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

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

On today's episode, it's our latest installment of Locked On NFL's Crossover Special featuring Locked On Colts x Locked On Cardinals! With an in-depth preview of a massive showdown on Christmas Day between two of the best teams in the NFL, who will come out on top?Going over each side covering angle, it's time take notes and get prepared for Colts vs. Cardinals! 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. All right, Thursday, Alex Payton, Bobrock, Locked On Cardinals. Evan Sidery, Locked On Colts. Two teams going in kind of different directions this late in the season, matching up on Christmas night. I'm sure Bo, Evan, and myself very happy about that, doing the podcast right after. We're going to get into our crossover edition here.

This is going to be a fun one. It's going to be fun. We don't get to talk to Evan a lot when it comes to the Colts. They are one of the scarier teams, and Bo, in my estimation, that the Cardinals have to face the rest of the season. If you haven't been a part of one of our crossovers, how we do this is, first segment, we'll kind of do a how did we get here segment. Both Evan and Bo and myself will kind of do it from our own sides.

Second segment, Evan is going to ask us all the questions necessary to get you ready from a Cardinals perspective as Colts fans, and then final segment, we'll wrap up, or Bo and I will flip the script and do it for Evan, and we'll get everything we need to know about that. I mean, fringe MVP candidate Jonathan Taylor,

the bane of all Cardinals fans existence going into Saturday night. What do we have? 72 more hours until the reckoning of what could be Jonathan Taylor and this rush defense. So Evan, let's start with you. It's been a weird season. It's been a double sprained ankle in the same game season. It's been a Carson Wentz has kind of come back to earth and shown people what he used to be like in Philly, even though his role was a little bit different with the run heavy offense in Indy and the defense Darius Leonard led,

is the Darius Leonard-led defense. Have you gone into the spin cycle 15 times this year? You've seen so many different versions of this team. Where are they now, and can they sustain it through the playoffs? Yeah, I think this version we're seeing now is what is the sustainable version. I do believe this team is legitimately one of the more scary teams in the AFC for the playoffs this year. I could easily see them winning a game or two

and go to the AFC title game this year. You see the way Jonathan Taylor is running the ball. And for those wondering out here, I actually live in Arizona and cover the Phoenix Suns as well. So just listening to the local sports radio out here, everyone is terrified of what Jonathan Taylor is going to be able to do here on Saturday. So I'm looking forward to seeing what Taylor can do in that sense. But also, I think Frank Reich, his playbook's completely open now with Carson Wentz as his quarterback. He has a strong arm mobile quarterback for the first time

since 2018, which is Andrew Luck. Carson Wentz is in no way close to Andrew Luck, but he at least opens up the playbook to give up those same plays that he can do. So that allows him to do a lot of play action, a lot of rollouts, letting people get sucked into the box and then throw it deep. Like Ashton Doolin or Michael Pittman Jr., Paris Campbell if he comes back this Saturday. If not, even a lot of other weapons as well, like a tight end as well. But you also see this opportunistic defense. 31 turnovers in 14 games, tied for the league, leading the NFL. Their goal was 40 coming into the season.

They're on pace for 39, so they're right on track for that. But outside of that 0-3 start, Carson Wentz had no training camp due to his foot injury. He also had, I believe, a week due to COVID issues. So outside of that, he had to get all that chemistry going during training camp. There was no OTAs. The Colts were one of the lightest teams in the NFL when it came to that. So it was a very slow adjustment period for Carson Wentz from that sense. But then after those three weeks and that sprained ankle, like you mentioned, Alex,

both sprained ankles for Carson Wentz in the first three weeks, the Colts have had 11 straight games where they've led a game by 10-plus points. They have been absolutely dominant from that sense. And they've blown three games. And they're against the Titans, the Buccaneers, and the Ravens. And if they didn't do that, they'd have 11 straight wins at this point. They're just rattling off teams, blowing them out left and right. Their average margin of victory over the stretch is 14 points.

