Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts Open Season with Dud vs. Houston Texans

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

In the first game of The Matt Ryan Era, the Indianapolis Colts narrowly avoided complete disaster against the Houston Texans, squeaking out a 20-20 tie. The guys dive into which players stood out (both good and bad) and talk about what needs to change heading into Week 2.Find and follow Locked On Colts on your favorite podcast platforms:📺YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdpxJspi1hMh5HL7ExpWOQ🎧 Apple https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1151621306🎧 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/6meP450baAtjX4rTENZ5ij🎧 Audacy https://www.audacy.com/podcasts/locked-on-colts-daily-podcast-on-the-indianapolis-colts-21701🎧 Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vUFBZODk1ODUyODkyNQ🎧 Megaphone https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/lockedoncoltsFollow Jake and Zach's written work on HorseshoeHuddle.com, and give them a follow on Twitter @JakeArthurNFL, @ZachHicks2, and @LockedOnColts!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONNFLBuilt BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!BriteCoThe guys at BriteCo Jewelry Insurance made buying insurance for your engagement ring, your watch, or whatever so easy you can get covered in 2 minutes on your cell phone. You won't find a better deal on coverage that's so affordable. Go to https://brite.co/lockedonPrizePicksFirst time users can receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100 with promo code LOCKEDON. That’s PrizePicks.com – promo code; LOCKEDONTuroDitch boring rental cars and find your drive at Turo.comAthletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NFLNETWORK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

it was supposed to be an exciting new era of Colts football that was ushered in on Sunday, but instead they looked incredibly dull for much of the game and eventually fought back for a tie. We'll tell you exactly what happened, but while you can still have some cautious optimism, 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, Colts fans, thanks so much for tuning in and making us your number one listen of the day.

Maybe. Well, it's later in the day, but yeah, we thank you anyways. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Jake Arthur, joined by Zach Hicks here. You know the two of us from HorseshoeHuddle.com, of course. We're coming to you live today after the game. Probably going to have to live with any flubs since we can't edit out live action, but you're in for the ride with us. Yeah, so we're obviously going to talk about this Colts non-win in week

one against the Houston Texans. Feels a lot like a loss. I don't know. If it's not a win, it feels like a loss to me. I'm sure you feel the same way. But 2020 in overtime, the Colts did fight back. They were down three to 20 at one point, came back in the fourth quarter, but not enough. We're going to kind of break down specifically some things offensively and defensively, and then what we think they can improve on to rebound moving forward. So the Colts, everyone knows by now they haven't won during week one since 2013. There has been so much talk about getting this win under their belt all offseason. They moved

things around during training camp, this and that. It's just been a huge theme. And not only did they not win, they came out looking just so uninspired. It immediately was shades of Week 18 versus Jacksonville. It was just like, you look at your, how can this be what they look like right now? No one was on fire. We'll talk about it in a bit, but there was only a few players who you felt good about going through like the first half and it, it just was ugly. What do you think? Ugly is the best way to describe it. Honestly, I know if you guys are following my Twitter account, it just became hopeless, like pessimism and memes and stuff like that from the second quarter to the,

you know, to the early fourth quarter. The Colts did battle back. And, you know, I think that that does show some resiliency. I mean, it's hard to come back from down three scores going into the fourth quarter. I think it was three scores going into the fourth or towards the end of the third. And then obviously they put themselves in a position to win it in overtime. They should have won this game if they had a real kicker. So, you know, I'm not going to put all the blame on a certain kicker for this because there are a lot of issues. The game should never have been this close against a team that won four games last season. But man, it's just a tough one. You can't come out the way they did. And you know, it's kind of funny. We talk about this long losing streak they've had. And in these long losing streaks in week one,

they typically started the games pretty well. And, you know, 2020 against Jacksonville, they came out and scored on the first drive. Last year against the Seahawks, they went right down into the, you know, within the 10-yard line on the first drive. I think even with Jacoby Brissett, they went down and scored on the first drive against the Chargers. It's just they came out so sloppy and so slow, and it looked so ugly.

I mean, the run game just looked terrible. Matt Ryan looked out of sync. I mean, they kept running the ball into a brick wall, too, to start the game. It was brutal. The defense played pretty well to start, but it looked mostly because the Texans' offense just is not good. I mean, it's not a good offense they played against. Honestly, the Texans only scored twice

because of two pass interference calls in this game as well. It was just, it's a game that never should have been this close. Indy should have won. And we'd be feeling a lot better if a certain someone made their kick, but we would still be talking about the same issues.

