Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts' Pass Rush Must Knock Cincinnati Bengals' Jake Browning Off Pedestal

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Colts look to make it five in a row this Sunday, but they could have an unexpected assassin in their way. 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. fans and Colts fans I am Jake Lisco he is Jake Arthur from Locked On Colts we got the Jake and Jake show as the Bengals and Colts clash in week 14 for this week's crossover on the Locked On Podcast Network. We're covering your team, whether it's the Bengals or the Colts, every day. You can find either of these shows on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:00:55 And as always, a crossover brought to you by PrizePix, the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. You'll get a $100 first deposit match at prizepix.com slash locked on NFL with promo code locked on NFL. And Jake, as I mentioned, Gardner Minshew, Jake Browning, a couple of backup quarterbacks, a lot of Jake's going on on this podcast today between Browning, Arthur and Lisko. And well, let's start biggest stories. To me, it is a lot of that backup quarterback battle for two teams really directly competing for wildcard spots right now. But in Indianapolis, what is the big story this week?

Starting point is 00:01:33 Yeah, show loaded with Jake's is how it ought to be number one and not exactly the matchup. I think either of us thought it would be back around like week one. But no, for the Colts, it's just kind of staying alive right now uh they've got four wins in a row which is pretty surprising to a lot of people even locally i mean shane steichen is really kind of heating up his uh coach of the year candidacy with that one uh going with his his backup quarterback uh but yeah right now that's four in a row looking at five in a row but they're still competing with how many other teams for playoffs. I mean, you know exactly what it's like.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Everyone hovering right there around 500. So it's just basically staying alive, doing just enough to win, and trying to keep this thing going to get a playoff push. Now, as you guys well know, with the Jaguars, you know, taking that little hiccup last week, the AFC South gets a little more interesting now for the Colts as well. So it's not just a wild card they're fighting for. It's perhaps the whole AFC South. Now, the Jaguars did sweep them, but literally each of these final five games matters really

Starting point is 00:02:42 heavily. Yeah, I can't tell you how much envy I have as someone who's followed the Bengals for a long time about the divisions that the Colts play in and the Bengals play in. The AFC South perennially seems like the worst division or one of in the National Football League and the AFC North is just a bloodbath every year. You're not wrong. It's absolutely brutal. when you talk about winning four in a row and you look at the teams the colts have played this year how much are you buying how good the colts are the colts as good as their record i guess my question is when their last

Starting point is 00:03:16 four games tennessee tampa new england carolina before that their wins against tennessee they did eke out an early season win against balt which is certainly respectable, and the Texans, who have turned out to be a pretty good team. But how much do you buy them given the quality of competition they've played? Yeah, I think they are truly an average, a slightly above average team. If you're ranking them in the hierarchy of the NFL, it's probably, you know, anywhere 12 to 16, whatever, uh, with so much parody in the league, it's not, you've only got a couple of teams that are like way above the rest. Uh, but what I am impressed most with this team is there's,

Starting point is 00:04:01 there's no smoking gun as to why they win. And, you know, they find new ways to win all the time. They make plays when they need them. Right now, defensively, that's kind of beating the drum at the moment. And of course, with the Patriots and Panthers, those aren't good offenses by any means. But they're second in sacks. They've got 20 takeaways. So they're coming up with really timely plays. And they're really not smothering anyone. Like they're just finding new ways to win all the time. And they're really competitive. So to me, as far as they don't get too far behind, because their offense just isn't built to come back from a huge you know deficit as long as

Starting point is 00:04:45 they don't fall too far behind they're a really really competitive team that doesn't really quit and they just like i said they find new ways to just scratch and pull themselves back up it sounds familiar to bengals fans i'm sure especially on the defensive side of the ball where the bengals defense has taken a big step back in many categories this year, but continues to be proactive in terms of creating turnovers, has been a pretty good pass rush unit when they have a lead in particular. Trey Hendrickson certainly leading the charge there, although DJ Reader will continue to surprise people as a nose tackle in terms of generating push up the middle, even if it doesn't show up in the sack numbers. Meanwhile, they've got a quarterback who I was ready to write off for four quarters and two drives until he finally seemed to have a light bulb moment and played an AFC offensive player

Starting point is 00:05:36 of the week kind of game. And I sat here on the podcast on Monday night after Monday night football. And I got my apology letter here that I held up to the camera a couple of nights ago and read to Jake Browning because I doubted him and, you know, besmirched his good name. And then he went out there and had the game of his life playing with great anticipation, great touch, good enough accuracy, not Joe Burrow level by any means. And certainly there are some opportunities when you go back and watch a tape that, you know, he would like to have back. But when you get that level of play from your backup quarterback and you go 32 for 37 and two of those passes that weren't completed were dropped. Well, you feel pretty good about that.

