Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts suffer epic 31-25 collapse to Baltimore Ravens

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

What a way to choke a football game. The Indianapolis Colts were up by 16 points in the fourth quarter before ultimately losing 31-25 in overtime to the Baltimore Ravens. What happened?Evan and Stampede Blue's Stephen Reed go over the positives (Carson Wentz, Michael Pittman Jr., Jonathan Taylor) before diving into how exactly the Colts choked away a golden opportunity.You won't want to miss this one, Colts fans, as we go super in-depth on the jaw-dropping, embarrassing defeat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Well, Colts fans, that is one way to start off the podcast. I am Evan Sutter, the host of Locked On Colts, joined by is one way to start off the podcast. I am Evan Sutter, the host of Locked on Colts, joined by Stephen Reed of Stampede Blue. For our instant reaction on our Monday episode to Monday Night Football, Colts at the Baltimore Ravens. The Colts were up at one point 22-3, 25-9, and eventually lost this game 31- 25 to the Baltimore Ravens in overtime it's an epic fourth quarter collapse by the Colts they're up by 16 points I believe 10 minutes left in this game and then lose it in overtime when the Ravens got the ball first in overtime Lamar Jackson went down

scored and that was it Lamar Jackson by the way 504 total yards Lamar Jackson I just absolutely shredded this team but it was with his arm pretty much 442 yards passing four touchdowns, only six incomplete passes for Lamar Jackson throughout this game. Just a dominant performance by him while he was an MVP a couple of years ago. But Steven, how are you doing today? Cause I mean, man, that was, I thought I tweeted this during the game. Like this is a game where this is where your season could turn around when you're up by like 22,3, I think I tweeted out,

this is a season-changing moment for this Colts team where if they go into Baltimore and dominate them like they were and you finish that off like that, that's a statement to the whole NFL that the Colts are back. The Colts are a legit playoff contender. Now losing the way they did, they're kind of falling a little bit. We all expected them to lose this game, but to lose it in that manner, it's just such a heartbreaking one.

So, Stephen, how are you doing after that kind of roller coaster we just went on? Well, Evan, I'll be honest. I've been better. It's a tough way to lose. It really, really stinks. Going up 22-3 midway through the third quarter, near the end of the third quarter, being up 19, you feel pretty good about it. You know, Baltimore comes down, scores that touchdown in, like, two minutes. Like, they scored it so fast that then you're like, all right, there's –

shoot, there's a lot of game left. You know, the Colts run off some clock and get a field goal and at that point you're going up 16 points you're thinking all right you just need another field goal to win this game and they had two opportunities to make a field goal to win the game and and they missed um you know it it sucks the you know kicking game really really cost the Colts Colts today. They had an opportunity that they missed an extra point that first touchdown in the third quarter instead of

kicking the extra point on that second touchdown they go for two, which I think was a good idea because it put you up 21 points rather than 19. So you just it really stings. I think a lot of people thought the Colts would come out of this first five game stretch at two and three what really happened there with the with the Colts

they had an opportunity to win the game a couple times and and they didn't they couldn't pull it off and that really really sucks because this was an opportunity I think a lot of people thought the Colts would come out of these first five games probably looking at 2-3. A rosy estimate was 3-2. That's where I think I was at, was at 3-2, 4-1. But then injuries have absolutely crushed this roster, which is mind-blowing. But the tough part for the Colts right now is they've been in every game.

They should have won against the Rams. They should have won against the Titans. They should have won against the Ravens, even with all of these injuries. And they just haven't found a way to win the ballgame. I mean, I think once Carson Wentz called heads, I didn't even need to know what the coin toss was going to be. I think that was Carson Wentz's biggest mistake because you always say tails never fails.

And they called heads. And, you know, at this point, I'm not sure about Carson Wentz's decision making just for that. I kid, of course. Carson Wentz played a fantastic game today. Aside from the coin toss call, everything else he did was pretty darn good. And so it's just a really hard way to lose. And once Baltimore won the coin toss and got the ball to start overtime,

you didn't have any faith in this defense. Baltimore had scored four straight touchdowns. Like, you just had no faith in this defense to be able to pull it out. So, I just – you just kind of had that gloomy feeling, watching them shred the defense because there's no corners. I think they had, like, three or four defensive backs get injured in this game and not be able to come back. So, the Colts were – like, they had nothing.

