Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts Gashed By New Orleans Saints En Route to Third Straight Loss

Starting point is 00:00:00 Lord help our Colts. After losing to the Saints today, that's four in the last five weeks. And it feels like we probably ought to take a break from mentioning the word playoffs for a while. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:40 All right. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first post-game listen. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, fellow pain lovers? This is Jake Arthur from HorseshoeHuddle.com. And we're sitting here just loathing another Colts loss. That is three in a row, four in the last five. Colts, of course,

Starting point is 00:01:12 lose today to the Saints 38-27 at home. Not the friendly confines of Lucas Oil Stadium for their hosts. So what happened? We're going to go through the main issues here today and then take a closer look at the role that both the offense and defense played in handing themselves this big ol old L because it kind of was a team effort in order to achieve this defeat. So first off, like I mentioned, the Colts are now three and five. They're last in the AFC South, and it's a division that really overall is not that impressive. The Titans got a nice spark of life today from Will Levis having a great debut, starting debut of sorts. C.J. Stroud has been nice, but overall the Texans aren't anything great. And the Jaguars have been on a bit of a hot streak lately. But overall, it's not a division

Starting point is 00:01:58 that's blowing anyone away, and now the Colts are last in that division. So that's kind of why I alluded to at the beginning. Let's pump the brakes on playoffs because I think at this point we need to really chill on mentioning it. They just need to win a game to, I guess, borrow a quote out of Jim Morris playbook. This was kind of a tale of two halves, really, especially offensively. So they scored 20 points in the first half and they were powered by the run game. Jonathan Taylor was looking great. Looked like he was on his way easily to 150 yard game.

Starting point is 00:02:33 So in the first half, again, 20 points. They ran the ball 18 times for 110 yards. That's over six yards to carry. And Jonathan Taylor or Zach Moss rather had a touchdown. And then Taylor himself had 11 carries for 94 yards, which was eight and a half yards per carry. And it was legit. The guy was ripping off chunk run after chunk run. Like he was, it was legitimately a big performance, had a 40 yard run. And then you go through to the second half, the Colts often scores seven points. They run the ball six times overall for 54 yards. So even in those six carries, it was going well. That's nine yards per carry.

Starting point is 00:03:12 Zach Moss had five of those carries for 53 yards. He had a nice 40 plus yard run in there as well. Jonathan Taylor, who I mentioned was on fire, looked like he was on his way to a huge day. One carry in the second half. One. For your best offensive player. And after the game, Shane Steichen was asked about that. Because at one point, you know, it did look like, you know, Taylor kind of hobbled off a little bit. Had a little bit of a limp, you know.

Starting point is 00:03:41 Was Taylor hurting? You guys needed to kind of just use him as more of a decoy in the second half. No. was Taylor hurting? You guys needed to kind of just use him as more of a decoy in the second half. No, Steichen denied that Taylor was hurt at all and just basically explained it as, you know, Zach Moss had a little momentum to start the second half and they were playing from behind, which put them in a lot of passing situations. But I'll be honest, I don't love that reasoning. I really don't. This game was close for almost the entire time it was they didn't have they weren't behind by two scores until the fourth quarter um you know they were when they weren't running the ball they were doing a lot of short stuff and it was fine but like that wasn't what was moving the ball that's not why the Colts scored 20 points in the first half. So that's

Starting point is 00:04:26 kind of a tough pill to swallow. And just how Michael Pittman was really frustrated after last week's loss, only five targets. The Colts kind of, I don't want to say overcorrected, but they clearly wanted to get him more involved early on in this game. I can't imagine they look at the film, see what was working early on, and then don't have a plan of let's use Jonathan Taylor heavily moving forward, because that's really the straw that was stirring the drink. So for them to abandon that, and then as a result, really only they scored seven points in the second half and, or, you know, they scored the touchdown in the second half. That just, that wasn't enough. And it was a desperation one as well.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Like it was later in the game, Gardner Minshew rolls out and finds Drew Ogletree for a 33 yard touchdown. That's not routine. That's not like necessarily the product of like a well-built drive and everything. So the Colts really let things go in the second half and it was fairly obvious offensively why. So that was the big thing on offense. You look at the defensive side of the ball and it was kind of the Tony Brown show and it wasn't a good show.

Starting point is 00:05:39 So of course, Juju Brents came into this game with a quad injury. He didn't practice this week, so he was out. And so that meant the Colts were down yet another starting cornerback. And all week, people were wondering, what are the Colts going to do at corner? You know, Kenny Moore is there. Jalen Jones is going to start. But who is going to be the other guy?

