Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Playoffs?! Dayo Odeyingbo Helps Keep Hope Alive

Starting point is 00:00:00 You love to see that the Colts have the ability to win a gritty game with fewer than 20 combined points, but what can they do after the bye week to be more productive? 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, everyone? Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen of the day.

Starting point is 00:00:45 This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And today's show is brought to you by Jace Medical. Empower yourself when you purchase a Jace case, providing you with a personal supply of five antibiotics that treat 50 plus infections. Get yours today at jacMedical.com. That's J-A-S-E Medical.com. Welcome to the show, everybody. I am Jake Arthur. You know me from HorseshoeHuddle.com. And today we're going to kind of put a bow on the Colts' most recent performance, a 10-6 victory over the Patriots over in Germany. That brought the Colts back to.500 at 5-55 and honestly, back in the playoff conversation, surprisingly enough, after a rough few-week stretch beforehand, they've strung together a couple wins. They go into the bye week on a little bit of a winning streak, so can't complain

Starting point is 00:01:37 there, right? So we're going to go ahead and kind of highlight a couple things that stuck out to me offensively and defensively and then of course some things that maybe we'd like to see tweaked after the bye week moving forward over the remaining seven games of the season so first up probably the most polarizing topic over the Colts right now now that the Anthony Richardson injury as far in the past, Jonathan Taylor is back. The most polarizing thing right now is Gardner Menchu. He does have his supporters for sure. There's people out there who are just kind of along for the ride.

Starting point is 00:02:16 But there's also some people who are kind of calling for some sort of change. And at this point of the season, I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're just going to be experiencing what's going on here and hope that the offense evolves and gets a little more effective, especially in the passing game. So looking at this game specifically, Gardner was 18 to 28, which is 64.3%. He's been, you know, hovering right around there the entire season. He's been kind of efficient. Of course, a lot of his throws are shorter and closer to the line of scrimmage. So you hope to see a higher completion percentage. But that is just kind of is what it is. He had

Starting point is 00:02:57 194 yards on that, a 6.9 yards per attempt, which is honestly a little better than a lot of his performances. When you look through there, I think he's only had one game in his seven starts that was seven or above. And that's when he had that gaudy, like 13 yard per attempt when he had a bunch of chunk plays a few weeks back. No touchdowns, one interception, no sacks, which is good. But when I watched, I thought he was just a little scattered. You saw him not really settling into pockets. Now, the Patriots can get after it a little bit, but I thought Menchie's actions probably weren't super reflective of the level of pass rush the Patriots were actually bringing. You saw him just, again, look kind of scattered, escaping the pocket.

Starting point is 00:03:49 There were open players there. I mean, sure, they would be short gains, but it just felt like he was kind of bypassing those and looking to, you know, kind of the mid, shorter second level of the passing lanes. And I don't know. Oddly enough, pro football focus ranked Minshew as the Colts' best offensive player from Sunday with an 83.9 grade. I don't think a lot of people would agree with that,

Starting point is 00:04:16 that watched that game. I know Zach kind of alluded to, you know, it was another game where the offense is just kind of surviving with Minshew under the helm. But I don't know when I watched a couple of big things that stood out. He missed some downfield shots to Kylan Granson and Josh Downs. If you notice, a lot of the spectacular plays that Downs has been making lately have been like diving plays. Now, there are plays where Minshew is getting him the ball where only he can make it,

Starting point is 00:04:45 but they're not super in sync, those throws. So I've just kind of noticed, along with the happy feet and just seeming scattered, for a veteran quarterback whose this is like his fifth year or so, your fifth or sixth year year you're missing too many open players when you look at the film there's guys who are there you know making the layups you just see those those open shorter reads and they're just not being made um it just it looks harder than it needs to be um not really sure why maybe it it's a film study thing. He did kind of get just thrown into the starting lineup with Richardson's injury, but we'll see if they can make any adjustments. I'm actually going to get to that in the third segment. Some things I

Starting point is 00:05:35 would like to see done and maybe just make the offense more effective because, man, there's been some low scoring games. Sure, the Colts finally snapped their streak of not scoring 20 points on Sunday. They were the last team to score 20 points in every game. But, you know, against the Panthers, you saw that Kenny Moore was responsible for half the points. The defense has just really helped the offense at some points of the season. And there have not been many examples of them playing a full complete game and a win. Whether it's special teams not doing its part, offense or defense, you just got to get all three phases together, and we just haven't seen that yet.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Offense definitely has to pick it up because, again, when the running game has been hot, the passing game really hasn't met that intensity either. So we'll see how that develops again. They, they are doing a lot of self-scouting over this next week while they're off. So what adjustments can you make? We'll see. But again, we'll get to that in the third segment. Also running backs. Now the running game wasn't super productive against the Patriots. John and the Taylor 23 carries for 69 yards. That's only three yards per carry.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Did have a touchdown. But I personally thought he looked pretty good in that sample size. Just like every other defense that's been facing the Colts, the Patriots were prepared to stop the run. They had extra defenders up there on the line. The box was pretty heavy. So that's not real surprising that there wasn't a high yard for Carey. There was a couple plays there where Taylor was able to create extra yards after contact, was able to kind of knife his way