Their defense was done. Yeah. We'll hit on the defense in just a second because I want to at least start it off for those listening that are either driving your car in the morning or you're late at night, you can't sleep, you're listening to this. Let's just hit on the positives first, Steve, and then we'll dive into all the negatives from this one because it was a good game for this team. I will admit this is a good game until the

last 15 minutes of actual game time of this game. Jonathan Taylor looked like a superstar in this game. That one play at the beginning of the game on that little dump ball pass, that was just freakish stuff he did running 76 yards down the field for that touchdown. He looked like Tyreek Hill out there at 230 pounds. Michael Pittman Jr. looks like a legit number one wide receiver. That touchdown he had over two defenders where Kirsten Winstead in the pocket got destroyed, and he still hit Pittman down the field on that really incredible play. And Pittman had a hold on, I think, six of his seven targets in this game.

So he was great. Paris Campbell had his breakout game, so to say. He was actually really good in this one. And Molly Cox, he had a couple good moments as well. So Carson Wentz had over 400 passing yards. I think he had 402 passing yards, 25-35, two touchdowns, no picks again. He was sacked a couple times, of course. But Carson Wentz, these young playmakers led by John Taylor, Michael Pittman,

that was my biggest takeaway positively from this game, Stephen, where this young offense is running through Taylor and Pittman, and I think we're seeing tonight on the national stage, that's probably going to be what's contained in the rest of the season because I think not only has Taylor established himself again as a legit number one running back in the NFL, but Michael Pittman, he is taking the leap right now, Stephen. Yeah, the Colts offense, there were a lot of positives to it.

The offensive line played pretty darn well against what was going to be a – it was a really good Baltimore pass rush. I think Chris Reed has just been an absolute godsend there to fill in for Quentin Nelson at the left guard spot. And quite honestly, I feel like Chris Reed should be moved over to right guard and take Mark Lewinsky because Lewinsky had another rough, rough game. It's, it's not been great over there on the right side. And so I wonder if Chris Reed can go help shore that up when he gets back and gets healthy. The Michael Pittman Jr. play, I've been preaching Michael Pittman Jr.'s praises since he was drafted. I think that he's going to

be a great wide receiver. You saw the physicality and his ability to go up and get the ball onto that 42-yard touchdown pass. Jonathan Taylor has been just a dynamo out of the backfield, getting him in space. Like once, once he gets a, once he gets any kind of room, like he's gone. There's no shot that anybody's going to catch him. And you've seen it the weekend week out when, when he gets an opportunity that they're just not going to find him. So I, and I, I really like Paris Campbell. I like Mo'Ali Cox. Like you mentioned, even Jack Doyle had some pretty good plays,

even though that questionable personal foul penalty on Baltimore that put the Colts in field goal range to win the game. Yeah, Doyle was a little off balance and maybe shoved the guy's head into the ground to start that. But, you know, for the most part, you know, the Colts offense played really well. I really liked Frank Reich's play calling throughout the majority of the game. You know, there are some times where you think you'd like him to be a little bit more aggressive. But for the most part, I thought that they did a really good job in terms of being aggressive

and taking shots down the field against a really good pass rush which I thought was interesting because normally when you go up against a really good pass rush you want to kind of accentuate those shorter patterns those quicker outs but the Colts went down the field against the Ravens they must have seen something and and took advantage of it and you know I think we need to to remember that Carson Wentz led a really good last drive. He led the Colts down with 39 seconds left in two touchdowns and two timeouts to get them in field goal range

and drove the length of the field to put them at the 30-yard line and Blankenship just missed the field goal. Unfortunately, that's like the whole tenor of this entire weekend of NFL football is kickers missing field goals. So, yeah, I think there was a ton of positives for the offense and the way they played today. I don't think there's there was a ton of negatives. You know, Eric Fisher seemed to settle in as the game went on. And you saw a couple times where they went ahead and put the tight end and running back over to Chip on those defensive ends that were taking advantage of him early until he finally got his footing.

