Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts' Latest Debacle a Summary of Issues That Have Plagued Them for Years

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Colts' latest end-of-season meltdown was just the latest in what has become a disturbing trend for this team over the last few years. Let's get to it. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, what's up, everybody? Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen of the day. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network,

Starting point is 00:00:38 your team every day. And thank you for joining me today, everybody. My name is Jake Arthur of HorseshoeHuddle.com. And today, it was just Zach Solo after the game on Sunday, the Colts, the meltdown against the New York Giants. I wasn't present. I wanted to make sure I at least got in my thoughts here, though. But also just really encapsulating a couple like huge problems with this team that have continually reared their ugly head over the last few years. So of course, we'll talk about, you know, late season collapses and games that really matter to this team. The Colts playing down to their competition and you literally never

Starting point is 00:01:17 knowing what you're going to get from them week to week. But first, I just want to give you my thoughts on this game overall, because everyone would have picked the Colts to win this one. But it's how games are played that really make the difference in how we judge this team moving forward. You kind of look at, you know, the Denver Broncos a couple weeks ago. A lot of us expected the Broncos to win, but it's how the Colts lost that game that really left the sour taste in everybody's mouth. Kind of the same with the Titans. They score 38 points, get out to a huge lead, but of course, they cannot play 60 minutes. They allow the Titans to come back. It's 38 to 30, and it's huge systemic problems with this team. So let's just look at this Giants game first. Of course,

Starting point is 00:02:05 they lose 45 to 33. Essentially was the biggest performance the Giants have had in quite some time. Let's just put it lightly that way. They have lost 10 straight games. This was probably the best quarterback performance since Eli Manning, you know, what Drew Locke did, almost a perfect passer rating over 155. It was the latest example of the Colts allowing a quarterback who's just a guy to look like Peyton Manning, essentially. So it's unbelievable how this team allows themselves to do that. And it's not always schematic. Sometimes it is. But players just, they get on the field and it's like they don't know how to act like how many guys do we see out there defensively just kind of lollygagging it did not look like they were

Starting point is 00:02:52 playing with high intensity you saw some guys out there jogging uh the amount of missed tackles that we're still talking about in week 17 that we were talking about in week one, week two, how is this still a problem? Guys are squaring up and they're in decent position if they would just simply wrap up. Shoulders don't make tackles. Arms don't make tackles. You have to wrap up. Your coaches, the coaches could not be more irritated, I've got to imagine. When they watch the film, if you're a coach,

Starting point is 00:03:25 how do you watch that and not say, Hey, this is stuff you were taught when you were six or seven years old and you were first being first introduced to the sport of football. I don't understand how it's still problems for this team. Uh, but the guys on the team are fed up with it. Those are those of them who are actually doing the right things. you're DeForest Buckners of the world. If you guys didn't check out, I posted DeForest's media availability from Monday on our YouTube channel. And so go check that out if you haven't already. But some of these guys who are showing up and doing their job are fed up because it's insane that these things continue to rear their head, cost the Colts games, and very meaningful games. We've been talking about for a while,

Starting point is 00:04:08 this was a win and end for the Colts, but they absolutely needed to win this game and get some help elsewhere to make the playoffs. And of course, they were handed literally the worst team in the league and couldn't even look capable. The offense, of course, showed up because only one side of the ball is able to show up on a week-to-week basis. So it was the defense's turn

Starting point is 00:04:29 to take it off this time. But let's just look at, you know, from the top of the depth chart. So Joe Flacco, after he had that first pretty bad interception initially through an errant ball that the defender made a nice adjustment to get. That, of course, was the stuff you're going to get with Joe Flacco. That was really bad. But I thought he did a generally nice job shaking it off after that and playing capable football. He was aggressive, which I'm always a fan of. 68% completions, 8.7 YPA, a couple touchdowns, especially late.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Kind of reminiscent of the Jaguars game. But then, of course, turned back into a pumpkin on the final two drives through a bad interception, which was just a short punt, essentially, on the first play of the drive, and then he had a lost fumble. So they were in awful situations, very unclutched. You know how clutch we've seen Anthony Richardson be throughout the season, especially the second half was basically the inverse of what we saw with Flacco. The interception was with the Colts down nine points with them trading scores