Starting point is 00:07:18 through traffic and get closer to the first down marker. So I thought he was pretty productive. Just one catch for six yards. Again, I've been talking about it. I want to see him more involved in the passing game because he's one of those players, you get him out in space with a blocker or two ahead of him, and he will always pick up extra yards. He almost never gets stoned on plays where he has blockers in the passing game.

Starting point is 00:07:44 He is arguably your most dangerous player in that scenario. It's something they really like to do with Michael Pittman. But we have officially started to see Taylor just dominating the backfield. Since he returned, his usage has gone up just tremendously. Started out in his first game back was 15% of the backfield shares, all the way up to 87.7% on Sunday against the Patriots. Zach Moss was a virtual non-factor. One carry for two yards, no targets in the passing game.

Starting point is 00:08:22 This is going to be a really tricky one because Jonathan Taylor is Jonathan Taylor. He is outstanding, but Zach Moss has been really, really productive as well. So, you know, you want to give Taylor his touches. You want to give him his opportunities to make plays, but I mean, you, you have this other guy out there, you need to keep fresh as well. So, you know, I don't know how they want to do that. 23 carries for Taylor is perfectly fine. Maybe up that for Moss a little more. I feel like with Moss, you at least want to get him five touches a game. That seems like kind of bare minimum. Again, I didn't really expect Taylor to absolutely dominate the share in the backfield as much as he has now. I still figured Zach Moss would have a role, which, I mean, it's still kind of early into this whole thing. They're figuring it out. But I am a little surprised at that big of a

Starting point is 00:09:19 discrepancy. You know, even with Moss on the field, again, just one carry and no targets in the pass game. So a little surprising. You guys let us know how you feel about that one. Coming up next, we're going to look at the defensive side of the ball and a couple big things that stuck out in their performance against the Patriots, because that one was a lot prettier than the offense, holding the Patriots to just six points. Don't be caught unprepared, everyone. You guys should feel empowered to care for yourselves and your loved ones during the unexpected. The Jace case provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use. All it takes to get a Jace case is fill out a simple online form and, in some cases,

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Starting point is 00:10:38 Tanitra Batiste, Jarvis Davis, and Kyle Krabs will break down every game on the NFL slate to get you ready for your team's matchup, your fantasy lineups, your betting angles, and more. Plus, get the in-depth local analysis from our stable of NFL hosts across the country who know these teams better than anyone else. Find Locked On NFL Kickoff live every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern on any Locked On NFL YouTube channel. All right, friends, so defensively, I think everyone was probably pretty psyched with how that performance went. Again, just six points scored by the Patriots. And that is the name of the game at the end of this whole thing.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Five sacks really ratcheted up the pressure, especially in the first half. Two guys really stick out, especially up front when I looked at this one. So, Dayo Odengbo, four tackles, three for loss, three sacks, three quarterback hits. Just outstanding. He now leads the team in sacks with six on the season. He also had one against the Panthers last week. He already has set career highs in pretty much everything except tackles, and he'll get to the tackles within the next few games probably. So that guy is, again, last year he played extensively. He had to play a lot late in the season with injuries to Quidipe

Starting point is 00:11:53 and Yannick Ngakwe. And he already, you know, just a little over halfway through this season, has had a career year. So that guy is on fire. You know, six sacks right now. There's seven games left. Could he get to 10? I mean, this is a guy that kind of racks these things up in bunches, you know, three sacks on Sunday against the Patriots. He's only getting better all the time.

Starting point is 00:12:17 You know, the last couple of years for you everydayers that are with us all the time, Dio's trainer, his offseason trainer, Eddie McGilvra, is a friend of the show, and he has just had nothing but positive things to say about Dio's work ethic. What other players who are working alongside Dio, their impression of him, and they're like, wow, this guy is just going to be really, really good, and it seems like he's really hitting his stride. You're three. He's only getting better. So him and Quidipe growing together, that is quite the advantage for the Colts to have because it does look like both these guys are getting better. You know, especially Dio making such great leaps as a pass rusher. Quidipe is an elite run