So I think that there's a lot of progress. There's a lot of positives to come out of the offensive game plan and Frank Reich's play calling, at least for this game. Carson Wentz, we'll hit on him really quickly again just for a second, and then we'll dive into everything else that happened in this game. But Wentz, 25-35, 402 yards, two touchdowns, no picks again. An elite 128.5 QB rating, an elite 11.5 yards per attempt, which I believe would be number one in the NFL any year, I believe.

11.5 is just a monster number for yards per attempt. To see that for Wentz in this game, he only took two sacks, and those weren't his fault for those two sacks he took early in this game. Carson Wentz, I mean, it's an easy thing to say, but Carson Wentz with two healthy ankles, Steven, looks like a pretty damn good quarterback tonight. He actually looks really good tonight against Baltimore. He looked great against the Rams. He looked great against Seattle. Like this guy looks the part of a legit top 15 quarterback when he's healthy. We saw a bag against Tennessee because he's playing with no ankles out there. But outside of that, I mean, he's played flawless football for this team this whole season so far. It's been really awesome to

see. Yeah, I think his only mistake was that interception on the two-point conversion but that doesn't count in this scorebook so i don't think that that counts in the box score so you know under him he's still got no interceptions um so i i think he played awesome like he had 128 and a half you know. Like you mentioned, he had a 11 and a half yard, um, depth average depth of target, which is pretty darn good. Two touchdowns, no interceptions. He's playing smart football. Um, and he, he makes some throws that are just really darn good, just really, really darn good throws and throws that you haven't seen Colts passers make the past couple years since Andrew Luck. Like, even Phillip Rivers has a good arm,

but he didn't make some of these throws that Carson Wentz is making in terms of the speed and the depth and just where he's putting the ball. Phillip Rivers is super accurate, and he made his money recognizing what the defense was going to do before they were going to do it. So he knew exactly where he was going with the ball. Carson Wentz isn't that type of quarterback,

but he's got just an immense amount of talent. So I'm actually pretty, you know, I'm pretty positive about the direction of the Colts in terms of the quarterback position. The biggest issue is whether they can get everything figured out in terms of their injury situation. Like, if they can get their offensive line fixed, they can keep going. They could make this work.

There's still only two games out of Tennessee in terms of the division. And next week, Tennessee plays at Buffalo on Monday Night Football. The Colts play at the Texans, I believe. So they're going to have an opportunity to be able to make this work and be able to have – just be able to be within a game of the Titans after six weeks of the season, even though they started one and four. You know, it's – the season's not over. It's going to be tough if they start to – if they stumble again or they have another tough loss here coming up, you've got to think about the opportunity to possibly bench Carson

Wentz to save that first round pick because you can't give up a top 20 pick to the Eagles. If you know you're not going to make the playoffs, you should probably bench Wentz, um, just to keep that pick to make sure you get that left tackle, um, or that corner for goodness sakes. Um, either of those positions would be really good to get, but yeah, I thought overall the offense played well. I thought Carson Wentz, I thought Carson Wentz was really good. 402 passing yards. Just a great game overall. And so I was really happy with how Carson Wentz played. Does this sound familiar? You've got one device that lets you catch the game live,

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Let's go ahead and hit on everything else that happened in this game, Stephen, because, yeah, let's just go ahead and skip to the fourth quarter because they were up 25-9. And then from there, the Ravens just kind of took over. They were already – Solomon Mennon kind of shifted a little bit. But then the Colts go for the – I would say conservative approach. And Frank Reich said after the game he does regret running that QB draw – or not QB draw, excuse me, that halfback draw where he lost five yards and then sent on Blankenship. But, yeah, I wonder what happened with Blankenship because we know he was hurt.

