

Starting point is 00:06:07 oh, here's a couple of good throws this week, despite it not being a great performance, into, hey, here's a good overall performance from him. Like outside of that first game against Houston, which was far from perfect, we haven't really had a good Richardson performance, you know? And all the games we kind of hang our hat on are these games where he leaves early with injury. And we don't want that. We obviously don't want him leaving injured,

Starting point is 00:06:27 leaving early in these games. So Colts need better from him. He knows that they need better from him. He can't be missing these, the couple of throws that he's getting that are open needs to be quicker with his reads. So maybe, you know, some of these contested balls are a little bit easier for his receivers and the whole offense operationally needs to be better. So yeah, it's a tough game to watch, tough game to watch. I'm glad, you know, in an ugly game, I'm glad the ugly game was an ugly win and not an ugly loss, but it still doesn't make you feel good. You know, and that's kind of what we're coming out of this game with where it's like, oh gosh, that was so gross. Just wash our hands of it and get away from it. That's two weeks in a row now against two really bad teams

Starting point is 00:07:06 where the Colts kind of got out of there with like a, ugh, you know, like, let me just get away from this game and not talk about it again. So they're going into a brutal stretch after this. Five games against really good teams coming up. They got to win at least one or two of them to have playoff hopes alive. And they need better from their quarterback. They need better from their offensive coordinator. They need better from their offensive coordinator.

Starting point is 00:07:26 They need better from their offensive playmakers too. So hopefully this can get better going forward and you can kind of scrub your hands of it, but not a good day whatsoever from Richardson. And it's not even something you can paint as a positive day for him. Right. This is, this feels like at least like the third or so time,

Starting point is 00:07:43 this just the season where we've said, this is Anthony's worst game so far, at least passing the ball. Honestly, I think it was probably his worst game passing, but arguably his best game running. He has really found a way to gut out those tough yards and just beat the defender to the sticks and pick up the yards that he needs to get as a runner. So that part of it is awesome. So at least there's some part of it that's really functional. But just to put some more context to this, just brutally ugly passing numbers. 10 of 24, which is only 41.7% completion. 129 yards. His YPA wasn't good either, which it normally is, 5.4 YPA. No touchdowns, no interceptions, 59.2 rating.

Starting point is 00:08:28 He did lose a fumble and nearly lost another one. And then rushing the ball, 14 carries, which might be a career high. I've got to look at it. 14 carries for 56 yards. So productive there. Lots of really positive yardage and first downs involved in that so i'm with you uh you and me have have really strapped ourselves in for the long haul development of this player obviously uh so our patience for him is is quite long our tolerance for

Starting point is 00:08:57 this stuff is long but you don't want every week to say, yeah, he's young. He's still developing this and that. You don't want to feel like you're holding off the horde of the people with the pitchforks and everything every week. Just like you said, it's got to be more than just these little pockets of positivity. And I feel like he really flourishes, not necessarily when it's too little too late, but it's like when they absolutely have to have it is like when he kicks it on and it's like dude you gotta go from like the beginning like again a lot of this is is stykin as well and like the uh everyone else executing as well but this was the

Starting point is 00:09:39 first time in three weeks they haven't scored on the opening drive you know they'd been rolling they'd scored on the opening drive all three weeks you know otherwise they got a ton of three and outs you know six three and outs today even two of their scoring drives were among those drives where they had five or fewer plays in there so yeah it's like one of them i think was like 11 plays and that's the one where they fumbled in the red zone and it's like these things are just the consistency is non-existent and things are just kind of all over the map but we're going to talk about kind of the supporting cast here in a moment and talk about the rest of the offense this show is sponsored by better help What's something that scares you? Me personally, I am terrified of this team going 10 more weeks without making some drastic

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Starting point is 00:11:36 Visit BetterHelp.com slash locked on today to get 10 percent off of your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dotcom slash locked on alright so the offense as a whole was really not great Zach you know some guys who had been really consistent or productive in recent weeks the ball either really didn't come their way or they couldn't turn their opportunities into much productivity

Starting point is 00:12:01 you know Michael Pittman and A.D. Mitchell had a couple big plays. Pitt was three for 63. A.D. Mitchell had a couple catches for 30 yards. It feels like it's getting closer with A.D. Mitchell. The missed targets

Starting point is 00:12:17 today weren't as off as they have been, but a couple of disappointing ones, and this isn't necessarily on these guys, but Alec Pierce had two for 15 and then Josh Downs, which is the worst one, one catch for three yards, which can't happen. I think he had had seven catches in each of his last three games coming into this one, and that's when the offense was really functional and moving the sticks and had some consistency to it.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Yeah, I will add that the Dolphins did a really good job of bringing Jalen Ramsey down on Josh downs on a lot of these calls. Now there were a couple of times that Ramsey blitz where the Colts probably should, should have got the ball out hot to downs on the other side. And, and that again, it's a young quarterback issue.

