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

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

On today's Locked On NFL Crossover Special, Locked On Colts x Locked On Jaguars prepares for their Week 18 finale in Jacksonville. Who will come out on top between the Indianapolis Colts and Jacksonville Jaguars?Diving into their seasons and Sunday's matchup from every angle, you won't want to miss this one! Make sure to subscribe to Locked On Colts! 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. What up folks, this is another crossover edition, the last one of the year. Locked on Jaguars, locked on coach Tony Wiggins, Evan Sidery joining us, joining each other actually on the Locked On Podcast Network's Thursday crossover. What's up, man? Nothing much, man. This is definitely an interesting matchup. I know a lot of people outside looking in for this matchup might think, oh, Colts are going to walk through this game.

But the Colts haven't won in Jacksonville in six years, Tony. So this is actually a legitimate matchup that I think should actually have a lot of intrigue. Yeah, well, let me tell you something. That streak is about to end. You guys are going to win this game. The Jaguars, they have the number one pick right now in the draft again. But the other thing is, man, this is probably the worst team I've ever seen. And I'm not just talking about here.

I mean, when I say the worst team I've ever seen, I'm talking about period. So I think that streak will be broken. But you're right, there is a little bit of intrigue with this game Sunday because, well, one, Jag fans saying they're going to dress up as clowns and come into the stadium. But the other thing is, is you guys need to win. You guys have to win this game in order to secure and make sure that you have control of your own destiny in the playoffs. Absolutely. The Colts fumbled a golden opportunity last Sunday. They might have been able to rest some guys this upcoming week. And now you're in a situation where you have to go to

Jacksonville, maybe give Jonathan Taylor another 25-30 carries when you didn't need to. So that's just a situation where hopefully it doesn't backfire for the Colts, but hopefully they maybe get this one out of the way. The Vegas odds, it looks like it's a 15-point spread, the biggest one of the week for the Colts. Two touchdown favorites of the Jaguars, so maybe

that's a situation where, like you're mentioning, if this is the worst team you've ever seen, Tony, this might be a situation where the Colts play the first half and you might be seeing Sam Ellinger a quarterback in third and fourth quarter. Yeah. So let me ask you from your perspective, do you want all of this quirky stuff that's happening in Jacksonville, and we'll talk about more of it in a little bit,

do you actually want all of this stuff happening? Because usually this is when stuff happens like guys just go, you know what, all of these people in the stands, they dressed up as clowns, man, you know, making us look bad. These jokers want to make the playoffs. Let's just play the game of our life and just let it all go and throw this thing 50 cents. Do you want that to happen? Like, or are you really wanting, you know, you just want it calm and cool, the Colts come in and win a game. But usually when quirky things happen, quirky things happen. Exactly, yeah.

I mean, honestly, Tony, if this is a situation like we saw the last time these two teams matched up where Jonathan Taylor had to fight and scrap for his yardage, I mean, I'm scared to death right now of putting the ball in Carson Wentz's hands. I mean, it was a situation where we don't know Miles Jack's stats yet for this game, but if he plays on Sunday, if Josh Allen gets pressure on Carson Wentz, I mean, Carson Wentz in big games this year has consistently shown that he wilts. I mean, I hate to say it, but in big games outside that one possession against the Arizona Cardinals on Christmas, he wilts under pressure. And to say it but in big games outside that one possession against the Arizona Cardinals on Christmas he wilts under pressure and that's what really scares me and that really

makes me disappointed the Colts didn't finish last Sunday because you're going to put the ball in Jonathan Taylor's hands about 25 or 30 times on Sunday where he's got to work for about 125 yards and you have to hope Carson Wentz makes a play or two and hopefully this Jaguars team just continues to be the Jaguars so to say because i was looking at the numbers tony and i knew trevor lawrence is not having a great year but he has two touchdowns since halloween like like like what's go what's going on there because i mean i was high on him heading into the season i mean i was talking about with you on the ultimate crossover special with the rest of the afc south crew here that me and you were on on the train of