Frank Gregg did not disclose to ESPN during the halftime broadcast about what his injury was. But it sounds like it is a hip injury for Rodrigo Blankenship. He missed multiple kicks tonight, missed an extra point. That was a big reason, obviously, why the Colts lost this game. But let me first ask you about the play calling because that's been one of the things that Colts Twitter is really blowing up about now is Frank Reich's play calling I do think he did play it too conservative late in this game I think maybe just me watching Brandon Staley and these other super uber aggressive coaches recently but man I just wish Frank Reich would went for the

jugular at the end of the game instead of just saying hey let's put in the hands of our gimpy kicker and see what happens if he missed the, the Ravens have a chance to go down and win the game anyways. Why not just try on third and eight, get the ball in Carson Wentz's hands, who's having one of the best games of his career so far, put it in his hands on third and eight. If it's incomplete, if it's to throw it away, or if he gets any short, you at least did something aggressive there instead of just kind of rolling

over at the end. I know Blankchuk would have made it. It would have been an 11-point game. It wouldn't have mattered. But we knew he was injured. So that's where I'm coming from there on that. But what was your overall thoughts on Frank Reich tonight outside of not only the fourth quarter but the whole game as a whole?

I felt like you mentioned that we were talking off there before he started. I think he had a really good game aggressively, especially the first possession in the second half. That was a hell of a game script to start the second half off with the Zach Paschal deep shot, then the Pittman jump ball down the field for a touchdown, two-play drive, 75 yards. That's a perfect way to start the second half for the Colts. But what was your impressions of Frank Reich throughout this game?

I thought I was fine with his play calling. And as many of the listeners know, I'm pretty critical of Frank Reich and his play calling. I thought that after the 15 scripted plays to start the game, he really struggles. I didn't think that that was the case today. I thought he did a pretty good job in terms of being aggressive and mixing things up, keeping the Baltimore defense honest

in terms of whether they were going to go and try to, you know, rush the line of scrimmage. He was able to call the plays effectively to allow the play action to be a weapon for them. And I know people like, like you said, people were talking about the, his lack of aggressiveness in the fourth quarter and leaving it up to the kicker. You have to remember that the play before literally the,

the series before Rodrigo Blankenship came out and made a 43-yard field goal. And so he went up for a 37-yard field goal at that point on that third and eight call that ended up getting just absolutely blown up by Clay Campbell, by the way. Just absolutely just smothered by Clay Campbell there. But you're sitting there asking your kicker to make a 37-yard field goal after he just made a 43-yard field goal. You feel pretty confident knowing that a field goal probably wins you this game. They're being up eight with, what, like four minutes to –

like three minutes to play, something like that. Yeah, with 4.30 to play. So you feel pretty good going up 11 at that point um with Baltimore having just used two of their three timeouts on that drive so I just I wasn't I wasn't upset by Frank Rick's play calling I understood it I thought that he was also pretty aggressive there on the last drive throwing the ball down the field to get them in field goal range to, again, potentially win the game. It just so happens that Julian Davenport decided not to block the best

defensive lineman on the Raiders' defensive line. And just something that – like, Klay Campbell is known in the NFL for swimming the sea gap and blocking field goals. The fact that the Colts, and that might be on Bubba Vitrione, the special teams coordinator, that might be on him for not recognizing that that is the most dangerous player on that defense on field goals and kick attempts, that you decided not to block him or to put Julian Davenport and Mark Lewinsky there, who are arguably two of your most struggling offensive linemen

of this entire season. That, to me, that play calling right there was a terrible thing, not being prepared for Clay Campbell in the one move that he does consistently where he gets blocked kicks. But in terms of Frank Reich, I was pretty happy with his play calling and his aggressiveness and how he's able to mix it up and keep everybody involved. I agree with you. Yeah. I liked the way he did it. I just, like I mentioned, I would have played it more aggressively at the end of the game instead of playing for the field goal with your kicker who you knew was hurt.

But this is actually from Zach Kiefer and the rest of the local media from Indy who are in Baltimore tonight for the game. But really, the Blankenship is speaking to the media now, Stephen, and he mentioned that his hip, every time he went back out to kick, he felt a stabbing pain in his hip, and the pain crept up in warm-ups and intensified throughout. So it got worse as the game went on. So that explains why Blankenship had such a bad game

and maybe why the Colts were in this position where they lost time because Blankenship just wasn't kicking and doing right. But it makes you wonder, if it was that bad, Stephen, why didn't they try Rigoberto? They did it before halftime at the very end there. We're all like, what in the world is happening? But if it got worse throughout, I admire Rodrigo Blankenship for going out there and toughing it out.