You know, there's still a lot of issues that showed up in this game. A lot of fixable issues. But when you're a veteran team that's saying all chips in, you're bringing all these tie-in free agents, you know, Stephon Gilmore, Yannick Ngakwe, Matt Ryan, you can't have games like this against a team that's probably going to be towards the bottom of the league and wins. I mean, I thought they played well.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about the Texans. They played pretty well. But this is not a super talented team that you kind of let's hang around the whole game and you end up tying them. Yeah, no, the end result is inexcusable. And with a tie, you obviously look at like, there's a, there's a million what ifs throughout the game when literally one point would have made the difference. When I look at this game,

I just am looking at those self-inflicted wounds. Of course. I've actually had a lot of people respond about Frank Reich specifically on this one. And on a bigger level, that's absolutely true. Like they just they can't win these week one games. Coming out looking this flat was, again, inexcusable. Like it's there's something that's got to that's got to click somewhere. But man, you're talking about, I think Matt Ryan was credited with four fumbles. Most of them were just dropped snaps, including shotgun snaps.

That was, those weren't necessarily killers, but they had the downs deep inside Texans territory. Alec Pierce drop drops, the easy touchdown. There was just really stupid penalties here and there. There was just really uncharacteristic things. There was a thousand opportunities for someone to make one play or just not make a big mistake that would have changed the game. What do you think? I'm really interested to see what you think about that. Frank Reich wasn't spotless in this by any means but i don't

hang this loss on him no you and i spoke right before we started recording that you know when it comes to frank reich we are kind of seeing a lot of issues repeat themselves you know a lot of issues we're seeing the cutesy play calling on the one you're on fourth and one when you have the best running back in football you know you can't that's an ugly ugly call and it was an ugly result and you don't want to see that happen and you're seeing you know again can't that's an ugly ugly call and it was an ugly result and you don't want to see that happen and you're seeing you know again these guys starting out lethargic and against an inferior opponent uh you know kind of carrying over from that jacksonville game you're seeing uh kind of miscommunications and stuff you're seeing guys not getting you know they had to

call i think two timeouts in this game because they couldn't get the snap off late and late in the play clock a lot of issues where it's like, as a head coach going on to your fifth year with the team, we can't be seeing these same issues, especially with an older team. You know, they have a lot of veterans on this team. You can't just see the same excuses over and over again. But I agree with you. I think more of an issue in this game was the self-inflicted wounds, you know, and that doesn't really particularly go to the court or go to the head coach, you know, self-inflicted

wounds from a weird interception on a screenplay, self-inflicted wounds from a weird interception on a screen play. Self-inflicted wounds from dropping a bunch of snaps. Self-inflicted penalties. Braden Smith giving up that huge sack as well. With a false start right after. Right, right. Kenny Moore having two long defensive pass interference calls that gave the Texans their two touchdowns.

Linebackers not matching up the field on play action, seam routes to a tight end. A lot of self-inflicted wounds where these players need to make plays. These are players that you're paying a lot of money to, particularly looking at this offensive line. You're paying them the most in all of football. These three players on the offensive line, you're giving them all near $20 million a year each.

And they did not come out and play well at all so i i do think coaching and in front office do deserve a lot of blame for a game like this but at the end of the day i don't want to absolve the players because the players didn't come out and play well outside of we're going to talk about with our other sections outside of michael pitman jr jonathan taylor and grover stewart those are the only three players that from start to finish looked awesome outside of of that, the rest of these players, I think they all deserve their fair share of blame. Yeah, and honestly, it was a productive day otherwise. It just kind of shows you the razor-thin margin for error. Offensively, they had 517 yards, 340 passing, and 177 rushing.

If you told them that going into each game, they would take that every week at face value. But then you say, you know, you had, you had these penalties, you had these drops, these turnovers, and then, you know, it's, it's just such a, such a razor thin thing. Yes. I was, I was also going to go ahead and mention, we've got to talk about it. Rodrigo Blankenship, he was spotless going into late in the game and then in overtime, of course, starts it out. His kickoff goes out of bounds. That's a 15-yard penalty for the defense in a situation where there can be no mistakes because if they go down and score the touchdown on the first drive, game over. And then the Colts have the opportunity for a 42 yarder to win the game. Never had a chance. Wide right. It was terrible. So is it serious

enough to where they need to make a change right now? Yes. Or what else can be done? I mean, you got to make a change. Yeah. You have to, it's, we're not, it's not just one kick. It's two years.