this team should be over on the over under win total. I thought maybe they'd get six, seven wins this year, but Trevor Lawrence can be like an Andrew Luck, but he's not having an Andrew Luck, a Peyton Manning type season that we've seen from these franchise changing quarterbacks. I don't want to put too much on Trevor Lawrence with his bad play. I mean, but two touchdowns in eight plus weeks. I mean, that's a little concerning. Are you at all worried about this rookie season being damaging long term to Trevor Lawrence? Yes and no. In terms of his physical ability, I'm not concerned. And and I'm also not concerned with his mental makeup and how he has processed everything this year. The thing that I'm concerned about with him is what if they don't get it

right in the hire? Like when they hire a new coach, I don't trust that the way this organization is structured, that they're going to be able to give him what he needs to succeed. And that's a big concern. And I do think if he were in New England or San Francisco, he'd be killing the league right now. And that goes not only to the talent,

but that goes also to the way things are structured in the leadership. They've been putting him out, man. It's like he's Ari Fleischer or somebody. It's like he's a press secretary for a bad president. You know, the press secretary has to go out there every day and deal with the media and make up stuff in order to put a good face on what's going on. And that's what they've

been doing to him. And I think that has to stop. I think he's sort of getting tired of it a little bit. I know the fans see through it. So in terms of all of that stuff, the football stuff, I'm not concerned about. It's just that it's the structure of the organization and whether or not he starts to get fatigued with how that's going.

I'll tell you what we're going to do. Before we get into that, we're going to take a little bit of a timeout and talk about BetOnline, and then we'll come back and we'll do more on Trevor Lawrence and what has been going on with him here in Jacksonville. Yeah, absolutely. We'll dive into that and also definitely a lot more Jacksonville and Colts topics we're going to hit on as well over the next few minutes, Tony.

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You don't have to pay for all of this wonderful content that we bring you every single day. Now, we were talking about our quarterback. Let's talk about your quarterback. Has the juice been worth the squeeze with what the Colts will ultimately have to give up to the Eagles as far as draft compensation for Carson Wentz? I think it's still a non-answer for me. I think this is an evaluation year for Carson Wentz. I think honestly looking back on it, that's why Chris Ballard was really hesitant to go on on free agency,

go hesitant on the draft this past year, just focus on depth and re-signing a veteran like T.Y. Hilton and really go going the cheap route because I think he wanted to see if Carson Wentz is actually the real deal. But honestly, now three months, I mean the full season, 16 weeks into the season, I think we know who Carson Wentz is. He gives you very high highs. He gives you like top 10 quarterback highs at some points. But when he's off, he looks like a bottom-tier quarterback in the NFL. We saw it on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders I mean outside that one hail Mary he threw the T.Y. Hilton where

he threw the triple coverage and luckily it was tipped and it was T.Y. Hilton was right behind the guy in the end zone he would add 103 passing yards for in the entire game like it was just a god-awful performance from Carson Wentz we've seen those a couple times this year in big moments, in games where it absolutely matters, and that has to be concerning a little bit. And it makes me wonder, like, if this Carson Wentz thing is going to work. Frank Reich was pounding the table for Carson Wentz. Like, I can fix him. He's had those moments where Frank Reich has shown he can fix him. It shows in the turnover numbers. Six interceptions so far this year, the 26 touchdowns. But I think if the Colts want to make a big run in the next year or two with Carson Wentz, you have to go all in this offseason.