Starting point is 00:05:58 Were they going to shuffle things around with the safeties and maybe move Juliet Blackman down to nickel? They did not do that. They put Tony Brown out there as the other starting outside corner, which throughout his career, whenever he's had to play defense, Brown has really been more of a nickel type player. Now, I do know from talking to coaches this summer, especially in training camp, defensive backs coach Ron Miles and Gus Bradley really trust Tony Brown. If you've seen Tony Brown's team transactions throughout his career, he has followed those guys around the last several years.

Starting point is 00:06:31 He's been where they are. So they really trust him. And he's been a standout special teams player. Personally, I thought if it was going to be Brown playing that they'd be fine. Like it wouldn't be a big deal. He's had some nice moments defensively in these last couple years with the Colts. It wouldn't be a big deal. He's had some nice moments defensively in these last couple years with the Colts. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it was really rough. Derek Carr picked on him early and often and throughout the entire game. Brown gave up a big chunk play to

Starting point is 00:06:59 Michael Thomas along the sideline, and then Rashid Shahid had a career game basically put up a Randy Moss stat line three catches 153 yards and a touchdown and it was it was Tony Brown right there gave up a big like 50 yard reception near the end of the game to essentially ice things and you know and he was like I mentioned he struggled throughout so it was fairly obvious it was gonna be a rough day in the first half so you thought maybe they'll go into the locker room at halftime they'll figure something else out but no they stuck with the same approach it was tony brown on the outside uh the frustrating thing about that is they had options we've seen them use julian blackman in the slot before they could bring him down put him in the slot before. They could bring him down, put him in the slot. Any more on the outside, Jalen Jones on the outside. That's your top three corners right there.

Starting point is 00:07:49 Put Nick Moss there in place of Julian Blackman. They've been looking for more ways to get Nick Cross involved. So you put him there, move Julian Blackman up. That's not what they did. Chris Lamans was active today. I mean, he's a special teams guy, but you clearly like something about him. I mean, you held on to him throughout the time he was suspended. Daryl Baker Jr.

Starting point is 00:08:10 I mean, it was ugly with him. He obviously had the two costly penalties that ended the game last week. But would it have been this bad? It just felt like they really hung Tony Brown out to dry. Like, it didn't need to be that bad. He didn't need to have that big target on his back. Like Derek Carr was clearly going at him and it wasn't going well, but literally from start to finish, they allowed that to happen.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Coverage can really only be as good as pressure allows it to be as well. The front really didn't do its job either. Derek Carr was sacked one time, which on the surface can look bad, but you know, if he's getting pressured and just getting rid of the ball quickly, it's whatever. No, he only got hit twice. So the Colts really did nothing about that. And the one time they did get to him, DeForest Buckner did cause a fumble. So it's like, okay, if you could just generate more pressure you know maybe bring an extra blitz or something you can really affect the game this way so they have a secondary out here that's getting eaten alive and their defensive front is not getting to the quarterback he has all time to throw and it even could have been worse I mean

Starting point is 00:09:23 Chris Olave from the Saints dropped an easy gimme touchdown, just, you know, doinked him right, right up top. So it could have been even worse than it was. The defense just did not show up and do its part today. And, you know, as a result, we all saw what happened. So coming up here, we'll kind of put the, we'll put the, the run game stuff on the back burner a little bit and look at the rest of the offense, how this all developed into the game that it was. And, you know, we haven't even really talked much about Gardner Minshew yet either. So we'll talk about that here in a second.

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Starting point is 00:12:18 All right, so let's look at this offense because, obviously, if you've been following along for the last couple weeks, I've been harping pretty hard on the Garner Minshew turnover problem. Without directly saying it, that's been the biggest issue that's caused them to lose was he had four turnovers in each of those last two games and the opponent scored 17 points each off those turnovers. And there just was really no other smoking gun to explain it. Well, Gardner played a lot cleaner today. Just one turnover.

Starting point is 00:12:53 Now the Saints did turn that into points, but that was not the difference in this game whatsoever. I mean, the offense was productive. 27 points. They're the only team in the NFL to score at least 20 points in every game, 7 of 16 on third down, which is 43%, 2 of 3 in the red zone, 66%. Those are all very productive winning numbers. I thought Gardner played a game-managing Gardner-Manchu game

Starting point is 00:13:19 that was perfectly fine and should have really led them to a victory. Just 56% completions, that's a little lower than normal for him. 213 yards, a pair of touchdowns and an interception. That's fine. Like you can win with those numbers. The ground game was humming. Jonathan Taylor and Zach Moss were on it. That should have been enough to carry them through with Gardner finding the open man and just moving the chains. So he did his part for my money. As much as I pummeled him those last couple of weeks, I'll give him credit that he played decent winning football today. He did his part. But that's just not how it was. Again, at the top of the show, I mentioned they clearly made it a point to go and target Michael Pittman Jr. and get him more involved. He had eight catches for 40 yards today.