No, it's definitely not. Yeah. It's not just one kick. It's, it's multiple years where you just can't trust him at all. I mean, the Colts have had kicking issues dating back to 2019.

You know, that was the Adam Vinatieri year where it was just bad. You know, Vinatieri was obviously cooked and it was just terrible. The Colts, I think there was a stat that went out that the Colts have had the fifth lowest percentage in field goal kicks made since then, since 2019. And that showed itself again today. I mean, kickers have one job. You guys know me.

And I know it's the last point we're going to talk about the second one because we're going a little bit long here but this is kickers have one job you have to make these these kicks this is these are the moments that this is the whole reason why you get paid millions of dollars is to make these kicks it's the only thing you you go out there a couple times a game and in the what six snaps that blanken should have this game he failed on three of them you know two kickoffs out of bounds and missed a game-winning kick. I mean, you just can't have that. No matter who you're bringing in, you have to make a change after this because how do you look players in the locker room where it's like,

hey, you had this great fourth quarter. You came all the way back. Yes, you started slow, but everyone was playing well in the fourth. Everyone was playing well in overtime. You fought all the way back. You were doing everything right, and the game still ends in a tie because your kicker just can't make a kick. I don't know how you look at that. I mean, it's tough, and I just don't know how you bring it back. Again, this is not a one-year issue. This is a two, three, what? This is third year, actually. So I think it's like

a three-year issue with him. It's just not working, and you have to just bring in anybody else at this point because it really can't be worse. Yeah, he's had competition pretty much every year so far. So it kind of shows they've never been, you know, 100% confident in them. But you know, when it comes to completing the job and doing the task at hand, marriage proposals go right with that, guys. I was just over before the game at Brightco's website, bright.co, watching this video of an engagement fail. This guy's going to propose at a Yankees game. We've seen that a billion times, but plot twist, the ring drops on the dirty ground at a ball game. No one wants to look for that.

Suddenly the whole section is having to look for this ring and the secondhand embarrassment is just too real. They eventually found it, but for instances like that where disaster strikes, Brightco's got your back. We all hate insurance, right? Except for those of you who work in the insurance industry watching this, you guys are great. Don't worry about it. But the guys at Brightco turned the whole experience around. So it's probably the easiest thing you can do for yourself this week. No excuses, man. For five bucks a month, you go totally comprehensive on your coverage and it won't take you more than two minutes on your cell phone. Check it out. Bright.co forward slash locked on. You've got to check out that video I was talking about. Brightco has a bunch of these hilarious videos that you can see for

yourself at bright.co forward slash locked on. The Colts offense was not locked in at all for pretty much the whole game, the first few quarters. So what was your first impression of the Matt Ryan era? It was all right. I know a lot of people, look, at the end of the day, when you lose a game or you tie a game against a team you should have beat, so it kind of comes off as a loss, a lot of the blame goes to the head coach and the quarterback. That's where it all will go.

And I completely understand anyone saying that Matt Ryan was not what you expected in this game. For me, those first three quarters were not great. You know, again, a lot of fumbled snaps. The interception was very uh what we were trying to get away from this year was an interception like that so that was awful to see uh but i think for the most part when you factor in how well he played in the fourth quarter and over time he brought the colts all the way back again against a team that they probably shouldn't have been in that situation but in the nfl again it's tough to come back from down three scores and they came

and they erased that within a quarter and and put themselves in a position to win in overtime so I think you know the Colts did show some resiliency and a lot of that was because of Matt Ryan's play but you want to see a little more crisp a little bit better going into next week especially against a team where you know they have another curse they have to break next week so you want to see that a little bit better uh with Matt Ryan but I think you know we kind of said it before recording i think it's very 2020 philip rivers game uh against the jaguars you know that first that first game where yes rivers wasn't great it wasn't super clean but he was far from the reason that they lost that game uh i think it kind of same thing applies here where matt ryan

i think it was an all right game uh you want to see better, but I'm not going to kill them as the main reason why they lost this one. Yeah. And I love that, that comparison you made to 2020 Phillip Rivers. There was some good and some bad with it. Like there were all the fumbles and just simple stuff like drop snaps and the interception wasn't the greatest optics, but I mean, compared to some of the other quarterback play, the Colts have had the last couple of years, guys like Jacoby Brissett and Carson Wentz probably don't get the Colts back into the game and tie it like Matt Ryan did. I thought Ryan started to get really comfortable in that fourth quarter when the desperation was up a little bit, the tempo got a little higher. He was starting to find guys that I thought he settled in really well there.