I mean, you've already made your bed. You've traded a first-round pick, which is going to be a top 25 pick in this year's draft. You've traded a third-round pick in last year's draft. We know the Colts love their draft picks as well, so that's a very valuable compensation that the Colts give up there. I think you have to go all in this offseason. You have to go get a legitimate free agent wide receiver to pair with Michael Pittman Jr. Carson Wentz has shown in his career he can't really carry wide outs. He's more of the caboose

on a train, so to say. He's not the engine. You have to have weapons all around the board for Carson Wentz. He has Jonathan Taylor. He has Michael Pittman. But I think you have to double dip in free agency and get him a legit wide receiver in the draft and free agency to make things work here because Carson Wentz is consistently shown to me at least he's an average quarterback but the Colts the Colts have a Super Bowl window that's just now opening but it's not going to work unless they push those chips all in on Carson Wentz I think it's worth the price but I think Chris Bowder has to really change his philosophy this year and really show that to make it work at Carson Wentz unless he's just not in on Carson Wentz we'll know our answer this offseason if he doesn't do anything I think he's ready to move work with Carson Wentz, unless he's just not in on Carson Wentz, we'll know our answer this offseason.

If he doesn't do anything, I think he's ready to move on from Carson Wentz in 2022 after this upcoming season. But if they make an all-in move this year, you've made your bed. You've got to go all out and make it work with Carson Wentz. He reminds me of the AFC version of Kirk Cousins. He has his Justin Jefferson. He has his Adam Thielen. He has a guy like Michael Pittman.

He needs that Justin Jefferson now. Wow, that's a very good assessment of Carson Wentz. It's probably on par and in line with what I was thinking that you're getting these results, but you're still wondering if you'll ever be able to take that next step. Last week was a good a good chance they could have clinched last week was a real good chance for carson wentz to say you know i've arrived or whatever because there are people that uh like here we're doing a coaching search and there are people that looking at doug peterson like you messed up carson wentz and you couldn't make it work look what he's doing at indy and i'm like hold on man wait a minute he ain't doing an indie what you think he's doing at Indy. And I'm like, hold on, man. Wait a minute. He ain't doing in Indy what you think he's doing in Indy. You know, like you say, he's not the front.

He's the back. You know, he's chugging along with that machine. So Jonathan Taylor, tell me about Jonathan Taylor, the year he's had. He is actually what fans in Jacksonville thought Leonard Fournette was going to be for them, even though Lenny's gone on to be playoff Lenny and Super Bowl Lenny. He's also probably what giant fans thought they were getting in Saquon,

like a big physical guy who can pound it. But if he gets to that second level, he's gone, and you won't be able to catch him. Yeah, I mean, looking back on it now, Tony, I mean, the reports were back when the Colts trade up that they went ahead of Jacksonville because that's who they wanted was Jonathan Taylor. They were going to go off from Leonard Fournette and take Jonathan

Taylor, but the Colts moved up right ahead of Jacksonville and took him there. I mean, just imagine what could have been if they had Taylor and Trevor Lawrence. I mean, that would be a lot of fun there, but man, Jonathan Taylor is so fun to watch. 2,100 scrimmage yards so far this year, 20 touchdowns. He's the first guy since David Johnson in 2016, but he's going to be on pace.

He has a good game on Sunday. He'll be the first guy since Eric Dickerson in his second year to have over 2,200 scrimmage yards and over 20 touchdowns in a season. Just goes to show you how special of a talent he is. He's the engine of this team, and he's only 22 years old. He turns 23, I believe, in like three weeks, which is going to show you how special of a talent he is. He's not even close to his prime yet.

I think it's controversial to say. I know Titans fans are very, very defensive of Derrick Henry, but I have to say just based off age, based off production, based off efficiency, I think Jonathan Taylor has taken that crown. It might be a hot take, but I think he is legitimately the best running back in the NFL right now. It's a little bit of a hot take, but guess what? You ain't far off, man, because he is the real deal.

And actually on the Locked On NFL show, James Rapine asked me who the offensive player of the year was. Now, I took Jonathan Taylor. He took Cooper Cup. You can't go wrong with either one. But both guys, second-round picks who have really – I think Jonathan was a second-round guy, wasn't he? Yeah. Somehow he slipped a 43 overall.

Yeah. So, you know, I think both guys are really, really – they're really giving their teams a mass, mass return on their investment. And we're going to see if Jacksonville can stop him. Now, you mentioned earlier in the first segment about Josh Allen and how Jonathan Taylor actually had a little bit of a hard time in the second half of the first meeting between the Jaguars. They haven't been able to stop the run lately, man.