Starting point is 00:14:11 That's only five yards to carry per reception and a touchdown. He had the Colts' first six targets of the game and seven of the first nine. So Shane kind of downplayed it. Shane and Garner maybe downplayed it a little bit, but they clearly, after he was perturbed last week, wanted to get him more involved, and rightfully so, because he's productive when he is heavily involved. Now, the recipe this week was give him a lot of short stuff. Clearly, they wanted to try and get him those yards after catch opportunities,

Starting point is 00:14:39 lots of the quick screens and things like that, follow his blockers, which he's normally very good at, but not a whole lot was going on downfield. So eight catches. Yeah. But only five yards per reception is kind of dainty. Um, looking other, other where otherwise Josh downs and Alec Pierce had nice days, uh, downs with seven, seven catches for 72 yards. Here's three catches for 41 yards, pretty similar game to last week. They're starting to get him more involved over the middle and overall it's working pretty well. Both downs and Pierce did have, you know, they each had a play you could probably have back. They probably should have caught it once or twice. What are you going to do? That's just going to happen in the NFL. They're

Starting point is 00:15:20 not going to catch everything. But overall, I thought those guys were productive and helpful towards the cause. Pierce, for example, it was third and 18. He had a 19-yard reception late in the game, again, over the middle. So Pierce is starting to get more involved and in a variety of ways. His route tree seems to be expanding. They're getting him involved more than just the downfield stuff. And as a result, he was very, very quiet early in the season. But now we're starting to hear his name a little bit more. And for the most part, it's fruitful. It's working.

Starting point is 00:15:55 You look at Drew Ogletree. He had a nice 33-yard touchdown. Good things tend to happen when he gets the ball. He's only got like eight or nine catches this year, but they're almost all for a first down or touchdown. He's been very productive. When you look at Mo Alleycox, it's like a very rare connection. He gets like a first down or something.

Starting point is 00:16:17 But with Drew Ogletree, it just looks different. And you don't have Jelani Woods out there still. Kylan Granson's banged up with the concussion. So Drew Ogletree's a guy I would keep getting more and more involved. If you hung around horseshoehuddle.com this week, you saw that Zach put out a piece where Drew Ogletree, especially as a blocker, is becoming a lot better player. And with him developing more and more,

Starting point is 00:16:42 and he's clearly a weapon in the passing game, when you get guys like Jelani Woods back, Kylan Granson back, you're going to create good problems to have. And it may relegate a guy like Mo Alley-Cox to just totally being on the sideline. Just, you know, may the best man win. And finally, something that a lot of people have been asking for, you're going to get these guys out there that are bigger weapons in the passing game. And that's just a good problem that Drew Ogletree has kind of created.

Starting point is 00:17:11 One more thing I kind of wanted to take issue with on the offense, though, before we bounce over to the defense. Jonathan Taylor and Zach Moss have been very heavily involved in the passing game lately. You know, this was Taylor's fourth game back. Zach Moss has been very involved. It's both a runner and passer this whole season. They combined for just two receptions today for 10 yards. So they totally abandoned them in the run game in the second half. But really, at no point did they involve them in the passing game.

Starting point is 00:17:41 And for a quarterback like Gardner Minshew, who throws the ball short so often, I thought that was pretty peculiar. And again, it's not something I would expect to see moving forward because this coaching staff doesn't always consecutively make the same mistakes over and over and over. And Shane Steichen has shown the ability

Starting point is 00:18:01 to put together a creative game plan and attack defenses in a smart way. Now, that wasn't necessarily the case today. But I've got to imagine Jonathan Taylor is going to be heavily used moving forward. And both he and Zach Moss should see an uptick in usage in the passing game from what they saw today because it just wasn't enough. Those guys are what moves the

Starting point is 00:18:26 offense and they just were not used enough. And I can't, I just cannot imagine rewatching this game. You know, they're always going to say, we got to watch the film, figure out what happened. Watching the film, you're some of your best players just were not used enough. And moving forward, you've got a pretty easy, and I don't want to say easy because it's any given Sunday, but you've got a very generous stretch of games coming up, and you've got guys right there who are ready to help you win. So if you want your offense to be productive

Starting point is 00:18:59 and you want to take advantage of Gardner-Minch, you're not turning it over three, four times a game, then you've got to get those guys involved and help them out a little bit. So we'll move over and talk about the defense a little bit, non-Tony Brown division coming up next. All right, everyone, it's time to pull out your Lucky Charm jersey and order your favorite apps and snacks on DoorDash because it's football season again. Why root for your team on an empty stomach? That's no fun. Order on DoorDash and save on football watch party favorites.