Starting point is 00:05:38 with three minutes left after the Colts last two drives were touchdown. So they did have some momentum offensively. And then the fumble was with two minutes left down 12. So both of those huge mistakes came with enough time to do a little something and make the game interesting, tie it up, come back, you know, put yourselves ahead. It was with meaningful time still left on the clock. Another thing that's kind of become a big problem Jonathan Taylor excellent as a runner in this one another 100 yard game 125 yards couple touchdowns but you do not know what to expect from him in any other facet outside of just running the ball um there was the play where Joe Flacco

Starting point is 00:06:19 was looking for him you know in the low red zone on a pass down the left side, perfectly placed ball by Joe. Taylor wasn't even looking yet. And then after the Colts scored a touchdown and they were going for the two-point conversion, they tried to hook and ladder and Michael Pittman, you know, you know, tossed him the ball as he should have and Taylor just couldn't, couldn't get it. He just dropped it. You know, I'm assuming he was thinking ahead to what was going to happen with him after he got the ball and getting into the end zone. But, of course, two enormous mistakes just a couple weeks after making that huge mistake, dropping the ball before the end zone. But this is a guy who it's tough because he's very clearly one of your best players, perhaps your best player on offense. But he's kind of a microcosm of the whole team where it's rarely a 60-minute thing, and there could be 98%

Starting point is 00:07:13 good, but then this 2% bad is terribly timed or it's just in the worst scenario. So that was, of course, really tough to see. The one where Flacco looked for Taylor on the pass and he wasn't there, they had to settle for a field goal on that one. So if that would have been a touchdown, who knows how differently that game goes. Michael Pittman Jr., Alec Pierce, awesome. They combined for 15 catches for 231 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Pittman and Downs both had a couple bad drops at bad times. some. They combined for 15 catches for 231 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Pittman and Downs both had a couple bad drops at bad times. A.D. Mitchell, of course, had one as well. I'm not going to kill guys for having drops occasionally because that does happen. No one has

Starting point is 00:07:57 100% success rate doing everything right all the time. Certainly, I think Pittman and Downs have earned the right to have some low moments occasionally. This was a good day for Kylan Granson to have his best performance. He came in for three catches for 34 yards, showed some ability downfield, did some things after the catch. That was nice to see. But now we just look at the defense, which was awful. Pro Football Focus dinged with 10 missed tackles. I looked at that.

Starting point is 00:08:27 That became 174 yards after the catch for the Giants, which obviously a huge amount of that is Malik neighbors. He was just incredible. 42 yards after contact on the ground. A lot of that was on an early Tyrone Tracy run, but that's 216 yards for the Giants offense on plays where guys were not tackled the first time they were touched. Obviously, missed tackles is a huge problem for this team. This, for me, was kind of comparable

Starting point is 00:08:58 to the Lions game where the Lions got let off the hook so much because of the Colts' inability to just finish the play when the first defender got there. So that's obviously a huge problem. Another missed opportunity, Tyrone Tracy had a fumble that the Giants wound up recovering. The Giants had punt on that drive. However, it was deep enough on you know, on that side of the field where the Colts offense could have maybe done something with it, put more points on the board. That's stolen points. That's always a huge X factor in games. Again, there are critical moments throughout a game.

Starting point is 00:09:37 And to me, that was one of them. Unfortunately, this was perhaps the worst game I've seen from Kenny Moore. He had a handful of missed tackles, was some poor footing, getting in and out of cuts with receivers and coverage. So that's a guy you're rarely going to hear me say anything bad about Kenny Moore because I think he is an incredible player. He's an incredibly cerebral player. But this was definitely a game that he would want back. Julian Blackman, very sad to see what has become of this season compared to what

Starting point is 00:10:12 we thought it was going to be when we saw him during training camp, but him downfield missing tackles has just been a recurrent theme throughout the season. Nick Cross, Zyra Franklin, and EJ Speed all had some missed tackles and took some poor angles. Now, Franklin did have another solid game overall. He had, you know, that forced fumble, four tackles for loss, but, you know, there's some low lights in there as well, but you take the good with the bad. You know, I think overall this was one of his better games of the season, but still you look at like an EJ Speed who got shook out of his shoes by Drew Locke, who is not the most fleet of foot type of guy out there.