Starting point is 00:13:03 defender from the defensive end position. And, you know, he chips in with his pass rush plenty as well. He had, he got in for a sack as well against the Patriots. So awesome there. And then DeForest Buckner, dude is playing lights out lately. If you guys read today on horseshoehuddle.com. Zach actually put out a piece about how Buckner is just putting up a crazy performance leading up to the bye week. And now he's had a really hot last few weeks. On Sunday, had eight tackles, one for loss and two quarterback hits. He's right behind Dio and Sachs. He's got five on the season, I believe, five, five and a half. Since week nine, Zach pointed this out,

Starting point is 00:13:46 Buckner leads all defensive players in the NFL with a pass rush win rate of 27.6%, and his 11 pressures over that time are ninth in the NFL. And remember, that's an interior defensive lineman, so it's not like he's one of these edge guys like T.J. Watt or Nick Bosa coming off the edge all the time he's got he's fighting through the middle uh and to me I think it's been even more impressive considering Grover Stewart has been out uh it's been a big loss especially against the run with Stewart out

Starting point is 00:14:16 uh you know you've got Taven Bryan out there next to DeForest Buckner a lot of the time but Buckner is just stepping up big time, and you love to see it. Another thing I really wanted to point out, the Colts have been turning it up when it comes to turnovers. You've got to have those takeaways, which is something they've been better at this year. And Julian Blackman from his strong safety spot has just been outstanding. I've been saying for a couple weeks now, he's playing really good football,

Starting point is 00:14:44 and then boom, here you go again Comes up with a fourth quarter interception That gets Matt Jones benched on Sunday The Colts have eight takeaways in their last four games Kenny Moore, Julian Blackman, and Rodney Thomas all have multiple Dio Dangbo and Saguna Luby have also contributed ones as well But, man, this defense, especially with guys like Blackman, is really turning it up. In the last six games, going back to that Cleveland game, Blackman has four tackles for loss, three interceptions, and five pass breakups.

Starting point is 00:15:19 And I mentioned Dio Dangbo's having a career year. So is Blackman. Blackman has already reached career highs and most important spots. And the ones that he hasn't already beat, he's on pace to pretty much shatter him. So he's had some issues with injuries throughout his career. Knock on wood, but it's been really good to see him out there and healthy this year because he is kind of a difference maker you know he's not necessarily an all-pro player by any means but like he's a he's a really good above average safety for the Colts I feel like uh he's really really hit his groove as the strong safety because he's so instinctive uh so good at diagnosing things in front of him and he's just playing at a really, really high level.

Starting point is 00:16:05 So you love to see that from some of those guys. Dio, a younger player, getting better all the time. DeForest Buckner is a former All-Pro who's playing like it. And then Blackman is a guy who is finally healthy and kind of living up to his potential. So all really, really good things. Excited to see how those guys perform the rest of the way. Coming up here on the last segment, we're going to talk about just some things you want

Starting point is 00:16:32 to see after the bye, basically. You know, you got a handful of games left. The Colts are in the thick of this playoff race. They're not in contention right now, but they're getting there. The AFC is just a huge log jam at the moment. No team in the AFC South really wants to run away with it. Even when teams win, they almost come up short and don't hold on. So it's going to be a bloodbath in the AFC.

Starting point is 00:16:59 It's going to be entertaining to see how it turns out. But yeah, Colts definitely in the thick of it. Let's go ahead and talk about what we want to see in this final slate here in a minute. Score early this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 Moneyline bet. That's $150 if your team wins. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, there's no better time to get in on the action than right now. The app is super easy to use and there's a wide range of betting options, including spreads, player props, over

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Starting point is 00:17:50 make these games a little more interesting for you. So visit Fandle.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. Fandle official partner of the NFL. All right, guys. So what do we want to see after this? Bye. You know, you got the, the Buccaneers coming to town you got the titans as well in these next couple games uh you got a really exciting one against the bangles coming up after that at paul brown stadium so what do we want to

Starting point is 00:18:17 see um offensively i don't think there's just some big, there's not just going to be any big fix. We've seen what the offense is. We've seen what Gardner Minshew is. Now, I think it can get a little better. If they can find a way in the passing game to keep defenses honest and not just load up the box all the time and make Gardner beat them, then I think the run game is going to pop at some point because Jonathan Taylor has been running angry. He's getting a couple chunk runs. He's getting these first downs and everything, but we haven't seen those home runs. He's having to run through a lot of traffic right now. So I'd like to

Starting point is 00:18:59 see, you know, it's going to be a short passing game. It just always is. I like to see a short rhythmic passing game with Gardner, just finding those plays that are there to create yards after catch, because they're just not going to be hitting a bunch of chunk plays through the air. That's just not what, that's not what he is as a quarterback. So he's not, you know, he's not the mentally, he's not the just cerebral guy that Phillip Rivers was like Phillip Rivers was on a different level than, than most quarterbacks when it comes to how they attack a defense. But when you look at, you know, physical attributes, that's probably what you want to do. And Shane Stike and work with Phillip Rivers. So, uh, you know, just hitting guys in rhythm, creating yards after