Starting point is 00:12:56 It's a blitz pickup issue. It's a play caller issue. Like something was off in this game. And a lot of it does have to do with the quarterback, but also with the overall operation of the offense. But for the most part, the Dolphins came to this game saying, we're not going to let them get those easy early down stuff to Josh Downs by having Jalen Ramsey on him and then having, you know, lesser quarterbacks, so to speak on the cornerbacks on the outside on the other receivers. And the Colts couldn't really take advantage, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:22 and again, that's on the play calling. It's on the players. It's on everything there. I did want to mention with the play calling though, that look again, you were in the press box, Jake, I know it's a little different from the all 22 cause you can't like slow it down and all that, but like, it didn't feel like many guys were open whatsoever in this game. And, and I know the all 22 will be more telling. Like I can really go through and say, say okay this is what they were trying to do on this play and the ball should have been out here or you just can't get it here so you have to go to your check down uh but just watching in this one like again there were maybe two maybe three richardson throws that were off

Starting point is 00:13:58 target to openish receivers like it just didn't feel like anybody was open and and maybe that's a full credit to the Dolphins defense, but like, again, when you hire an offensive head coach, I feel like you need to be able to design some, some, some answers, you know, regardless of opponent. And it is at a disadvantage getting a team coming off a bye, um, who kind of gets that advanced week to scout you, but like, you gotta have some answers for, for your passing, especially for your passing offense for a young quarterback, there has to have some answers for for your passing especially for your passing offense for a young quarterback there has to be some answers and a lot of the answers today felt like shotgun play action long developing plays to non-open receivers

Starting point is 00:14:35 it just there was a lot like a lot of these three and outs were three straight passes to to passes that were like 10 yards down the field, three straight passes, three and out. And it's like, why are we not, like, I know the Colts suck at running screens, but like, let's get some screens in here. Let's get some isolation routes with, I mean, I know downs against Ramsey, but you still trust your receiver a little bit. And there's stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:14:59 I felt like schematically, the offense just wasn't in a good place to succeed throwing the ball. And when you put that on top of Richardson, who was having a really bad day throwing the ball, it's a great way to get nothing going on that side of the ball. I will give them credit for a couple of their play calls. You know, like end of the first half, they had no business getting down there and getting three. So whatever they designed on those plays to get all the way down there to get those three points,

Starting point is 00:15:24 two open receivers on back-to to back plays is pretty big. The little trick play was nice to, you know, the little check down the sermon on the trick play was was nice little thing in there. I thought some of the run concepts, especially the quarterback run concepts, looked really good. But overall, it was just like too too little too late at times. I know they end up winning, so I'm not going to say too little, too late, but so many three and outs. And it's like they brought out these bag of tricks at times in the second half, but it was like against a real football team that had a real quarterback on the other side, you'd already be trailing by a good bit in this game.

Starting point is 00:15:57 You can't start this slow against everybody. So it just felt like just from a whole procedural standpoint on offense, like outside of left tackle and left guard, I didn't see many positives on offense in this game. Oh, and Tyler Goodson. We'll talk about Tyler Goodson. I thought Goodson ran the ball pretty well, but he's pretty limited in how he creates as a runner. He's very, very much a I get ball and I run straight really fast type of player, which is awesome. When he gets out to the perimeter, it's a really good thing.