Starting point is 00:10:51 But yeah, poor tackling, poor angles, just issues that completely plague this defense year in and year out. And now it doesn't matter anymore because the game they needed to win against the worst team in the league, they dropped the ball. They weren't able to do it. So coming up next, we're going to talk about a couple big themes that have kind of reared their head during the Chris Ballard era and in particular the last few years kind of since the Carson Wentz era.

Starting point is 00:11:20 Did Rocket Money help you find any subscriptions you forgot about or that you were paying for twice? That definitely happened to me. My wife got on Rocket Money one day and asked me about a hundred different things that I did not think we were still using at all, but we still were. I had a few subscriptions that I didn't even realize we were still paying for and Rocket Money had our back. They made it so easy to track them all down.

Starting point is 00:11:41 It was like having a personal assistant for our finances. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you could grow your savings. It brings everything together in one place, whether it's subscriptions, your spending habits, or even goals that you want to hit this year. Sometimes budgeting and getting your finances in order is really tough and it's a daunting task. You don't even want to think about it. Definitely the low points of adulting. But Rocket Money is one resource that I cannot recommend enough if you want to get things back on track.

Starting point is 00:12:17 If your finances kind of start to spiral a little bit, I think they're great. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash locked on today. That's rocketmoney.com slash locked on. Rocketmoney.com slash locked on. All right, so something we all know the Colts do is play down to their opponents.

Starting point is 00:12:52 They tend to beat the lower levels of the league, you know, the Giants, which we all assumed they would. That didn't happen. But normally they take care of business against the kind of seller dwellers of the league. So we're obviously going to throw this one into that ring because they not only played down to the competition, they played below that competition against the Giants. But this kind of caused me to go down a little bit of a statistical rabbit hole. I just went back the last two years. We know it's really been a problem for a long time, but I went back just these last two seasons under Shane Steichen. You look at last year, the Panthers were their 215 team. The Colts, they got only 13 points from the offense. They were super reliant on Kenny Moore's

Starting point is 00:13:38 two pick sixes. The Patriots that year was a 10-6 win. They swept the Titans that year, but they were both one score games. In the second one, it was overtime. They needed a 10-6 win. They swept the Titans that year, but they were both one-score games. In the second one, it was overtime. They needed a block punt as well. The Falcons game, they lost. They got killed. It was a game where it was a complete no-show, and it looked more like the 2022 season under Jeff Saturday

Starting point is 00:13:58 than it did anything else. This year, you look at the Packers game. Packers are a good team. They're 11-5, but that was with Malik Willis, and they allowed 200 yards rushing in the first half. Again, Josh Jacobs having a great year, but he's not rushing for 150, 200 yards against everybody. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:14:18 Bears game, the Bears are 4-12 this year, very well documented. That was another one-score win for the Colts. It was Chicago's offensive breakout. People had been questioning Caleb Williams and that receiving core beforehand, but they had a big performance against the Colts. The Colts got blasted by the Jaguars. That looked a lot like this game. They lost 37-34. Jacksonville was 0-4 going into that one. Titans. The Colts swept them again this year,

Starting point is 00:14:46 but again, they were one-score games. And like I mentioned, a couple weeks ago, they blew a 38-7 lead. It was 38-30 win, but that snowball started rolling with just like three minutes left in the third quarter. The Dolphins, Dolphins are 8-8. They're decent now that two is back. They're okay, but it was a one-score game.