So I don't think y'all going to have too much of a problem. But it does intrigue me this matchup does intrigue me and we'll get into it here in the third segment it does intrigue me that it's sort of setting up like almost like that alabama georgia game like are the jaguars actually believe it or not i'm gonna say this are they actually in the heads of the Colts because the Colts now know they have to win and they haven't won here the Jaguars won one game last year they went 1 and 15 and it was against the Colts they beat the Colts so uh does that psychological stuff come into play here uh on uh Sunday or are the uh the Colts able to just do what good teams do

and put the pedal to the metal and just win the game? I'll tell you that. Me and Evan will get into it in the third segment. But I first want to tell you guys about all the money that Colts and Jaguars fans are saving because they are using the GetUpside app. That's right. One word, GetUpside app. It's in the app store or on google

play right now and if the you go on and download the app and if you use the promo code touchdown guess what's going to happen you're going to start saving money on every gallon of gasoline that you put in your in your car you'll get a bonus 25 cents per gallon on your first fill up so you're already going to start saving 25 cents for every gallon of gas. It's going to be in cash back. But then on your first fill up, you're going to get an additional 25 cents if you use the promo code touchdown when you download the app. There's no reason for you to not save money, especially when you're doing a lot of driving. There are Colts fans and Jaguar fans everywhere saving two to three hundred dollars a month because they're getting that put back on their account now once money comes back to your

account to access it all you have to do is request and they'll send it back to your bank they'll send it to paypal or an e-gift card or an amazon or other brands cards all you have to do is download the free get upside app and use the promo code touchdown that's all you got to do i'm going to say it one more time download the the app and use the promo code touchdown you're going to save up to 50 cents a gallon you're going to get it in a cash back on your first tank that's get upside that's the app and the promo code is touchdown. And I know this week the Jaguars hope to score some touchdowns against the Colts. Trevor Lawrence has only thrown two touchdown passes since Halloween.

The first one he had the other day, bro, it was a screen. So it's not like he's gone downfield and really just zinged it in. A part of that, though, when you mentioned it earlier, I was going to tell you. I told you I was going to come back to it. A part of that is the fact that they just don't have a lot of talent at wide out. When you watch people are diagramming using all 22 in there and they're

diagramming their routes. No one's open by design. A lot of these, a lot of these things have failed before they even started. Urban was right. The staff is not very good but the staff is the one that he chose so he doesn't get a chance to tell everybody how how they suck when you're the one that went and got him okay so uh with all of that studying the nfl by the way i

hadn't talked to you since he left right no no we should hit on that real quick i mean what in the world happened there i mean we all saw it happen on social media but i mean you gotta be thinking you're lucky stars tony that that that was a quick divorce there because that seemed like it was going sinking ship all the titanic you got before it all everyone sank let me tell you what it's like on your way you know you're gonna leave the house soon you're gonna you're gonna trek and go do what you have to do. Like I'm at work right now. You got to go to work. On your way to work, if you happen to pass a big blue or green box that's made of steel like a dumpster, and if it happens to be on fire, that's what happened, Evan.

It was a dumpster fire. I'm telling you, man, it was the worst thing ever here. And it started pretty quickly too. Coming out of training camp, you knew that those guys, you know what it looks like. If you've been around enough, you know what it's supposed to look like. And you know what it's supposed to sound like, right? It looked bad from the beginning. But then at the halftime of the first preseason game,

you knew something was off because he was disappointed. And he basically threw the offensive coordinator under the bus, Darryl Belvin. He was like, man, this ain't how I want to play. We're playing slow. So it was always anything that went wrong here was always somebody else's fault. And it's almost as if he's like, I see what y'all see,

and it's terrible. But the thing that he never got was in the NFL, you don't get a chance to duck away from stuff like that. In the NFL, people are going, okay, so if it's wrong, why the hell you ain't have it fixed before you came out here? So he is the, he tried to be the king of plausible deniability. But unfortunately, when you are a CEO type coach and your hand is on everything, you don't get to do that. You know what I'm saying? You have to own it.