Starting point is 00:16:29 But besides that, man, like, yeah, this offense was tough to watch. It was a tough, tough viewing experience. And I know we saw some boos in the third quarter, which, look, man, I grew up a Washington fan. I've seen worse. So, you know, I've seen worse things that have warranted boos that didn't get them. So that's one thing i want to say there but like i kind of get the booze man i mean it was it was a dreadful watch looking at the offense at

Starting point is 00:16:49 times in this game no you're right you know normally you know from this bird's eye view here you could see guys breaking open whether it's on rubs or just you know they're being left alone in man coverage or you can see guys you know winning their their matchup and getting downfield uh but over i mean miami played really good defense like it boils down to i thought they played really good defense their coverage was really good despite you know their problems generating pressure i thought they did that pretty well they didn't have emmanuel agba obviously jalen phillips uh is out for the year they didn't have jevon holland either so i i thought the the next men up for miami did admirably well um it just was a clunky day overall for the colts it wasn't just anthony like it looked uglier for him as a product of other guys struggling as

Starting point is 00:17:39 well he couldn't necessarily overcome that until very late in the game but you know i'm with you it just i i didn't see many missed opportunities out there there was the pierce overthrow um you know there was the really good play that jordan jordan brooks made over the middle um that play that anthony almost dropped into kyle and grants and up the seam that might have been a touchdown uh just a really just really good play i just thought that there wasn't a ton of like huge missed opportunities i thought miami just played some really good defense overall yeah it's just again it's just one of those days where you'd like to see some help for a young quarterback again not excusing richardson's play whatsoever like if we're grading this on an

Starting point is 00:18:20 a to f scale this game was like a d minus like you give them a little bit of credit because of the quarterback running game but like this was a dreadful game from richardson but it's another game where like 50 50 balls were were colts receivers coming down with the 50 50 balls in this game no they weren't a lot of pass breakups in this game were guys getting schemed open or did the colts have answers for a lot of the things that dolphins were throwing at them no uh i mean even looking at ryan kelly ryan have answers for a lot of the things that Dolphins were throwing at them? No. I mean, even looking at Ryan Kelly, Ryan Kelly handles a lot of the blitz protections in the blitz pickups. Were they picking up blitzes in this game?

Starting point is 00:18:53 No, they were not picking up blitzes very well in this game. So like, yes, it's one thing to have your young quarterback struggling and not having a good game at all. But it's another thing to where like all these other players and people around them who should be good at like, not like I don't want to say should be good at what they're doing and not being good, but like who are getting paid, like they should be like performing at a high level every single week from the head coach to, you know, offensive lineman picking up the blitzes to the pass catchers. Someone's got to pick up the slack when the quarterback struggling. And I'm not saying that this game all of a sudden becomes some blowout win for the Colts

Starting point is 00:19:28 if they pick up the slack, because again, Richardson had a bad day, but like, it was just another one of those games. Like, it's like the Chicago game where it's like, nobody out here is making a play and nobody's really open. Like, it's kind of on everything here. So we can look at Richardson and say, yes, this is a pretty, pretty big issue right now. Like we've seen the last couple of games we've seen of him outside of the beginning of that Steelers game have not been good games for Richardson.

Starting point is 00:19:52 He is a big part of the problem, but we do need to start seeing other people stepping up and making plays for him. Michael Pittman Jr. Made a couple of big plays in this game. I will give him credit. When he got his targets, he made some big plays. But aside from that, Alec Pierce had a big drop drop a couple other receivers had some tight catches they didn't make offensive line i mean again left side the offense line was fine right side had some struggles

Starting point is 00:20:13 braden smith had three penalties in this game like you mentioned uh ryan kelly and and dalton tucker were getting blown up in the run game at times like just needs to be better from everyone else around the young quarterback so you can survive more of these you know learning moments and struggles and stuff I'm not saying that this needs to be the norm forever like eventually Richardson needs to figure some stuff out but while he's going through these these learning curves and these struggles early you need the other guys to carry him and that goes from the play caller to the offensive line to the to the pass catchers and if they're not all performing at that top level or a very good level you get days like this where the offense just can't do anything i really think they could use a heavy dose of jonathan taylor

Starting point is 00:20:55 getting back back in the lineup i think that will cure a lot of problems like again not to go on a whole different tangent but like with the run game, the holes are there, but the creativity really isn't. Guys are picking up the yards that are there to get without it being created. You just don't realize how much you miss an explosive guy, a trendsetter, early in a game like Jonathan Taylor until he's out like this. We're going to go ahead and talk about the defensive side of the ball here in a moment. Some good, some bad, and overall enough to win. NFL fans, you can spark your season with a big return on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play,