So they're just absolutely going in, taking the lead, and not letting up at any point. I think Frank Reich has realized over the last six weeks, though, that Jonathan Taylor is very special. I think he's Adrian Peterson 2.0 as far as like the young version of AP that we saw in 2012. He's on pace right now for 24 touchdowns, 2300 scrimmage yards and I think 6.1 yards per touch this season, which is absolutely incredible for a guy like Jonathan Taylor and his workload. But this team is Jonathan Taylor. It runs through him.

I am absolutely terrified, though, of Carson Wentz in the playoffs if that goes into that situation. I think Frank Reich's realized that as well because we've seen over that stretch of games as well, Carson Wentz is throwing maybe 20 times per game. He's not putting the ball in Carson Wentz's hands much at all. So this team runs through Jonathan Taylor, and opportunistic defense is still young and getting better.

But if the Cardinals can stop the run a little bit. I do believe, honestly, this could be a chance for the Cardinals to maybe have Carson Wentz try to beat them. And that's not really have much on a single game this season. Yeah. I mean, you look at the last game, he completes five passes, but, you know, they're still able to put up points on the legs of Jonathan Taylor. But it's it's like if you were to, if you were to ask Arizona Cardinals fans, this would be a tough, tough answer for me. If you were to ask the Arizona Cardinals fans if they would endure the start that the Indianapolis Colts had,

was it one in five at one point, Evan? I mean, it was just, it was frustration. And the Arizona Cardinals are a complete polar opposite. I mean, they come out of the gates hot. You know, they're 10 and 2 at one point. But when you talk about when it really matters the most, the Colts are trending in the right direction. The Arizona Cardinals are going the opposite way right now.

You know, despite all the success and all the fun it was coming out of the gates, I think everybody would make the tough decision to trade spots with them because right now is the most important time. How were they able to do that? Was it just kind of figuring it out, getting the new quarterback incorporated, figuring out that Jonathan Taylor is the face of this franchise and they just needed to ride that out? Or was it,

was it more than that? Was it, it wasn't, it wasn't as simple. I think honestly, it is that simple just because I think the Colts, I think this one of us by design or if it was just them not realizing it so early on in the season but Jonathan Taylor their first

five weeks of the season only got 50% of the carries or 50% of the snaps for the running back so it's usually really a 50-50 split between Naeem Hines and Jonathan Taylor Marlon Mack was sprinkling a little bit there but he's been a DNP the last two months of the season outside of that but really the last 10 or so weeks Jonathan Taylor's got about 75% of the snaps of running back. He's taking over as a three-down running back. He's running the whole show. Carson Wentz can sprinkle in and make some deep plays happen with his arm strength and maybe run a little bit. But outside of that, it's mostly just been, I think, the Colts realizing this guy we have is a freak in the backfield. He's LaDainian Tomlinson. He's Adrian Peterson. He's just a freak.

Cardinals fans, when you watch him on Saturday, it's going to be a treat just because you're seeing a generational running back, but it's also a treat for the Colts fans because I think I've seen the Cardinals. I want to hit on Arizona for a second, too, because what is going on with them? Because

Jonathan Taylor has to be licking his chops when he saw some guy named Craig Reynolds run for 112 yards for the lions on Saturday. Jonathan Taylor might be going for 200 plus on Saturday. If that continues, I mean, what's, what's your guys' thoughts on this? Cause it feels like watching him up close to living.

Like I mentioned, living in Arizona, I watch every Cardinals game myself. And the last couple of years, it's been the same story. And Arizona gets hot. They go down in November, December,

and it just goes downhill. So like, what is the trend with that? It looks like it's continuing the same story and Arizona gets hot they go down in November December and it just goes downhill so like what is the trend with that it looks like to continue again this year and you play Dallas the week after this so it could be rough sledding once again yeah the Cardinals are now tied for the division lead with the tiebreaker obviously I believe over the Rams currently um it's been a tale of you know two seasons one. One is the first half and the second part is the other. And Bo and I have gone back and forth by Cliff Kingsbury's ability to lead. The Cardinals also have a freak on their team in Kyler Murray. He just hasn't been playing up to the level that we saw before his ankle injury