Starting point is 00:15:06 The Dolphins were 2-3 at the time. Jets and Patriots, those were both wins, but the Jets are 4-12. Patriots are 3-13. Those are one-score games, and they required fourth-quarter comebacks and some magic from Anthony Richardson to make it happen. And then, of course, there was Sunday was Sunday, which of course the Giants are three and 13 now. And my note on that is spelled out WTF, the whole thing, but this is a family show. Can't really get into that, but that this is just something that has become a problem. It's teams like the Colts. They can be competitive against good teams. You know, they were in it against the lions. They were in it for a while against the bills. Like we've seen them be

Starting point is 00:15:51 competitive against some really good teams. And they usually have at least one year, one win every season where they had no business winning it. They really haven't had that this year. This is probably the season of me observing the Colts where what I thought I knew about are on the basement of the league, but there's nothing consistently that you can say week after week. They don't play complimentary football. They tend to not take advantage of matchups that they clearly should be favored in. You don't know, is the offense going to perform well this week or is it going to be the defense? They don't know. You ask the players, you ask the coaches, they are out of answers. They do not know. And it's often a breakdown in just fundamentals and the simplest mistakes that they make that snowball and ruin the whole thing.

Starting point is 00:17:09 And so playing down your opponents, that's the mark of a mediocre team generally. But when you have a game like Sunday, when you get blasted by the Giants, that's the mark of a bad team. So the Colts, we thought they were a mediocre team all season, really, with the capability to hang in there against just about anybody. But this game on Sunday really showed us what this team is. And they're just unserious, and they can't get out of their own way. And you just can't, you can't take them seriously. A lot of it, it's, it's veteran players who are making a lot of money making these big mistakes. So that's of course, incredibly disappointing to see. And that's going to lead us into our next topic,

Starting point is 00:17:55 which is late season collapses, which has been again, another big problem under GM Chris Ballard. All right. So this was another rabbit hole that I went down. We're talking about the Colts needing to have games late in the season, either to keep the season alive or put them in the playoffs, and they just haven't been able to do it. So the numbers since 2017 really aren't great. So this is, that's what, eight years.

Starting point is 00:18:24 There's only been one season. And I looked specifically like the final two games of the year, the most consequential ones. They've only had one season where they went to a no over the final two games of the year. That was 2018 when they were, they were 11 and five and they got her tenants. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:42 It was when Andrew Luck was in there, but they went to another final two games of the season but then you look at let's start with 2021 that was the Carson Wentz season oh and two they needed to win just one game against the Raiders or the Jaguars the Jaguars who had fans in the stadium with clown masks on and were begging for everybody in the building to be fired. The Jaguars came out and made it happen against the Colts, which was exactly, basically exactly what happened on Sunday. They were planning to fly planes, telling ownership to fire the front office and decision makers for the Giants.

Starting point is 00:19:20 So fans were fed up. They hadn't won any games at MetLife Stadium this year. Again, they had lost 10 straight going into that but of course they throttled the Colts and looked like the absolute best versions of themselves so 0-2 in 2021 0-2 in 2022 which was obviously the Jeff Saturday season but 1-1 last year they they beat the Raiders They probably should have beat the Texans at home in Week 18, but it was the Tyler Goodson-Gardner-Menshew play. And then, obviously, they have one game left this year, but they're 0-1. They're going to be 1-1 at best. And tell me, how many of you feel good about that Week 18 game at home being against the Jaguars? If it was in Jacksonville, I don't think anyone would pick them.

Starting point is 00:20:06 On paper, if you asked me two, three weeks ago, of course I would have said the Colts will take care of business against the Jaguars week 18 at home. I don't know that I'm going to be able to pick them. I think from what we've heard from guys in the building and media availability and everything, I don't know what the devastation level is in there, but I think there's some guys who are going to be playing for, you know, they're heading into free agency. Some guys are getting older. They want to, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:38 put some good stuff on tape for their next team or because it's going to be perhaps their last game in their uniform. You look like Ryan Kelly, for example. But we're going to probably see how many guys are checked out. If the Colts come out on Sunday against the Jaguars and just look totally outmatched, like they haven't prepared whatsoever and are not ready to perform, whether it's one side of the ball or both. I don't care if the defense plays great or the offense plays great.