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Starting point is 00:22:03 The under was safe on this one. It was safe. So, yeah, we'll see what is in store for the Colts next week against the Texans on the road. But that's going to be on FanDuel.com. All right, so I don't want to say a single thing about the defense without first acknowledging the prince that is Grant Stewart. Like this guy, if you know you're going into a run heavy game, I don't care. I want three

Starting point is 00:22:35 Grant Stewards in base defense. We've got 18 tackles in this one. I can't remember, the last time I remember a Colt linebacker having like 18 tackles, Darius slash Shaquille Leonard had that as a rookie, like in a second or third game ever. Like that's a, that's a ton of tackles, man. Like this is a special teams player who no other fan bases around the league know exists other than maybe Tampa, because that's where he came from. Like Grant Stewart with a hell of a game. It's because his hair is long,

Starting point is 00:23:07 but he played with his hair on fire and he just, the guy is a Tasmanian devil and the very first kudos of the day. Yeah, absolutely. Grant Stewart is a, it's actually really funny because years ago with the draft guide, I currently work at, I think this was the year before I started working at the draft guide.

Starting point is 00:23:22 Our guy who was doing linebackers had Grant Stewart as like the lowest rated player in the guy's history or something like he did not like Grant Stewart. And I think a lot of that was like the coverage issues and, and how he's a very linear downhill player that just doesn't exist in today's football. And that guy was clearly a little too harsh on our boy, Grant Stewart, Grant Stewart,

Starting point is 00:23:39 fantastic special teams player. And this was a perfect game plan for him. Like you mentioned, like when, if you're dropping Grant Stewart into big 10 football, and when I say big 10 football, I mean, ugly big 10, I mean like a bad Wisconsin type offense versus a bad Rutgers offense. Like that's what we got today was disgusting, low end, big 10 football. We can't even put Indiana anymore. Indiana is great, but we're putting bad Big Ten football into this. Grant Stewart is perfect. He will take on those lead blockers.

Starting point is 00:24:07 He will mash a fullback whenever he can. He will kill tackles that try to pull around. And he will be relentless in his pursuit to the ball. So if this game proved anything, it proves that Grant Stewart should have been on the field in that week two game against the Green Bay Packers when the Packers were running the ball so much. Because he can thrive in games like this where it's run, run, run, run, run. We're going to run the ball 40 to 50 times or whatever the heck the Dolphins did in this

Starting point is 00:24:30 game. Grant Stewart can be involved in a lot of plays and he was fantastic out there. Again, I don't think this works like Grant Stewart if he starts next week against the Houston Texans. You're not going to do this next week. Right. We're going to have some issues, I I think in terms of just past coverage and zone drops over the middle.

Starting point is 00:24:47 But on the other side, when we're looking at this defense where the linebackers already struggle in past coverage a lot, like really struggling past coverage might as well just get a really good run defender on the field at Grant Stewart. Like Grant, Grant Stewart is the throwback 1990s Sam linebacker when they used to play base defense at like a 70% clip.

Starting point is 00:25:08 And he just plays it really well. Like, look, there's not much upside to Grant Stewart on defense, but what he does bring you in terms of run defense and his physicality and his energy and hustle. Like, you know, if I were a coach right now, I would tell you, like, I wish I had a team of 53 Grant Stewart's or 52 Grant Stewart's or whatever, because that's that's the kind of mentality you want. You want just pure psychos on your team. And that is what Grant Stewart is like.

Starting point is 00:25:33 He's a pure special teams demon psycho that comes downhill, plays physical, plays energetic, plays with hustle. And for a Colts defense that has been kind of lethargic, and I don't want to say the S word soft, you know, with this defense, but a lot of people have been telling me that, I guess on Twitter, that's a soft defense. A guy like Grant Stewart's the kind of the energizer bunny out there, man. And it was really great to see him out there. So yeah, Grant Stewart, man, like again, I don't think this works against like a real

Starting point is 00:26:00 NFL offense, but in a game like this, where they're going to run the ball 40 times and not really have much of a passing offense, Grant Stewart, man, what a game, what a game from Grant Stewart. Yeah. Stewart making a bunch of boomer dads fall in love on a Sunday afternoon here. His running mate today is Zyra Franklin, 16 tackles as well. So like your, your tackles having,

Starting point is 00:26:23 or your linebackers having 34 tackles between them with a forced fumble. This game really came down to those forced turnovers by the defense with the offense being what it was in a one score game. Zyra Franklin really slash Stewart. I'll get Stewart and I think Nick Cross were in this as well. They forced a fumble. Shagoo Alubi forced a fumble and recovered it. So, Guna Alubi, that's our boy, Jake.