in the last play of the game against Green Bay on Thursday Night Football where the ball hit A.J. Green in the back and fell homelessly to the ground, which kind of started this whole thing. You wish it fell into the hands of the Green Bay Packers defense. What? When the ball hit AJ Green in the back? Yeah. Against Green Bay?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Obviously, when AJ Green didn't turn around, regardless. We don't have to bring up old stuff. Jonathan Taylor obviously is going to be something that the cardinals someone the cardinals are going to have to game four put eight in the box i mean it's not going to be as you mentioned it's not going to be a secret as to how they're going to try and stop him when it comes to kyler murray and this defense i feel like the cardinals aren't dead men

walking which people are kind of writing them out to pasture already. And I've been very critical of Cliff after their loss to Detroit. But all in all, what we're looking at with the Cardinals organization and the Cardinals roster currently is there's a lot of question marks like they were going to the regular season. They're just different ones now. And with DeAndre Hopkins on the shelf, hopefully Ronnie Hudson will be back to show up the offensive line come Saturday in a short week after being covered protocols last week. There's just a lot of question marks

as to who the Cardinals can trust on both sides of the ball now to make plays. And we're going to find out a lot on Saturday night, Christmas night at State Farm Stadium. Coming up next, Evan Sidery is going to go more in-depth at East Sidery on Twitter. He's his personal at LockedOnColts for all the greatest Colts information.

He's one of the best, if not the best, on the Locked On NFL portion of the Locked On Podcast Network from a social perspective. He's going to, you know, firing squad us and kind of get more in depth about what he needs to know about the Cardinals ahead of Saturday night's matchup. First, stat hero. No one plays traditional. No one plays daily fantasy sports to lose. Winning feels so much better, but traditional fantasy sports

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I listen to these guys every day. You guys make sure you do that as well. They do such great stuff covering the Arizona Cardinals. But let's dive into it. I have a lot of questions as a local Arizona resident about this Cardinals team because, man, like we were just talking about a couple minutes ago, there's just a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing with the Cardinals right now. But I want to hit on the main positive of the season, even though he's been out for about, I believe it was three

or four games with that ankle injury. But Kyler Murray, when he's been playing, he's been awesome to watch. I mean, he's always been one of the most entertaining quarterbacks in the NFL from a watch perspective because he could just run all over the field, make throws with his cannon arm. But what's been your guys' assessment of Kyler Murray this year? Just from my overall perspective, I know it's going down a different trend for the last couple weeks again with his inconsistent play. But overall this season, what's been your guys' thoughts on Kyler? Go ahead, Mark.

I mean, he was playing at MVP caliber level at the beginning of the season, probably the first before he bowed out with the injury that he sustained on Thursday Night Football against the Packers. was that was kind of a signature drive that he was leading until the miscommunication at the end i mean that could have been his moment and it turned into an absolute dud it was the arizona cardinals suffering that loss and a lot of people saying see we told you about this cardinals team we told you about kyler murray he can't be the face of a franchise and he then the next thing you've got this cloud of uh the unknown like is he gonna when's he coming back because the way the cardinals played it he was day-to-day he was game time decision he ended up missing

three weeks four weeks with the bye week ended up going what 38 days without playing a down at football so then he comes back against the chicago bears and is able to knock the rust off relatively easy kind of a rough first snap and then this this offense ends up putting up 33 points, aided by what, was it three picks by Andy Dalton in that contest? Arizona Cardinals, their defense being opportunistic, set up Kyler Murray for success. He was playing on a lot of short fields. He was lethal in the red zone. And since coming back, here's a team that's only cashed in twice in their last eight red zone attempts. And Kyler Murray's thrown three brutal picks since he's returned as well.

And you've got to wonder where his focus is. Is he struggling as far as is he coming in prepared? Is he still trying to knock the rust off? And it's a completely different quarterback, but it's also very similar to how he struggled down the stretch of last season. And, you know, a guy that played one full season at the college football level, albeit a Heisman, you know, trophy winning season that got him the number one, you know, to be the number one pick in the NFL, you know, how is his endurance? Is he somebody that can kind of keep up with the marathon that is now a 17 game season that remains to be seen so far?