And he never owned anything. So it was a bad choice. I didn't think it was going to go that terribly but it was awful uh he's just not built for this i don't know if he's built for anything anymore i don't i don't even think he can coach in college anymore because especially with this nil stuff i think i think we've seen the last of urban myra on anybody sideline. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you there. Unless somehow he gets into a small gig somewhere and he works his way up, I just can't see it. I mean, Urban Meyer is just going to be waiting for a job. I don't think it's ever going to come at that point.

But I'm glad for you, Tony, and one of those Jaguars fans that got out of that because we saw in the first few weeks of the season that that wasn't going to go well. But, I mean, just looking ahead to this game a little bit, Tony, before we wrap things up, just I'm thinking of scenarios. But I mean, just looking ahead to this game a little bit, Tony, before we wrap things up, just I'm thinking of scenarios here where the Jaguars could somehow win this game or keep it close. And the only ones that come to mind are Carson Wentz just melts. That's the only way it could happen.

Like he just literally melts. And we see like 2018 when it was six to nothing, the Jaguars won. That's the only way I can see this game happening is that the Jaguars defense just makes Carson Wentz combust and he really loses his long-term future in Indianapolis with this game. I mean, if they lose this game and Carson Wentz has an off performance, I mean, it's gonna be a hard sell to Colts fans to really trust this guy. They lost the playoffs in two games they should have won if he has really bad games. And maybe Trevor Lawrence is a really good game on Sunday. I mean, like I mentioned, I had two touchdowns the last three months of the season. But if he has a good game, I mean, I could see him outperforming Carson Wentz.

And if they could stop Jonathan Taylor, they're going to force the ball in Carson Wentz and Sands. I feel like it feels like what's going to come down here, Tony. I think the Colts eventually do win this game and they probably do cover the spread. Of course, Wentz takes care of the ball. But there's a scenario that this could go down where there's constant pressure on Carson Wentz, the running game's not going with Jonathan Taylor, that like you mentioned, where the Colts are in their heads in Jacksonville. I could easily see a scenario where this is just a worst case scenario and you put the ball in Carson Wentz's hands, you have to trust him and hope and pray that he doesn't make a mistake or two because

we know what the history is in Jackson for this Colts team. No doubt about it. All of those things could happen. It's very doubtful. It's funny that you're sitting here giving a scenario to the Jaguars. All of a sudden, everything's going to go good for the Jaguars. And people around here are like, no, it ain't. But guess what? It probably could. So explain this to me. I got two things for you before you go. I want to know what the actual implications are. If you win, you're in. If you lose, what has to happen? And then I want to know a little bit more about – I want to know about Ed Dodds a little bit because I'm hearing

for the second year in a row that Ed Dodds might be somebody that the Jaguars are targeting. So you can take – in either order, give us what you can on that. Yeah, I'll start off with Ed Dodds there because, I mean, I love Ed Dodds. He's a guy behind the scenes no one talks about, but he's a guy that can take any job he wants in the NFL. I do wonder if it'll be Jacksonville, Tony, to be quite honest. I mean, he has the quarterback, though, but everything else,

I don't know right now in Jacksonville. It'd be a complete start, like a restart around Trevor Lawrence that could be enticing to Ed Dodds, But amazing scout, amazing leader behind the scenes. He's Chris Ballard's right hand man for the past six, seven, eight years, everywhere he's gone in Kansas City. They were known each other in Seattle as well. Ballard was in Chicago during that time as well, but they knew each other for a very long time.