Starting point is 00:06:16 And you add on to that a big scramble for a first down that that mattered in the game as well. And so if they can continue to get that level of game management for Jake Browning when he can play on time, that is a big story in Cincinnati that will give them hope to make a little bit of a playoff push here. They have a very difficult run of it. Coming from behind in that playoff race at 6-6, they will need some help most likely to get there unless they can manage a five-game winning streak,

Starting point is 00:06:44 including a game against the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs but the big story is can Jake Browning continue to play at this level and he's shown some signs that this isn't necessarily a one-off but go back a couple years to another great backup performance in Cincinnati Brandon Allen played a fantastic game against the Houston Texans a few years ago and then promptly crashed back down to earth. So the big question is, can Jake Browning do it again? And is he actually a better player than I certainly gave him credit for before Monday Night Football? Yeah, and locally here in Indy, looking from a Bengals perspective, Browning is the huge X factor. He made things enormously interesting on Monday night. I came away really pleasantly surprised because here

Starting point is 00:07:32 we are thinking the Colts have these final five games against a bunch of tumultuous quarterback situations. And here comes Browning, getting rid of the ball quickly, getting the ball to his playmakers, moving the chains. And so the Colts are really I mean you have to go off of what he just put on tape you can't you know if the Colts can't take him lightly thinking he's just some career backup even though he has been they have to they have to face the version that he just put out there Monday night and so the defense and Gus Bradley and the pass rush and everyone they're going to have to be on their best. And I think that is something that I'm circling is the Gus Bradley brand of defense, something that the Bengals have been able to run the ball against. And

Starting point is 00:08:12 I know you're interested in talking about Grover Stewart and his presence for that Colts run defense. We'll get into some of those biggest matchups that could decide this football game coming up next. This episode of Crossover Colts Bengals is brought to you by LinkedIn. When you're hiring for your small business, you want to have as many top tier candidates, as many Jakes, ideally, available as possible to interview. And that's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs, which has the tools to help you find the

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Starting point is 00:09:19 They even just launched a feature that helps you write job descriptions, making the process easier and quicker than ever. Post your job for free at linked process easier and quicker than ever. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on NFL. That's linkedin.com slash locked on NFL to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Let's talk matchups. I'm circling Gus Bradley from my perspective. The Bengals saw that a couple of times a couple of years ago when he was with the Raiders. They faced that style of defensive line play a couple of times. I'm circling trench matchups as well.

Starting point is 00:09:49 But I'm curious to know where you will start, Jake, before we dive into this conversation. And Ernest, what's the big matchup to you that you're circling on Sunday? Yeah, so I'm just looking at the Colts defensive line as a whole. Number one, they get Grover Stewart back from his six game PED suspension. They played six games with him this year, six games without, and it's been a stark difference in run defense. He is,

Starting point is 00:10:15 as you guys have, have one there and DJ reader, they could be underappreciated, but it gives a good nose tackle is a really good thing to have. When, when Stewart was there, the Colts had a few of those six games under 100 yards rushing allowed. Ever since then, they have allowed easily over 100 in each of the six contests.

Starting point is 00:10:37 They're averaging over 150 yards given up. Even teams that are normally bad running the ball, the Buccaneers averaged 50 more yards per their average, and they were, I think, ranked dead last. So that's a big one. Joe Mixon showed some signs of life and did some nice things on Monday night. And I feel like he's always played well against the Colts. So that's definitely not anything I want to take lightly.

Starting point is 00:11:09 But especially looking at what Jake Browning did, I think the Colts pass rush, which has been on fire lately, really needs to keep it up. They've had 21 sacks in their last four games. They rank second in the league right now with 42. They're on pace to break the Indianapolis era sack record. So they've got to keep it up, you know, and they're getting it. It's not just like one guy who's dominating. They do have four guys with over five sacks. Samson Evicom, one of their bigger free agent additions leads the way with eight. And it looks like the Bengals have at times had a rough go of it, giving up sacks this year. I think just looking at it all, everyone except for Alex Kappa has given up at least four sacks so i'm looking at that one in particular i'm really interested in what the colts defensive line could do because they have been great lately but we also saw them kind of sleepwalk through the

Starting point is 00:11:58 middle part of the schedule and i just don't know that that is going to be allowed to happen if they want to win on Sunday. Yeah, and I circled that as well. For anybody watching on YouTube, you can see it on our bullets for today's show. I think it's a tough trench matchup in both trenches. I have a lot of respect for the Colts offensive line. But whenever I see DeForest Buckner and a couple of edge guys that are getting after it, Quidipe, Dayo Odeingbo has 10 sacks this year according to pff samson ebukon sorry that you mentioned as well i mean there's a deep unit