We haven't seen that. He's going to have to figure it out. He's got to have a bounce-back game against this Colts defense that doesn't match up well for the Arizona Cardinals offensive line because of how much interior pressure they give up, which blows up a lot of their plays. It's going to be a tough night for Kyler Murray. He's going to have to assert himself and show that he's a superstar-caliber player.

He hasn't been there the last two weeks. need that because cliff kingsbury's even admit it this team goes as kyler murray goes and that's just so important for the success of this squad and alex i want to ask you about this matchup too on saturday with this colts defense because the way that gm chris bauer has built this defense it's all about speed it's all about length all about athleticism so this is probably the fastest defense the carl's gonna be going up against in the longest one because Darius Leonard Bobby O'Kara K they're the two longest linebackers because of arm like the NFL super fast guys as well how do you feel like Kyler matches up to that because this was kind of like a defense where Kyler's kind of going to be bottled up in that pocket a little bit more than usual

yeah it's going to come out of the offensive line I mean protect Kyler protect the realm protect everything you know I mean that that's kind of that's that's really what it's come down i mean look at what happened in detroit no rodney hudson you had you had backups on the full interior of the offensive line even with justin pew out like this ain't working if you're not protecting kyler murray now sure his ability to i i call it Steve Younging or Tony Romaring, where you do the reverse pivot outside of the pocket, which he's kind of grown accustomed to doing, and he's great throwing, going to the left or to the right

in that motion once he gets out of the pocket. It seems like he's lost a little bit of that, that the edges are catching up to him a little bit more than they were. I don't know if his ankle is not fully healthy. I don't know what it is. It's not an excuse. But to answer that specifically, it's hard to do because we're seeing a different Kyler Murray than we saw the first handful of games this year, where he was a world beater and nobody could stop him. What I do know is the ability for him to run

has been completely cratered by opposing defenses. When you have long and fast defenses, sometimes you can leverage that to open up running lanes for a running back like Kyler Murray. Now, this is going to have to be a masterful game plan by Cliff Kingsbury on the offensive side of the ball because Darius Leonard, what was he, South Carolina State or something? Darius Leonard was the jewel of the 2018 draft, especially in the early second round.

He always needs to be accounted for. He's probably the best LB in the early second round like he's always needs to be accounted for he's probably the best lb in the league even though he doesn't get the credit because he's an indie for some reason what we need to see from kyler murray is a game plan set for him that not only protects him in the pocket and gets the ball out fast but also allows him to use his legs in a way that we haven't seen i think he had 60 yards rushing, but was that against Chicago? I don't know. He had some chunk games recently, but not what we saw during the first half of the season

that really kept the linebackers and secondaries and opposing teams guessing. Yeah, that's a really good point there. I want to flip to the other side as well, because this Colts offensive line over the last couple of months has been absolutely dominant, especially opening up these big holes for Jonathan Taylor.

Bo, Alex, either one of you guys, how do you feel like this Cardinals defensive line, their front seven stacks against this Colts offensive line and their really good blocking tight ends as well? I feel like if those holes open, Jonathan Taylor is a freak athlete. We already hit on this. If there's a little crease, he's going to explode through that and he missed a tackle. He's gone for 75 yards for a touchdown. So how do you feel like they match up against him as well as

far as like the offensive line against his front seven but also the pass rush too because Chandler Jones quite honestly has been a really big disappointment this year outside of week one obviously JJ Watts out right now due to injury Marcus Golden's having an okay season as well I think short term and and long-term, the pass rush for Arizona is a little worrisome now too when you look into a longer lens. Yeah, you know what? The team hasn't kind of changed since J.J. Watt went out, and Vance Joseph continues to run this scheme, and I read an interesting article about it from Oliver Conley, and it's basically, schematically, what they're going for is they're going to concede every once

in a while getting gashed by a big run because they're going to go boom or bust trying to create negative plays on early downs like their pressure down is first down and they're going to try to create those negative plays so they can set up success for the defense you know later on that worked out you know for the first eight nine games of the season the last couple weeks it's been just complete disaster as far as explosive runs, they've given up over 20 explosive runs, which is at like 17% clip, which is 31st in the league out of 32.