Starting point is 00:26:49 That's our boy. We need to get more excited about Guna Alubi. That's our boy. This is a for-the-brand episode. Of course, the crappy thing about that is EJ Speed was downgraded to doubtful before the game with a knee injury. Did not play. Jalen Carlisle left with an ankle injury,

Starting point is 00:27:04 which was really the only injury of note from this game. So, you hate to see that for those guys. doubtful before the game with a knee injury, did not play. Jalen Carlisle left with an ankle injury, which was really the only injury of note from this game. So you hate to see that for those guys. But the next minute, stepping up. One huge thing about this, Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddell, one catch each, two catches total, 19 yards. I know it's Tyler Huntley and it's Tim Boyle out there, but any quarterback with a pulse knows that you always have that option to just huck it deep. And the Colts secondary did a really good job keeping those guys in check. I mean, Johnnie Smith murdered them, seven catches for 96 yards and a touchdown. But I think you give that up. You know, you give that up in an effort to make sure those other guys don't kill you.

Starting point is 00:27:46 Well, I think it, I think this game shows kind of where the, again, where the weaknesses are on this Colts defense, where in the run game, in the, in the run game, they devote a lot of resources to stopping the run and it wasn't perfect today by any means, but they play Adam Gatz as the defensive end. They play Grant Stewart. They have Nick Ross in the box. Like they want to stop the run at all costs. And then the passing, I mean, like, I know this, again, not a great passing offense,

Starting point is 00:28:10 especially with the downgraded quarterback. I mean, again, these are Big Ten football high school quarterbacks or college quarterbacks essentially out there. So I'm not saying this is a great passing attack the Colts are facing, but kind of a strength for this defense this year has been their cornerback play and just their defensive back play and coverage. The issues when it comes to coverage has been the middle of the field with the linebackers in coverage with at times the safeties in coverage as well.

Starting point is 00:28:35 Like that middle area of the field is really where you can exploit this pass defense. But Kenny Moore has been really good this year in coverage. Samuel Womack has been fantastic in coverage this year. And Jalen Jones has been a little hit or miss, but he's had the really tough assignments and he's had some really good moments. I mean, he had a really great pass breakup late in this game on Jalen Waddell.

Starting point is 00:28:55 Like, you know, this Colts corner is going to get tested a lot over this murderer's row stretch coming up, these next five games, and where they get, what, CJ Stroud, Josh Allen, Jared Goff, and the Lions. Devontae Adams and Amari Cooper just got dropped in, thanks. stretch coming up these next five games and where they get what cj stroud josh allen jared golf and the lions adams and amara cooper just got dropped in thanks right aaron rogers and then justin jefferson and sam darnold and the vikings like it's a brutal stretch coming up for these guys but

Starting point is 00:29:16 what we what we all expected coming into the year was the strength being the front seven and the weakness being the secondary it's kind of been the strength has been the secondary and the weakness has been the front seven. Now the front sevens had some guys playing well, like Grover Stewart. I thought had a fantastic day today. Taven, Brian made a couple of plays.

Starting point is 00:29:34 Taven, Brian made a couple of plays. I give him his, his credit when it's deserved. Grant Stewart again, had a great day. And, and the defensive ends like we're fine in the run game.

Starting point is 00:29:42 Got to be better in the past game. But overall, like the secondary has been pretty solid for this season. Again, they're going to be tested quite a bit coming up. And we'll see if they're for real in these next couple games. But I've been impressed by, I mean, especially by Kenny and Womack. But Jalen Jones, too, like, is proving to be a pretty solid outside corner. Like, at the very worst, a solid outside corner. So hats off to the secondary, man. Hats off to the secondary. All year, we've kind of,

Starting point is 00:30:08 it's kind of been like hats off to the secondary outside of the Dallas Flower Snaps and that Jaguars game. It's been hats off to the secondary and hopefully they can keep it up against better teams that can actually throw the ball. Because again, if we're talking about what the Colts basically faced in this one, they basically faced like Wisconsin's offense, you know, like this was, this was Wisconsin slash Rutgers offense they were facing. And they look, they did enough to win the game. I cannot complain about the defense after this allowing only 10 points. The two turnovers were massive, massive plays. I mean,