Starting point is 00:12:30 there of pass rushers and the return of grover stewart who is a guy that when i was looking at trade deadline acquisitions before i realized he was suspended i was like man the bengals could really use additional depth on the interior defensive line the colts are down a quarterback like i don't think they're competing and lo and behold here we are several weeks later and all that's been blown up and he was suspended but that's a that's a player that looks like a piece that would be very valuable for a team and the Bengals last week getting more involvement from Chase Brown their sixth sixth round fifth round round, sixth round, rookie running back from Illinois. And he showed a bit of a different element in the running game, hopefully something

Starting point is 00:13:09 they can lean more into. We saw a greater balance than we've ever seen from them on early downs in terms of running and passing, at least this year, 28 runs to 28 passes, 28 runs to 29 passes on early downs in week 13, which is something that against the Steelers, they ran the ball eight times the entire game. And with a quarterback that does need help, they changed the offense dramatically from week 13 to week, or from week 12 to week 13, and took away some of the empty stuff

Starting point is 00:13:37 and made Jake Browning's job easier. The run game certainly needs to be part of that. So you look at the trenches, you look at the pass rush for sure, where Browning was only pressured about 25% or so of his dropbacks against the Jags. That changes. How does his performance change? Because we've seen him be a deer in headlights. We've seen him hold the ball a little bit longer and take some sacks that he shouldn't, both in the preseason and training camp and against the Steelers. So if the pass rush and that pressure is amped up this week, that is certainly a big X factor in the pass game where

Starting point is 00:14:10 Browning was so good. And then Grover Stewart in the run game, certainly a matchup as well. But the interesting thing about that to me is Gus Bradley's defense where, again, like San Francisco, like Jacksonville, they're sending these defensive ends up flying upfield the Bengals have had a lot of success running against those teams trying to get the ball outside letting those defensive ends fly upfield and then running right behind them with some wind back or bend kind of stuff in the gap game as well something that they've leaned into a lot more certainly last week so another thing that I think is going to be interesting where you get this Gus Bradley brand of defense firing up field in the

Starting point is 00:14:45 trenches. Yeah. And it's not just been Grover Stewart's absence that's caused concern recently in the run game. Like Zaire Franklin and EJ Speed have been a great one-two punch at linebacker throughout the year, but the last couple of weeks, you know, you're seeing more missed tackles. Franklin had dealt with a knee injury just a handful of weeks ago. Don't know if maybe that's still lingering a little bit, but that's something I'm kind of keeping an eye on. Of course, Stewart occupying space and opening up lanes will help, but it's not just him. I'm hoping the linebackers can step up as well.

Starting point is 00:15:18 There's something else that concerns me about Cincinnati. Obviously, Jamar Chase. T. Higgins hasn't had the season you would think. Tyler Boyd, always been a big fan of Tyler Boyd. This is a very young secondary for the Colts. They've been playing well lately. Darryl Baker Jr. has really started coming to his own after getting benched earlier in the season. They've needed him to step up because Juju Brents has been hurt for like five weeks now. Jalen Jones, a seventh-round rookie, has kind of taken his lumps the last couple weeks,

Starting point is 00:15:49 but really has been the most consistent of the Colts' young cornerbacks since the spring. So you kind of don't really know what you're getting. This is obviously a huge matchup. They faced Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins recently, and neither guy like had a ton of catches or yards, but Evans had two touchdowns, you know, right at opportune moments outside the red zone or, you know, kind of the deep red zone area.

Starting point is 00:16:16 And then DeAndre Hopkins scored as well. So crafty players like Jamar Chase, Chase is an elite athlete alone, but he's also a crafty player in my opinion. So I think everyone has to keep an eye on Jamar Chase every week. But this is one where Chase could really kind of let loose perhaps. And I think he might be their most important X factor kind of player. Obviously quarter, everything goes through the quarterback. That's an easy answer. Anytime we talk about about most important players but the outside corners for the colts both you know young or having up and down seasons i see jamar chase is a big factor in this game but if the colts decide to kind of take that approach that we see so many teams take where they're like we're going to cloud jamar chase on every single rep