So they're struggling. They're struggling mightily and it's kind of going scheme over personnel and it's just not working out. If for some reason, I mean, this is kind of the definition of insanity how things have played out the last couple of weeks is trying the same thing, expecting different results. We'll see what happens with this. I mean, you have to get big plays from those two guys.

You just mentioned Marcus Golden. The junkyard dog was unbelievable. The first couple of weeks of the season, he's kind of disappeared. But that's because, you know, the offensive lines can key in on him. And then, of course, Chandler Jones, who's in a contract here. I mean, this guy's just costing himself millions upon millions of dollars each and every no show of the week. They got to they got to show up on Christmas. And I don't know if that would be that would be an early gift for Cardinals fans because they need that. That's necessary.

Now you don't have Robert Alford, who is quietly one of the most steady guys in your defensive secondary. He's on the I.R. and you got to rely on a guy like Marco Wilson, a fourth-round pick who's very talented. You know about his brother there in Indy, Quincy Wilson. You know, this defensive secondary is very thin, and there's going to be some pressure. I don't care if it's Carson Wentz or Tom Brady. I mean, they're going to cut you up.

An NFL-caliber quarterback will cut you up if you're not getting any pressure. That's if, you know, Jonathan Taylor isn't rushing like he's a he's he's going for 200 250 yards in this game but that's the scheme and they're gonna run I mean Vance Joseph has not varied from it at all and they're just gonna try to continue to create those negative plays and they've been awful recently too on third down getting off the field something that was a strength early in the season and now they're they're giving up third downs in the 40th percentile. It's not good. So it's going to come down to can they just have a good game?

Can they have a strong performance? And that's kind of just like close your eyes and wish. I think Frank Reich's looking at his chops with what you just said about his offensive game plan on Saturday, Bo. But last one I have for you guys before we dive over to our final segment of the crossover, Alex, I want to hit on this more of a long-term thought with you about this Cardinals team. This isn't a must-win, so to say, for this Colts team.

They're on track to – if they lose to the Cardinals and they win out their last two games against the Raiders and Jaguars, this is very doable. They're going to be in the playoffs. The Cardinals are the same way. They're probably going to be in the playoffs anyways. But they're a team that's super reeling right now. They might be limping into the playoffs at this point.

Does Saturday feel like a must-win to you guys in Arizona from their perspective where you kind of need to realize if they can go out and beat this Colts team that's red hot, one of the best teams in the NFL the last two months, they can kind of give fans hope again. Like, okay, we can go on a deep playoff run. You know, it's interesting. I think it's a need to win,

but the interesting part about this is this is why the NFL is such a fickle bee because there is no way the Cardinals on paper should win this game on Saturday, showing the trajectories of both of these teams over the last month. And this is the week where the Cardinals come out and win by two touchdowns. And then it's like, wait, we again don't know anything about the NFL. It happens every week. Week 15 was drunk.

You have no idea what happens with all these teams. Having said that, the Cardinals need to go out and prove to themselves that they can still win this year. After losing to Detroit, that is just a gut punch of all gut punches where they weren't even in contention that game. They got abused on the road by a one-win team with their backups, not named Jared Goff. Like, that is mental warfare that's very difficult to overcome

if they can come home and play where they played terribly this year at home and win a game under the bright lights on Christmas against a team that nobody wants to play. You could say, oh, the Colts made the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah, I can see that because the Colts can play in any weather. We'll talk about that in the next segment. The Cardinals need to win this game for themselves. Sure, they'll make the playoffs, but if they can win this game,

it will kind of reverse course on the last month of crappitude that we've seen from them. Great stuff is always there from Bo and Alex here with Locked on Cardinals. Before we dive into our last Super Bowl crossover special, I wanted to tell you about our first sponsor of the end of this segment, and it is from, let me see here, On Location. Super Bowl 56 at SoFi is less than 100 days away, and On Location, the official hospitality partner of the NFL, is the only place to score a once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl ticket at SoFi is less than 100 days away, and On Location, the official hospitality partner of the NFL, is the only place to score a once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl ticket and experience package.