Starting point is 00:19:46 catch, stuff like that. When it comes to taking deep shots, you can kind of do some of the things you're doing now. But I think if you make those downfield shots a priority earlier in the read, then you can have Minshew get rid of the ball quicker and just let the receiver go run under it. Whether it's Pittman or Alec Pierce, a tight end, whenever Jelani Woods eventually gets back, I think that's a way to kind of counter with a quarterback that doesn't have supreme arm strength. So this, I don't know, I would like to see that. I think that's ways to make things work a little better for them and be a little more productive because what they're doing now on offense it's just not working the passing game is not scaring anyone and defense defenses are just there and prepared for it and that's why the passing game is so ugly

Starting point is 00:20:37 every week um i don't know i i think they've been able to script some things. Well, I think this is something Zach has talked about, you know, early in the game when everything is scripted and you have Gardner Minshew out there, there's been some productive times, but it's when, when the chaos happens and you're kind of having to think on the fly is, is when everything gets so scattered. Cause again, in his six starts, the Colts have a first quarter touchdown in three of them um that's not terrific numbers but it showed that they are capable of putting points on the board early in the game um with menchu out there if they have a strong game plan so it can be done

Starting point is 00:21:18 uh again i talked earlier about the short passing game and how you can get like Jonathan Taylor involved in that. I'm sure you all can immediately think of a hundred times when they've tried to get that quick screen to Michael Pittman Jr. with blockers ahead of him. Sometimes it works because Pittman's really good at it, but they tend to run it with him most of the time. So defenders are ready for it. I think, you know, Jonathan Taylor would be doing that with him more often because he has gotten some looks like that. That could work. He scored a touchdown off that last week against the Panthers. Kylan Granson gets separation as well as most tight ends in the NFL. And Josh Downs, obviously, when he's healthy and you could kind of play him a full workload.

Starting point is 00:22:02 Those are guys that can all do things after the catch and follow blockers and kind of pick up some extra yards. I mentioned, you know, the downfield shots, making it a priority earlier in the read. That could be something that could help Minshew with his arm strength. But as far as the offense goes, I think that's some things they could do to just clean it up a little bit because I don't think there's not some magic bullet that's going to make the offense awesome

Starting point is 00:22:28 all of a sudden. But you'd like to see it be a little more efficient, maybe a little more dangerous. So that's some things I would like to see. Defensively, easier said than done, but just keep up the heat. They've kind of feasted on a couple of weak opponents these last couple weeks. The Panthers and the Patriots were two of the worst offenses in the league. And luckily, we saw the Colts treat them as such. They put up good numbers against two bad offenses.

Starting point is 00:22:54 That's what you like to see. But don't disappear when the offenses get better either, because we've seen them have some really poor performances against just middle-of- of the road offenses as well. Just go back three weeks when the Saints just killed them. So keep it up. I mean, they have nine sacks just in these last two weeks. But before that, in the five weeks prior to that, they had nine sacks.

Starting point is 00:23:19 So what they did in the last two weeks was equal to what they did the whole five weeks before that. So don't go with these long stretches and not being able to pressure the quarterback. I mean, obviously every team wants to do that, but you got to figure it out, whether it's manufacturing pressure with more blitzes or what have you, you just have got to put pressure on these quarterbacks, especially if Joe Burrow coming up in a few weeks. Everyone knows putting pressure on the quarterback will create errant throws. It creates mistakes, and your turnovers are up as well. Like I mentioned earlier, the last few games, turnovers are up quite a bit.

Starting point is 00:23:55 So, you know, looking at the Bucs, they've only given up 16 sacks this year. That's tied for fourth in the league, fourth best. But two weeks from now, Tennessee's giving up 33, and that's near the bottom. That ranks 29th out of 32. And they now have a rookie quarterback who is going to be more mistake-prone than Ryan Tannehill was. So you get Baker Mayfield, yes,

Starting point is 00:24:18 who probably takes care of the ball a little better, but then you get Will Levis in two weeks. So the opportunities are going to be there. Just do not disappear. You know, you have the bye week to get a little healthier. That's good. But you've also got time to game plan and figure out how to keep this train rolling after two really solid defensive performances.

Starting point is 00:24:37 So everybody, that is it for us today. If you don't already follow at Locked on Colts, at Jake Arthur, NFL, and as that kicks to on Twitter. Also, please be sure to subscribe on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. We would also love your guys' ratings and reviews. And with that, we will see you guys tomorrow.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Playoffs?! Dayo Odeyingbo Helps Keep Hope Alive

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