Like I mentioned, great scout, great leader, great player evaluator as well on the professional level. He was big into multiple free-in signings as well. Really, unless Ed Dodds signs off on stuff, it's not happening. Chris Bauer trusts him that much. If Ed Dodds, for example, didn't want Carson Wentz, I don't think this trade happens. That's really what it comes down to. He knows that Chris Bauer has made it like an environment for the scouts

and for the executives under him in Indianapolis where your opinion very much matters that's a lot different than a lot of places in the NFL where if a scout stands on the table in a war room with Chris Bauer and he says hey Chris like I know you love this guy but I'm gonna nail x y and z as to why you shouldn't do it he'll actually listen to you and probably reconsider on that and Ed Dodds I imagine just had this conversation with Chris Bauer as well and And that's why I think it makes him such an exciting GM, because he can run in and be Chris Bauer 2.0. I'm very confident wherever he lands, he's going to really change a franchise overnight. He'll take the same approach as Chris Bauer. He's an amazing talent evaluator. He'd be

heading consistently in the NFL draft, which is what you need to do nowadays, especially for small market teams. I think he'd just be a home run higher in Jacksonville wherever he lands up. So I love that Dodds. And I think if he does interview in Jacksonville, it'd be really interesting to watch there. But as far as the playoffs go, Tony, there's a lot of scenarios here for the Colts.

And I think one we can immediately rule out is probably Cincinnati. I mean, if the Colts win and the Chargers win, the Colts would be the sixth seed. And if the Bengals win against the Browns on Sunday, they would be going to Cincinnati as the 3-6 matchup. But Cincinnati, they're resting their starters on Sunday. Joe Burrow is out.

We don't know the status yet of Jamar Chase and those guys. But imagine if Joe Burrow's not playing, they're probably not going to let those guys play either. It would just make no sense at that point. So Nick Chubb probably runs wild on the Bengals. They probably lose that game in Cleveland on Sunday. They drop down to the four seed. So if that happens, they will go to Buffalo in that scenario where the Chargers would win, and then it would be a rematch,

what we saw before, where John Taylor went off for five touchdowns. It would be a six versus three matchup where the Colts would go to Buffalo instead of Cincinnati. And there's another crazy scenario on the board here where if the Colts win and then if the Raiders beat the Chargers on Sunday Night Football in Las Vegas the Raiders would leapfrog above the Colts because since they have the head-to-head tiebreaker they have the same record the Raiders be the sixth seed going to Buffalo and the Colts somehow some way unfortunately be going to Kansas City in the

2-7 matchup so that would be a really crazy scenario to unfold there there's like three or four scenarios we can go over there as well if Miami even beats new England and the Colts win and those other things happen, the Colts be the five seed. I mean, there's, they literally have everything across the border for the wild card. And if they somehow lose that game on Sunday,

I believe they would just need the Steelers to lose the Ravens and they would still get into the playoffs, the seven seed. So there's a lot of stuff on the border for the Colts and they just need to take care of business on Sunday, but the Colts aren't going to know where they're going for the playoffs until probably midnight Eastern time on that on Sunday, which is just a crazy thought.

And one of the Colts could have avoided if they will just one on Sunday. Man, that's some wild stuff, man. And it's, it's, it's enviable though, because let me tell you where the Jaguars are going. After Sunday's game to Aruba, they ain't. They ain't worried about none of those scenarios. They're going to be watching it just like everyone else. Evan Sidery, locked on coach, locked on Jaguars. Last crossover of the year. We appreciate you joining us doing this together, of course.

You ain't joining me. But thank you a lot, and good luck to you guys. I guess I can say that. Can I say good luck to the coach? No, not really. Go ahead. No, we want the number one coach? No, not really. Go ahead. No, we want the number one pick. So you know what?

Go ahead. I want the coach to win so the Jaguars secure the number one pick so they can make a trade down or whatever in the draft. But you guys continue to take care of each other. We thank you for making us your first listen. Also, before you make your wagers, tune into the Locked on Bets podcast with your boy Q and analyst Lee Sterling.

They're going to give you all the information. He just gave you some dope information telling you that a lot of those guys with the Bengals won't be playing. So you need to make sure you tap into the Locked on Bets podcast to find out what you need to do when you go to bet online. Evan Sidery, Tony Wiggins, Locked on Coach, Locked on Jags, you guys take care of each other, and we'll see you next time.