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Thank you for making LockedOn Cardinals and or LockedOn Colts your first listen every day. Free and available on all platforms. No paywall here. You might have to listen to some ad reads, but it's a lot better than having to pay for stuff um so the colts terrify me and bo um bo has been talking about this game for the last two months about you know a team you don't really want to play especially because they've gotten better and better it seems every week jonathan taylor's a vision the offensive line has been stout dariusarius Leonard's Darius Leonard and Carson Wentz isn't

making mistakes. I mean, except for one thing. I mean, can we bring some levity here? It's almost impossible to throw an interception inside the one yard line from both sides in one season. And Carson Wentz has done that losing two games for this team where they should have been 10 and four instead of eight and six. all in all Carson Wentz has played pretty well especially coming off the cavalcade of injuries he's had over the last five years I'm going to start with him really quickly the condition of the trade was if he played 75 percent of snaps I believe that that would warrant a first round pick for Philly are you okay with giving up a first round pick with how Carson Wentz has played this year? Yes, I would say yes. Recently with his play, it makes you hesitant, but I mean, with

the way I talked about earlier in the show, but the way that he allows Frank Reich to open back up his playbook, which you haven't seen in about three years since Andrew Glock, I think it's worth it. You have a mobile, strong-arm quarterback who can do rollouts, do all Frank Reich's favorite plays. He hasn't been doing the last couple years because of Phillip Rivers, his statue in the pocket. Jacoby Bersahid entrusts the back quarterback right after Andrew Luck retired. Carson Wentz is going to be 29 years old, I believe, next week. So he's still a couple of years down the road. He's still in his prime year, so to say. He's definitely not an elite quarterback. He's probably more so like a top 12, a top 14 quarterback when he's at his peak right now, and that's a fair thing.

This Colts team doesn't need a top 10, top 5 quarterback to make a deep run in the playoffs. Sure, it probably caps their ceiling for where they could be down the road, but if Carson Wentz can play the way he has for most of the season, I think he has 23 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions. You would take that every single time if you're a Colts fan. He led the league in interceptions last year in only 13 games. So he's definitely cut down on his turnovers.

He's playing a lot more smarter football. He's a really strong game manager. That could be a slap in the face for a guy like Carson. He's a really good game manager. He's doing exactly what Frank Reich wants him to do. It's the Jonathan Taylor show between just your Tampa Bay and Baltimore in two big games, for example, where the defense kind of collapsed in those games and kind of led to those losses. Greg wants him to do. It's the Jonathan Taylor show, but just your Tampa Bay and Baltimore, two big games, for example,

where the defense kind of collapsed in those games and kind of led to those losses. He's had shown in those games that if you take the run away completely for 300 plus yards on you, if you allow him to. Michael Pittman Jr. done wires out of USC. He's really blossoming his sex for a thousand plus yards. He's his favorite target. I was a hundred plus targets of the season.

Carson Wentz, I think you've seen so far this year, opening up the playbook, his potential down the road as well. Year two better system with a lot more adjustment time. I do think a first, especially when you see the other quarterback trades in recent history, it's multiple first round picks and a couple other picks on top of that as well. We saw what the Rams had to do to get Matthew Stafford. I think Carson Wentz, for what this team paid for, is worth the price. Yeah, and Michael Pittman Jr. vs. Byron Murphy Jr., that's going to be a great matchup come Saturday. I can't wait to kind of see that one play out.

Should be some good one-on-one matchups between the two of those guys. And then you look at Carson Wentz, the last games if you if you remove the Houston Texans game because everybody should beat up on the Texans but they've played three playoff caliber teams they lost to Tampa Bay where Tampa Bay seemed to be like okay Carson you beat us and they ended up winning that game down the stretch he had a solid first half but Buffalo and and New England, two AFCs powers. He completes 16 passes combined in the Colts win those games kind of running away. It's pretty crazy. Is there too much trust still?