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Starting point is 00:19:55 That's a guy who loves clean eating. I suggested to him Sweetgreen here in downtown Indy, also Garden Table there on Mass Ave. So if you guys are into clean eating and don't just like eating a bunch of junk, those are two places I know are really, really good. And you're not going to feel guilty about eating them either. Even if you get six pounds of food and you're getting it delivered, you're going to feel pretty good about it because DoorDash is going to get those two at a reasonable price. And that is really good guilt-free food that if you're into

Starting point is 00:20:27 like whole foods and not fried stuff, those are a couple of really good places that I would actually recommend. So get 50% off up to a $10 value when you spend $15 or more on your first order. When you download the DoorDash app and enter code LOCKED23. Subject to change, terms apply. Don't forget to use code LOCKED23 for 50% off up to a $10 value on your first order when you download the DoorDash app and spend $15 or more. Subject to change, terms apply. All right, so defensively, I mentioned Derek Carr really had very little pressure to work with, and as a result, he kind of went off 310 yards for him with an 11.5 YPA.

Starting point is 00:21:08 So it was legit. Like, the guy was just throwing seeds down the field, and it was working. Had a pair of touchdowns. I mentioned he did lose the fumble when DeForest Bucker got to him earlier in the game. He was supported heavily by a nice run game. I mean, was anyone really surprised by that? Grover Stewart's out. Eric Johnson was out.

Starting point is 00:21:29 That's your next best interior run defender in the depth behind Grover Stewart. Adetomi Adeboware was available, though, as was McTelvin. Akeem was called up from the practice squad. I didn't think it was the worst game in the world, defending the run for Taven Bryan, but still, that's not really the guy you want out there getting run up the middle 30 times a game. The Colts really just did not have much of an answer for the run game. The Saints ran it 36 times for 161 yards. That's four and a half yards per carry and three touchdowns. Specifically, the offensive weapons that just nobody seemed to have an answer for, Taysom Hill and Alvin Kamara.

Starting point is 00:22:12 Taysom Hill was the Swiss Army knife that everyone knows he could be. 121 all-purpose yards, passing, running, receiving, had a pair of touchdowns. Alvin Kamara, 110 all-purpose yards, two touchdowns. So those guys had pretty comparable games and just were killing the Colts throughout the whole day. Yeah. Taysom Hill, I've got to give him a lot of credit because throughout his career, I'm like, why don't people understand how to defend him? It seems fairly obvious what's going to happen when he gets the ball and no one can stop him. And that was, that was the case here. Now on his 20 yard touchdown run, uh, that was a pretty awful display of tackling. And I will throw in Tony Brown on

Starting point is 00:22:54 that one too, because it's a possible not to, uh, Brown had a really, really, really bad tackle attempt, which took Shaquille Leonard out of the play as well. And he'll just had a kind of a wide open traverse down the right sideline for the touchdown. Yeah, this was a rough one guys. We'll get through it. The Colts are going into a somewhat favorable stretch. They've got Carolina,

Starting point is 00:23:18 New England, the bi-week, the Buccaneers, and then the Titans all coming up over their next five weeks. Those four teams are combined nine and 20, and not a one of them is even at 500. They're all below 500. So the Colts, this was a winnable game. They should have won this one, but it was one of the last ones they could really afford

Starting point is 00:23:41 to lose because they have this stretch coming up. Now with these four opponents that they have specifically, they cannot do any worse than two and two. They really need to come out of this three and one, two and two at worst. If they somehow go one and three with these opponents and a bi-week squeezed in there there their season is just toast it seems like you know i i i won't be able to find many optimistic things to say about it because this is very very generous uh really the remainder of the schedule overall is very doable for them uh you know they they've got a couple tough games in their overall you know the bangles are at the end of this stretch that I'm talking about here.

Starting point is 00:24:27 The Steelers are coming up. The Texans are a team that's pretty tough. They have them at Lucas Oil Stadium in Week 18. There's some tough ones in there, but overall, they have no excuse not to be 500 or above the remainder of the schedule, especially in these next five weeks. So yeah, they've got I week coming up. They've got Germany coming up. It's going to get weird. It's going to get strange, but hopefully knowing this year's team, it's going to be entertaining.

Starting point is 00:24:56 So yeah. Uh, stay tuned the rest of this week for us to break that stuff down. It's Frank Reich week, Carolina Panthers coming up. Bryce Young, you got an exciting young rookie quarterback for us to talk about this week. I know Zach is going to hop in here and talk with you guys on this next episode. He's going to let you know what he saw out of this game. He will have had a chance to watch the film again as well, so to speak. So stay tuned for that. If you guys don't already follow at Locked on Colts, at JakeArthurNFL, and at ZachX2 on Twitter, also be sure to subscribe on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Starting point is 00:25:31 We would love your ratings and reviews because, honestly, we have a lot of you guys watching and listening, but the ratings and reviews is how the charts really put us in front of more people, both audio and video platforms. So be sure to leave a rating and review. We would really appreciate that. And with that, we will see you guys Tuesday morning.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts Gashed By New Orleans Saints En Route to Third Straight Loss

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