Starting point is 00:16:59 we're going to give him no true one-on-ones although Jacksonville gave him at least one and they suffered dearly for it giving up a vertical touchdown can T Higgins who he's been hurt all year that's a big part of what's going on with him he didn't have the greatest start to the season but certainly was showing that he was coming back into playing like T Higgins before he had a hamstring injury that kept him out for three weeks there's a lot of attention paid to Jamar Chase. Can Jake Browning work the other side and T Higgins? And that's something that I'm very interested to see. And in addition to that, Buckner is always scary to me, DeForest Buckner on that Colts

Starting point is 00:17:40 defense. And the last time these teams played, Julian Blackman was a huge thorn in the Bengals side as a rookie safety at the time. So that's what I see as some of the most important players. Anybody you want to add to that list? Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Blackman because he's really come along developing in his career. That rookie season, he had a couple game-sealing interceptions, but he struggled staying healthy ever since then. This is, I think, his first season playing every game, knock on wood. But he's been a strong safety. They converted him this year officially. Now, they're kind of interchangeable in Gus Bradley's scheme, but being able to play what's in front of him rather than having to worry about the back

Starting point is 00:18:21 half of the field, he's a very instinctive player, high football IQ, really tough, just no fear in him. So that strong safety role has suited him very well. So that's probably going to come in pretty handy against Joe Mixon. But another one for the Colts just to throw in there, we're starting to see, speaking of safety, how much Nick Cross in his second year is coming in versus Rodney Thomas the free safety the Colts have had some issues in recent weeks with miscommunication

Starting point is 00:18:52 in the secondary that's given up some big plays Thomas has unfortunately been in the area of those at times I don't think it's all on him but Nick Cross is starting to kind of eat into those snaps. And so defensively, it's going to be interesting to see do they continue kind of how does that pendulum swing? Is Cross going to continue getting more and more snaps? Because this could be a game where it's important because he's been a more sure tackler and he kind of sets more of a tone when he does tackle. Once he hits you, you're really

Starting point is 00:19:26 not going anywhere. Sounds very familiar to the story of Jordan Battle in Cincinnati, the rookie safety who's recently been playing more. Coming up next, let's get into what needs to go right. We've talked about the matchups, but what needs to go right for each of these teams to win? And maybe we'll do some predictions here to finish things up coming up next. Yep. And the holidays are generally a positive time for people. But if you're the kind of person who struggles to know what to get people, or you have a bunch of people in your life who are difficult to buy gifts for, I've got something perfect for you. If you're looking to up your gift giving game this year, then go check out a Skylight digital picture frame. Now, if you listen to podcasts, you hear that people advertise these all the time.

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Starting point is 00:21:18 To get $15 off your purchase of a Skylight Frame, just go to skylightframe.com slash locked on. That's S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T-F-R-A-M-E dot com slash locked on. All right, Jake, let's get into what needs to go right for these teams to win. I imagine this is going to harken back to some of our earlier conversation, but when you look at the Colts in this game, what needs to go right? What's the story if the Colts come out on top? Yeah, so generally the Colts have kind of gone as Gardner Minshew has allowed them to. Offensively, as long as he's not turning the ball over a ton, they can make things happen.

Starting point is 00:22:00 Like they're not great on third down or the red zone. That's led to a lot of fourth down attempts. They're up there in the league in fourth down attempts. They're also up there in field goal attempts because they don't cash in in the red zone. So with that, that's why you kind of see them in some closer games. So if Minshew's turning the ball over, it just wipes all of it out. It puts everything on the defense and that hasn't always been something they can rely on. So Minshew's just going to have to do his thing. He's going to have happy feet.

Starting point is 00:22:33 He's going to have chaotic energy out there at times, but just don't turn the ball over. He does tend to fumble, does not take care of the ball when he gets sacked. So if the Colts can take care of that, that would be nice. But basically they're just going to go as, as Minshew and his turnovers go defensively. I think they're going to have to get after Jake Browning, keep up the sack party.

Starting point is 00:22:57 Like I mentioned, second in the league, they've had 21 in the last four games. Could he pay Samson? Have you come dial a dango buckner those guys are are firing on all cylinders and they're getting it from everywhere you see the second third waves of guys getting a half set getting a full sack sometimes uh so they're getting contributions everywhere and i think it's gonna have to be all hands on deck in this one yeah i see it

Starting point is 00:23:22 pretty similarly can they get pressure on what I think is a pretty good offensive line? Can they contain the running game? Can they force the Colts to be one dimensional at all? One of the teams that runs the ball certainly significantly more than the Bengals do with even without Jonathan Taylor, that run game still to me is something that feels threatening, especially whenj reader is off the field the bengals depth on the defensive line particularly on the interior something that teams have gone after consistently so whether the defense can find a way to and they haven't been able to all year contain explosive plays that's been a problem it's less of of something that i think

Starting point is 00:24:02 the colts present but every team has done it i, they just gave up a bunch of verticals or Kenny Pickett a couple of weeks ago. So the explosive play element, especially without Cam Taylor Britt, who's on IR at corner, something that I'm watching every week, but Gardner Minshew under pressure is one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL.