It probably wasn't as good as the performance as everyone hoped that week one would be, but like, it's going to be fine. I'm not worried about that at all. Now, someone who is there, there was no question about at all was Jonathan Taylor. He had another huge game. I think it was about 160 yards, 159 on 31 carries, a touchdown. We talked before this, you know, It almost feels like he's becoming underappreciated because these big performances are just so ho-hum for him. You almost expect it, and people don't just – they just don't seem to talk about it anymore.

But he's got – if he's not the backbone of the offense, he's just too good. But someone who there is – we wondered about coming in. Was Naheem Hines, how he would be used in this offense. He did. He did get a handful of touches, had a handful of catches, some runs that people don't always love to see up the gut with their smaller running back. But overall, what did you think of Naheem in this in this offense with Matt Ryan?

I kind of wanted to see him a little bit out wide, like a little bit more, but I think for the most part, Naeem Hines played really well. And honestly, I think we're talking about Hines as kind of one of the X factors in this win if Blankenship makes that kick. Because if you guys remember what got the Colts into field goal range, they put Naeem Hines out wide in the slot. He had one-on-one against a linebacker. And I remember I was telling my dad, who I was watching with,

I was like, this is an easy first down for the Colts here. Hines beats them really easy on a little quick glance route and they get the first down, which put them in the field goal range. So I think we're talking better about obviously everyone's performance if they win, but 9 Hines, I think he played well. Five catches, 48 yards, had a couple little runs as well. Again, I want to see more of him at receiver, but overall I have no real complaints with how he played. Yeah, he had nine touches overall. I think if you get him to 10 or whatever, you're probably wanting him touching the ball about 10 times a game.

I think it goes to show, especially on that slant you were talking about, he can be incredibly dangerous in that role. So good looking there. Michael Pittman, you talked about, he was one guy that looked good all game. This was one of his better performances of his career. Caught nine of 13 targets for 121 yards and a touchdown. What I liked most about that performance was he caught the ball in a lot of different scenarios. But something I've wanted to make sure of what was going to happen this season was that he'd get more shots over the middle

and more opportunities to create yards after the catch and that's exactly what happened yeah a lot of dig routes a lot of uh like deep in routes and stuff like that he was getting a lot of the middle of the field stuff i mean honestly i think this is what we're going to see from him all year he's the top dog in this offense uh and he's a guy where you know if you have a top corner like like the texans today we're putting stingley on him and a lot of snaps you If you have your top corner, you're going to want him on Michael Pittman Jr. because he's going to be the top dog in this offense. I think we're going to see just a huge season from Michael Pittman Jr., and this was just the start of it. So hats off to him for such a great game, and I expect this to keep going in the next couple weeks as well. He's going to be phenomenal

this year. Yeah, I'll just make a quick footnote on the tight ends. They had an okay day, you know, they're, they just kind of had those little security catches and whatnot, the hurry up offense catches, but I want to give you the floor to talk about the offensive line a little bit for the rest of this segment. Yeah, man, it was, it was just a train wreck. I don't like, and honestly, you know, it's funny if you come into this game and you say, okay,

the Colts were going to like, I don't really think the colts gave up that many pressures or anything like that i think just the run game was bad there was not a lot of synergy overall up front but if you came into this game telling me that the colts gonna give up some pressures you know a couple sacks here and there and stuff like that i would have said oh gosh matt prior and danny pinter were getting beat but it was ryan kelly and braden smith on a lot of these you know like in in the early game because you know jonathan taylor to start the game i think had nine carries for like 25 yards uh those guys were were like you know he was not effective and those two were a big part of that you know they just man i don't know it was just uh i don't know what's going on with those two players uh braden smith obviously got Brandon Smith obviously got beat by Jerry Hughes a couple times very cleanly.

Ryan Kelly, I think, has been an issue for the last two years now for the Colts. They got to figure it out. Because honestly, Danny Pinter and Matt Pryor were not amazing. I'm not trying to sing their praises here. But I would expect them to not be amazing. The two guys that you're paying over $15 million a year, at right tackle and at center, you need them to step up. And since, you know, since the end of 2020, we have not seen

either of those guys step up. So it's shown, I hate it when trends show their ugly faces and we're starting to see trends in those two players where they're not really living up to their pay. So that really needs to change going forward because the Colts cannot afford to be paying that much money to two guys that are not playing like it. Right. And they've done some cross training with some guys here and there. And I know offensive line takes a while to, to mesh, especially early on. We we've talked about the last few years. I feel like offensive line play early in the season is pretty bad on a lot of teams, but still that's veterans who you're supposed to plug them in and forget it.