Or do you think Frank Reich is coming down to earth as far as what he can trust his quarterback that they have? I mean, I've been watching the hard knocks. They have this connection, obviously, this relationship. It's almost like father-son. Does he have a realistic idea of who Carson Wentz can be and who he needs to be for them to be successful? Yeah. Bo, you stole the words right out of my mouth there. I think he trusts his quote unquote son.

Cause this guy is obsessed with Carson Wentz. Like he, he will go to bat for Carson Wentz every single time. He's the one that forced Chris Bowder to make this trade. He's like, Hey, Bowder was hesitant to make the trade. Like this is a lot of, a lot of picks to go for ader to make this trade. He's like, hey, Bowder was hesitant to make the trade. Like this is a lot of picks to go for a guy like Carson Wentz and Franks. Like, hey, I'll get him back to normal. Let's go ahead and make this trade happen. He's done that so far this year.

He's playing at a competent level, which is all this Colts team needs. But to be quite honest, I mean, in those two games you mentioned, Buffalo and New England, those two teams couldn't stop Jonathan Taylor. So why throw the ball? Like Jonathan Taylor was just going absolutely nuclear in those games, averaging six plus yards per touch in those situations. If that happens again on Saturday, I'm probably going to see Carson Wentz make a complete two or three passes, and that's

going to be one of those days where Jonathan Taylor is going off once again. I will give Carson Wentz a little credit on that. In the games that he is forced to throw, he's making good decisions, but I think it's the Colts that have realized the last two plus months of the season season we have a generational running back behind Carson Wentz why not give 29 touches what he's averaging the last six weeks of the season this guy's putting up Derrick Henry

numbers and doing better than Derrick Henry did the last couple so he's really on pace to be the new RB1 in the NFL and I think Carson Wentz is fine with that I mean he's winning games he's not really turning the ball over a lot, handing out the ball to Jonathan Taylor, so it helps out his stats a little bit. But Carson Wentz is doing his job, and Jonathan Taylor, this whole offense runs through him, and I think they're going to carry that all the way to a deep playoff run if it continues.

Evan Sattery locked on Colts. Alex Clancy-Bobrock locked on Cardinals. I mean, here's the thing. It seems like the Colts are walking on a uh on a high wire without a safety net like if any if if a team if I mean at this point it seems that all it takes is one team to figure out how to stop Jonathan Taylor and this offense may implode and it's easy for me to say because it hasn't happened yet well it's it's only a matter of time and obviously I hold a lot of credence in a team that

could play in any weather can win super bowls we saw with tamp we saw with tennessee you know going into england in cold weather and and winning an ugly game there with derrick henry do they have the ability to trust carson wentz in any capacity if jonathan taylor heaven forbid gets injured because you never want to see anybody get injured i don't know if you can trust Naheem Hines or Marlon Mack to carry even 50% of the weight that Jonathan Taylor has. Is there any trust in Carson Wentz outside of a couple of speckled in play action passes that are set up by Jonathan Taylor being so dominant? Yeah, it's a really valid point, honestly, because if knock on wood, I think happens to Jonathan Taylor, this offense is toast.

They're going to go down for being an elite one to bottom tier in the NFL. I mean, Carson Wentz can make a couple splash plays per game going deep down the field, but he still has some of those issues that we saw in Philadelphia. When he gets pressure in his face, he kind of goes through reads too fast. He kind of presses when the lights are brightest. We saw it in primetime against New England. He really seemed like he just wasn't in it to win it on Saturday against the Patriots, but

I think they could still win a playoff game if a situation like that happened. I think Carson Wentz could go out and win a game. I've been thinking to myself, why can't Carson Wentz beat Joe Flacco that we saw the Ravens do? They had Ray Rice at running back. They ran at that ball. They had an opportunistic defense. If Carson Wentz can play

well for three or four games, that's a lot to ask for Carson Wentz, but just three or four games and he can do that. The Colts are legitimately a suitable contender, but that's probably what's going to happen in playoff football. They're going to take away Jonathan Taylor very well, and Carson Wentz has got to win multiple games. But I think to myself, if Joe Flagler can do it, why can't Carson Wentz? He's number two overall pick in the draft in 2016. He has the talent. He has the full trust of Frank Reich. His confidence level, by the way, is on an entirely new level in Andy compared to Philadelphia. He's a completely different guy than what we've seen in the past with the Eagles.