Starting point is 00:21:09 Again, they have to play complementary football, which is something that's eluded them all season. It's just going to be indicative of this team being devastated and packing it in, it seems. There are plenty of guys out there who have laid it all out on the line and you really can't, you know, criticize them much for lack of effort. But there are some guys out there that you see on tape. It doesn't look like they're they're giving it their all. And that's that's really disappointing to see, because this is a team where how long did Chris Ballard tell us they wanted to build the right locker room,

Starting point is 00:21:46 they want to have the right guys in there, one that polices itself and holds guys accountable and this and that. Well, shoot, just over the last couple days, we know like Pat McAfee had that big long rant, the Colts lost against the Giants. And, you know, calling out the culture issues in the building, you know, guys being late to meetings and not showing up for treatment. The whole Anthony Richardson thing where, you know, is in the end, it really was Richardson's, you know, he wasn't preparing as a quarterback necessarily should. And that was showing up on the field on game days and they couldn't justify it anymore. And they benched him well you know they they allowed it to get to that point that McAfee called all that out said there are

Starting point is 00:22:30 culture issues in the building of course without specifically saying it you know called out you know Zyre Franklin and EJ Speed as well for having their their podcast and saying this and that on there and you know we asked DeF buckner and shane steichen about yesterday during media availability and neither of them denied it you know they they both acknowledge you know there's there's been some things where guys have needed to be held accountable that have happened basically confirming the you know treatments and meetings and stuff and i don't neither answer was really terrific because it was kind of a, this happens on every team,

Starting point is 00:23:09 this and that we deal with it internally. But Shane Steichen, of course got a lot of flack for his response, which was a little too, a little too blase, probably not a hard enough stance to put out in the public. Now he may be a hard ass about it in the building and deals with it swiftly and finds guys obviously probably doesn't pull them out of

Starting point is 00:23:31 the lineup and everything but he may he may deal with it in a fine manner internally but it's the communication of it all in the optics of of what we're told in the media and then send back to you guys, that does not look good. Again, and that's on the heels of yet another Anthony Richardson injury situation that didn't make him look good. Turns out he had back spasms, which caused him to miss Sunday's game. But when we finally talked to Shane, like Thursday or Friday or whatever it was, because it was Christmas week, so everything was pushed back. He said he was

Starting point is 00:24:10 just really sore. And that makes Anthony look terrible because like, okay, we're all sore. Like I'm, I'm almost 35. I'm sore every day getting out of bed. You know, surely by week 17, every NFL player is sore, just walking around each day. You know, it made Anthony look bad. There could have been more details given like, hey, no, his back is not allowing him to move and function properly, which probably wouldn't have been the right thing to say. It's just the optics of it all. This team, until they make big changes, is going to keep getting the ire of the fan base. They're going to keep not being taken seriously around the league.

Starting point is 00:24:53 National talking heads are going to use them for target practice. And it's all rightfully so. This is kind of the bed that they have made from the communication on their part, the product that they're putting on the field. It's all just, it's all incredibly frustrating. So one game left. Obviously the off season has essentially begun because there will be no post season, but Zach and I are actually going to come back with you guys later again today. We're going to continue kind of looking at some of the biggest people in the facility and whether or not they should be brought back.

Starting point is 00:25:30 So we're going to be discussing Chris Ballard later this offseason or later this afternoon looking forward to the offseason. So I know you guys are going to look forward to that. I don't think there's anybody who doesn't have an opinion about Chris Ballard at this point. So definitely stay tuned for that. And thank you for listening to me rant about the game and kind of the state of things. Now for your next listen, go listen to Locked on NFL.

Starting point is 00:25:54 You're going to get Tyler Rowland, who's going to kick off your morning with a double shot of NFL espresso. And then our guy Tony Wiggins from the Jags, who we'll talk to for Crossover Thursday. He's going to hit you with some real NFL talk. So find Locked on NFL on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you guys want to be a Locked on Colts insider, chat with us directly, get the inside scoop. Just, you know, complain about the team to us and just listen to what we have to say.

Starting point is 00:26:20 And we'll, you know, trade ideas back and forth. You could do that as well. Again, it's about to be the fun portion of the season, the offseason, lots of speculation always. If you don't already, follow at LockedOnColts, at JakeArthurNFL, and at ZachHicks2 on Twitter. We're also on TikTok and Instagram. Those things are getting bigger all the time. Really pleased with what we're seeing there.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Obviously, subscribe on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. We would love your ratings and reviews as well. And with that, we will see you guys later this afternoon discussing the future of Chris Ballard.

Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts' Latest Debacle a Summary of Issues That Have Plagued Them for Years

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.