Starting point is 00:30:41 like, like you can't even say how important those plays were, especially the first fumble. Cause it gave life to the offense for the first time in the entire game. So the Colts won this game on the backs of their defense. I don't care who they were playing against. They still won the game because the defense and that deserves credit. Gus Bradley, man, give him some credit. Gus Bradley, the guy that we all hate. I know the commons aren't going to give him credit for it, but like, look, you can't, you can't only get on the guy for the bad performances and not, you know, pat them on the back for the good ones like last two weeks, two bad offenses

Starting point is 00:31:12 they played, but they've done their job in both games. So a win's a win. Now, no matter how ugly it is, a win is a win. The Colts got out with a win, only allowed 10 points. I will take it. I will take give me all the wins you can in the nfl season for sure well if i'm going to be a party pooper i will say that i didn't love the run defense for a good chunk of it 40 carries for 188 yards now if you have 40 carries you're gonna have a bunch

Starting point is 00:31:37 of yards that just is what it is miami can't couldn't really do anything else um but i mean there were there were plenty of broken tackles and guys not getting off blocks and you know just there were a lot of you know really i not necessarily chunk runs there were a handful there but like runs that did not need to go as far as they did basically um but i mean again they they came away with the two turnovers, which, which helped it not get as bad as it was, uh, Tyler Huntley leaving the game with a shoulder injury, uh, and removing the mobile aspect of the quarterback play from Miami certainly helped Tim Boyle is, is, I mean, as far as passers goes, it's probably a wash, but Huntley obviously adds

Starting point is 00:32:24 a dynamic with his legs that disappeared there. So survive in advance, man. I don't know what to tell you. The Colts are now a game back from Houston with a head-to-head matchup coming next week on the road. It's huge. It's a huge one. I mean, I don't think any of us are going to feel awesome about it going into it,

Starting point is 00:32:43 but these teams play close. They do. I will say before the season, we circled three stretches for the Colts first six games, which was kind of winnable, but also had some tough stretches in there, you know, at Jacksonville,

Starting point is 00:32:55 Houston and green Bay were, were tough games and they lost those games. But they came out of that first six, three and three. That that's exactly what we would have said before the season as perfectly fine. Now their next six, now this Dolphins game was supposed to be the next six of the murderer's row games

Starting point is 00:33:10 of the really tough games. And they already are one and O in the really tough stretch that we identified preseason. So they can steal one of these next five. That's my bare minimum I'm putting on there. Steal one of the next five, maybe two if you want to get a little cheeky here, and then take care of business in that final five,

Starting point is 00:33:28 where we're looking at the Patriots, the Broncos, the Giants, the Titans, and the Jaguars. Take care of business in those five. You can be a playoff team despite the inconsistencies at quarterback and all the injuries. I mean, every single player on this team is injured right now. They can still be a playoff team as long as they take care of business. So far, so good in terms of taking care of business in those chunk stretches that we mentioned in the preseason. It's all about stealing another game or two in this next stretch because this next stretch, you play probably the three best teams in football in Buffalo, Detroit, and Minnesota. The Jets are, again, a sneaky team.

Starting point is 00:34:05 And Houston, they're a little bit slumping right now, but like, it's still a pretty good football team that we're looking at with Houston. So the Colts got to at least steal a couple of these games that they want to be in the hunt for the playoffs. And we got to obviously see more out of this offense and young quarterback. But that's all we have for today, guys. We want to thank you all for making Locked On Colts your first listen today. Now, if you're a second listen, go find the new locked on nfl now with two shows

Starting point is 00:34:28 every day first the madman tyler roland kicks off your morning with the double shot of nfl espresso and then stop by the barbershop with tony wiggins for some real nfl talk find locked on nfl on youtube or every list your podcast if you guys want to become a locked on colts insider and chat with us directly and get the insider scoop follow the link in our show notes and if you guys don't already make sure you're following at locked on colts at jake arthur us directly and get the insider scoop. Follow the link in our show notes. And if you guys don't already, make sure you're following at Locked on Colts, at Jake Arthur, NFL, and at Zach Hicks too, all on Twitter. Also subscribe to us on YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcasts. We love your guys' ratings and views.

Starting point is 00:34:53 And we'll catch you guys back here tomorrow afternoon.

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