So I think Carson Wentz could do that. But realistically, if John Taylor, if a team figures that out and it's on film for everyone else on the NFL, they're certainly in trouble. They're going to be a lot different than they have been the last couple of months. Last question about this defense. What do you think the game plan is to slow down Kyler Murray, keep them at bay where it seems like the Rams and Raheem Morris set forth the blueprint to slow down the Cardinals offense the last couple of weeks and the Lions piggyback that you expect the same thing from the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday? Honestly, I think this Colts defense matches up very well with Kyler

to the point that I don't think they're going to change much at all in their scheme. I mean, they play a heavy zone defense. DeAndre Hopkins being out is huge. Rondell Moore is questionable, so this could be a wounded wide receiver group as well. So you really have to really, outside of Christian Kirk, really care about much anyone else on the outside. So this could be a situation where I think they just play their regular zone-heavy defense. You have DeForest Buckner in the middle,

who you guys all know about from San Francisco. He's going to be a wrecking ball in the middle. And Darius Leonard and Bobby O'Kerrick, I can just spy on Kyler Murray. They're two of the fastest, linkiest linebackers in the NFL, so have each guy spy on each side of the other side of the line of scrimmage, and I think they're fine. I think Kyler Murray's going to play a very

pocket-centric game. He might break a couple runs down the field, but outside of that, I they're fine. I think Kyler Murray's going to get to play a very pocket-centric game. He might break a couple runs down the field, but outside of that, I think it's got to be Kyler Murray winning with his arm and the wide receivers getting separation against his really improved Colts secondary. They have two young cornerbacks in Rocky Asin and Isaiah Rogers who really blossomed over the last two months of the season, so it's going to be an interesting matchup.

If DeAndre Hopkins is playing, I would say it's going to be a tougher matchup, but him being out against this defense, and especially with the speed of this defense I think it's a nightmare defensive scenario for this Cardinals offense to go up against and we'd be remiss if we didn't just throw a little salt in the Steve Kime wound here the drafting by the Indianapolis Colts has been revolutionary for their future and what the Arizona Cardinals haven't had is any of that outside of, you know, Kyler Murray. The first and second round pick hits by the Colts has, have been absolutely mind blowing.

Let's just even go from 2018 because Malik Hooker, you thought Malik Hooker was going to be an absolute world beater coming out of Michigan, I believe from the safety position maybe take a little high but it didn't matter because he was supposed to be a transformational talent you look at the ohio state 18 yeah was you'll have him and um i get him in jim brook peppers missed or uh what did i say it doesn't matter um so 2018 quentin nelson darius leonard one two 2020, Michael Pittman, Jonathan Taylor, Julian Blackman, one, two, three. And then Quitty Payton, this year, like that's what happens when you

inexpensive employees to play exemplary roles, you're able to build rosters around it. Even going back to Ryan Kelly from the center position late in the first round, trading for DeForest Buckner, giving up the 13th overall pick. Like that's how you run an organization from a draft perspective, and we're going to get to see it on full display, them all wearing Indianapolis Colts jerseys Christmas night.

Evan Sidery, dude, this has been so much fun. Hopefully they get to play in the next year or so, so we get to do this again. Maybe we'll meet in the Super Bowl. Who knows? Alex Clancy, Bobrock, Lockdown Cardinals, Evan Sidery at Locked On Colts, following with East Sidery for his other portion of his life, covering basketball, and then at Locked On Colts,

the best Colts information you can get out there. Thank you for making Locked On Cardinals and Locked On Colts your first listen every day. Be sure to make Locked On Bets your second listen. These guys are the man. both of them. Your boy Q, expert analysis, Lee Sterling.

It's what they do, free and available on all platforms. Thanks for listening. We'll check you all on our respective podcast tomorrow.