You're not supposed to have to worry about them at all. So that is definitely concerning. What can you do about that? I mean, that's been your starting five the entire year, like going through the spring. So that's a tough spot. Right, right. And guys, we were just talking about the Colts offense.

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It's been out for a few weeks now, so you definitely want to check it out. Home Field is based out of Indy and was a natural choice for the colts to want to partner with this new campaign new customers can get 15 off their first purchase at home field with locked on colts at checkout at homefieldapparel.com all right jake let's talk about this defense i it was it was a fine game for that like don't, the defense really didn't concern me too much. It was just one player had a really tough game and it was Kenny Moore. And, and again, we're talking trends, you know, when we talk trends, you know, last year we kept going to bat this whole off season saying, you know, Kenny Moore is a great corner.

He just had a couple of bad games at the end of last season. What we saw that carry into today. Now I'm not going to say that both those defensive pass interference calls were completely justified. They were pretty weak to me. But, man, I don't know. He didn't really make any plays on the ball today, like at all, from what I saw. Yeah, he's a guy that, I mean, he's always been pretty decent in coverage, but where his game really shined was those super instinctual plays that he would make,

just the plays that other guys just, it seems like they're incapable of making. So I wonder if it's a confidence thing. I don't know. I mean, that's not my place to say that, but with, like you said, a downward trend right now, I will kind of wonder if that's part of it. But yeah, in coverage, he's given up some big things that have led to touchdowns or were touchdowns. So it's, it's tough to say. I mean, I, I'd like to say, you know, he's the type of player who will figure it out, especially with how smart he is.

Cause it doesn't look like there's anything like physically wrong. It doesn't look like he's lost a step or anything. It just hasn't been there on time in certain spots. But outside of him, I thought Stephon Gilmore on the other side looked pretty good. There was maybe a play here or there, but we didn't really have to hear his name too often. And I thought when he got targeted, he was right there with pretty decent coverage or was making a play on the ball. Yeah, he was the only secondary player that I would say was a plus player in this one. I thought Brandon Faison was okay. I didn't really have too many issues with what he did out there. I don't think we saw Isaiah Rogers much at all in this one. I legitimately can't recall seeing him today.

I'm sure he got out there, but yeah. Yeah. So that's a little interesting that we didn't really see him out there. And then Nick Cross and Julian Blackman, I thought Blackman kind of struggled out there today. I'm not going to fault him on both those touchdowns. I think that's more of the linebackers or maybe the slot corner on the other side. I got to rewatch the plays, but I really think that that should have been a situation where the linebackers got a little more depth and maybe match those routes so I wouldn't put them fully on Blackman but I do think you know there was a there's a quick screen that he missed a tackle a couple running plays where he missed tackles Nick Cross kind of looked like a guy out there I didn't really I didn't

notice him good or bad in either way so like it's it's whatever so I didn't really have many positive things to say about the secondary. I just thought it was, you know, stuff on Gilmore, I think, was was good. That was about it for the secondary. Yeah. So so Blackman, you know, the only like real blatant thing I saw from him was he bit hard on that flea flicker. Yeah. And it looks bad on those O.J. Howard touchdowns. But you know, you talked about, you know, the, the linebackers are supposed to carry that up more. So it makes it look like it's all on him when he's the last one there reacting to it, but that's something they're

going to have to get better at because if they're going to play that, that coverage tight ends are going to eat them alive up the seam throughout the year. So they're just going to absolutely figure that out. So starting up front, I kind of thought the defensive line struggled a little bit penetrating against the run game. Like I didn't, I didn't think the Texans really gashed them or anything like that, but I thought they could have done better getting better penetration into the backfield in the run game.

And I thought Davis Mills was unbothered a lot today. Like, Quinney Paley turned it up in overtime and got those two sacks. But I thought their pass rush could have been more potent, and I thought they could have harassed a little more in the run game. What did you think about that? Yeah, I think for the run game, I'd say I had more issues with the linebackers in the run game just fitting lanes and getting in there. And I think having Shaquille Leonard back will really clean that up there.