Starting point is 00:24:20 And if they can accomplish that, which I think is easier said than done, then I liked the, the defense in this game. But again, the defense for the Bengals has left something to be desired, especially in recent weeks, ever since they put up a pretty good performance against San Francisco, given they were missing Devo Samuel and Trent Williams at the time. But since then, you know, I would like to see the defense step up a little bit and give some help to this offense down the stretch. And then on the offensive side of the ball, I mean, I've talked about it several times in this episode, but pressure is the big, the

Starting point is 00:24:56 great equalizer, right? If the Colts can get to Browning consistently, can get him to hesitate, and you see that inclination for him to sometimes hold the ball not play on time then the mismatches that i think might go in their favor outside with the receivers with d higgins which am i chase are going to matter a lot less and so can the bangles run it back in the running game which they seem to find for like the first or second time this season to a significant effect against the jaguars to help protect Jake Brown and continue to run him on boots effectively, continue to use a screen game effectively to keep the Colts defensive pass rush off balance, which on paper to me sounds great against the Gus Bradley team.

Starting point is 00:25:38 Those are some big things that if that does happen, I think goes a long way in helping the Bengals win this game. And I don't know about you, Jake, I'm not a big prediction guy. This one seems to be a very tightly projected contest by our friends, the odd makers, odds makers at FanDuel, but the Bengals home dogs, as we record this on Wednesday afternoon, how are you feeling this game's going to go? Yeah, so I'll be honest. The Browning stuff scared me a bit on Monday. And so I'm going to give the Bengals offense some more credit.

Starting point is 00:26:17 I do think the Colts win this one narrowly. I think it'll be an exciting game. I have them winning 27 to 24. I'm glad you mentioned the vertical game. It's something that Colts are trying to get going. They got Alec Pierce, who is their vertical threat. He had a 36-yard touchdown last week. He had a 55-yard reception in overtime last week

Starting point is 00:26:37 that helped set up the game-winning touchdown. So they're trying. And it sounds like this Bengals secondary might be a good opponent to try and keep it rolling. So I do think it'll be an exciting game. I think the Colts hold on and narrowly 27 to 24. Could be a final team with the ball, wins it type of thing. Could be.

Starting point is 00:26:57 I could see it being very similar to the Jacksonville game in a lot of ways. Just AFC South teams, there tend to be some similarities for teams that are clustered obviously a big difference a quarterback between the two teams but i i think that if you if you checked so i checked fan duel yesterday as i was preparing for a podcast and they just removed they straight up removed the the Bengals win total for the year. They had it set. And then Jake Browning goes out there and upsets the Jacksonville Jaguars, 10 point dogs,

Starting point is 00:27:32 maybe more. It changed throughout the week. I think it started at nine and a half. And then they were very unsure. And that's kind of where I am. I'm very unsure about what version of Jake Browning we're going to get the rest of the way. But if the offensive line can play as well as it did last week, and I think that the defensive line that Indianapolis throws at you is deeper and more diversely threatening than what the Bengals saw against Jacksonville last week, where it's kind of Josh Allen and some guys. And meanwhile, you got a whole bunch of guys to go in a very deep unit for Indy.

Starting point is 00:28:05 So I am concerned with that matchup, but big barometer game for the rest of the year, right? Because the Bengals are going to have games like this against the Colts, the Vikings, the Steelers with a better defense and the Browns with a better defense, I think, than the two teams before those, but with backup quarterbacks where it could be backup quarterback battles down the stretch. And if the Bengals want to sneak into that wild card, they might need a close one here. I do like them more at home. I do like them more as home dogs, but they did just lose to the Steelers as home dogs. And the Steelers similarly present a pretty ferocious front. But if Jake Browning can get to more of the stuff he likes,

Starting point is 00:28:46 a totally ditched empty, for example, should be a much closer game. And for more on this game, we will have you covered on Locked On Bengals, where James and I will have you tomorrow. And Jake, you've got a co-host as well on Locked On Colts. Yeah, Zach Hicks and I will have you guys covered before the game as well and right after. So we've got another game preview on both shows. So if you want both perspectives, you can check out both of those. And that's going to do it for this crossover Thursday.

Starting point is 00:29:14 Thanks for listening on the Lockdown Podcast Network.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts' Pass Rush Must Knock Cincinnati Bengals' Jake Browning Off Pedestal

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