So I'm not too concerned about the run game because also Grover Stewart was phenomenal. Like he was disruptive on every single play in the run game. And also had a couple of nice rushing snaps, you know, rushing the passer. So he had a, yeah, Grover had a pair of tackles for loss. So he was definitely one of the bright spots of the front. Yeah. And a couple other where he just missed the guy or hit the running back in the backfield. He had a, he

had a big QB hit on Mills where Yannick Ngakwe got the roughing the passer, but Grover Stewart's was a clean pressure. So Grover Stewart was phenomenal this game. Nothing bad to say about him, but the two guys that you are, again, paying a lot of money to Yannick Ngakwe and DeForest Buckner just were quiet for almost all of this game. I don't think Ngakwe had like any pressures on his own like maybe you know a little bit later in the game uh but DeForest Buckner I mean he didn't show I really didn't see him do anything until like overtime I think he had one pressure like and he had the fumble recovery too that was I I really didn't notice them whatsoever and you know for this pass rush to really take that next step and be more than a laughingstock that it was last year, you need the guys that you're paying big money to, to make big

plays. Now, Quiddy Paye, great job in overtime, make two huge sacks, but he can't be the only one, you know, getting pressure. So yeah, the defensive line, I think was fine overall, like it was adequate, but you got to see more pressure from those top two guys. Yeah. And then you mentioned the linebackers too, you know, and coverage in some run fits. I, I hope to see a little more from Bobby O'Kara. Okay. I thought he missed a couple of tackles. It's like came in too hot and just was being impatient with how he

approached guys. But yeah, it wasn't a banner day for the defense. It wasn't terrible. Like I think they got put in some tough spots on a couple occasions. But defensively, I think they'll be fine. We definitely want to see the pass rush increase because, again, that's been one of their issues the last couple years. So they have the guys to do it. They just have to do it and win their matchups. Yeah, I think the biggest issue with the linebackers in this one is they were hitting the running backs, so they were just falling backwards on a lot of them.

And I think, again, with Shaquille Leonard, I think that'll clean up. But, yeah, with the defense in general, I mean, we're, what, two bad pass interference, potentially bad pass interference calls. Again, I'm not going to go into ref screwing anybody or anything like that. But we're two pass interference calls away from the Colts allowing six points when their offense was trying to give the ball away as much as possible to the Texans and their kicker was kicking the ball out of bounds every single time. So, I mean, defense, I don't have too many issues with how the defense played. It's just, you know, the red zone defense could have been better on

those two seam routes and they could have gotten more pressure. But overall, you know, the red zone defense could have been better on those two seam routes, and they could have gotten more pressure. But overall, you know, I think Gilmore looked fine. Grover looked fine. Buckner, again, I think was all right. You just want to see a little bit more. So I'm not too upset about the defense right now. Mm-hmm. Shoot, I think that's all I got for the defense.

What about you? That's all I got. I mean, we could talk more about Blankenship then. You want to talk more? I don't think we need to. Look, I'll say again. Again, all this would be so much easier to talk about and digest if we're talking about a 23-20 win right now.

You could say, hey, we got to clean some things up, but, hey, they got to win. But right now we're talking about a tie because one player could not do the one job that they were given. So you got to cut them. You got to cut them. And you got to never use a kicker again because all kickers suck. All right, just got to throw that out there.

Yeah, so obviously Zach is a little biased with his hatred of kickers. But no, I mean, there's a lot of different fingers you can point from this game. But I mean, the truth is this fell on everybody, coaching and players alike. But, yeah, we'll digest a little more. You're out of control. We'll digest this a little more and get back into more of it tomorrow. Plus, we've got some good guests coming up throughout the week. We do. We do.

But, yeah, I think we're going to put a bow on this one for today. Yeah, yeah. Make sure you guys are following us on social media, at Jay Garthur NFL, for the very professional and reasonable takes, at Zach Hicks too, for all the memes and snark. You guys, you know,

whichever is more of your flavor, you can go on that. You can follow at LockedOnColts on Twitter. You can subscribe to the show on YouTube. That's where we are posting this lovely live stream right now. And if you guys are listening to this, you know, through audio, you can go over to YouTube and see all the live stream right now. And if you guys are listening to this through audio, you can go over to YouTube and see all the live stream and stuff that we did.

And wherever you guys listen to your podcast, rate, review, subscribe, leave some comments. You guys have been awesome with that lately. And thanks again for making Locked on Colts your first listen every day, except maybe today. It's a little bit later, so we get it. Come hang with us tomorrow as we take a deeper dive into this matchup and provide some more context for what we saw on Sunday.

Now make your second listen to the Peacock and Williamson NFL show. Brian Peacock and former NFL scout Matt Williamson give you the expert NFL analysis in less than 30 minutes. It's free and available wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you guys tomorrow.