But if it's getting worse throughout the game and you're missing kicks, at what point do you say I'm costing my team points and let's try something else? I mean, what's your thoughts on that? If it got worse throughout the game, then that's a really interesting discussion. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing to bring up. If Blankenship – that honestly is on him. He needs to go to the coach and say, hey, look, coach,

I've got something going on because Frank Wright calls a different place there on that the field goal that the drive that ended up with a black field goal instead of calling a draw play on third and eight he's probably calling a play to get four yards and then trying to go for it on fourth down um just to make sure that it's not in the hands of a, or at the foot of a field goal kicker that is really struggling. And if it hurt that bad, then he should have said something like, I get you want to be the guy and I get you want to make it happen. But it was pretty clear to all of us that he had a little something going on.

And this was, you know, at the end of the game was pretty obvious because it had been reported and everything like that. But like, even if you watched his little warmup, he did like an extra little, little movement in the hip to try to like, look like he was trying to get it loose a little bit. And it just, at some point you have to be a professional and say, Hey, look, I'm going to potentially cost my team the game. I need to go to my coach and say, Hey, I don't have it. Because at that point, at that point,

you bring out Rigoberto Sanchez who mind you on that 42 yard field goal earlier, wasn't too bad, honestly, in terms of like, he had the distance he's, he pushed it a little left, but, you know, he would have gotten an opportunity there, and I just, it just seems like that's a bad decision on Blankenship's part to go out there and try to push it, and try to push it through without going and talking with the coaches first, because Because again, I think that the Colts are a little bit more aggressive on that third and eight call to try to go ahead and pick up that first down.

If nothing else, bleed more clock. Because if you get the first down and you still kick the field goal, you get a first down. At that point, Baltimore had already called two timeouts. So they only have one left. You're guaranteed to bleed off at least another minute and a half, two minutes. Mind you, Baltimore scored their last touchdown with 30 seconds left, 39 seconds left. That's the ballgame right there.

So there's, there's a lot of what if scenarios in this, I wish Blankenship would have been honest with, with the coaching staff about how his hip was doing wish Blankenship would have been honest with the coaching staff about how his hip was doing, because I think it would have changed the play calling. Now I'm reading the tweets as we're going here live tonight after the game. Darius Leonard is now speaking in the media saying, obviously this is as tough as loss as a pro, just the way they lost that game.

Understandably so. You're up 25-9 with a believe less than 10 minutes up in that game. You somehow lose. That's just a tough pill to swallow. But let's go ahead and dive into that defense, Stephen. Lamar Jackson just torched them to shreds tonight. Over 500 yards total offense, almost 450 yards through the air, which is by far Lamar Jackson's best game ever as a quarterback in the NFL.

What was your thoughts on this, and how much blame do you put on Ibra Flues? How much blame do you put on just the lack of depth on this defense right now? Or the secondary is just getting – shooting the bits right now by the injury bug. Curry Willis was active tonight, but I have a hard time thinking he was benched for Anderson Dayhoe. I just think he was limited tonight. Julian Blackman came out for a few snaps at one point, but he finished the game.

Xavier Rhodes didn't finish the game. Isaiah Rogers didn't finish the game. TJ Carey didn't finish the game. This secondary is just a zombie land right now, Stephen. I mean, what's your thoughts on the secondary? What's your thoughts on the pass rush, especially for the pass rush? I think that's where the biggest blame for me goes is you had your moments here and there.

Al-Qaidi Mohammed, Taekwon Lusa had a couple good moments. But, man, without an elite pass rusher out there, Kamoka Torre had a dud of a game as well. He didn't do much of anything out there either. This is a game where you really miss Quidipe. I think Quidipe with his speed and his bendingness really could have made a difference against Lamar Jackson. But just this pass rush, I mean, it's week after week now, Stephen.

Even with DeForest Buckner out there, if you just have one guy out there in the inside pressure, it's not going to matter if you don't get any outside pressure. I mean, that's probably where my biggest issue is, is just the pass rush as being non-existent once again pretty much. The secondary, I don't really put much blame on tonight just because it's just awful as far as injuries go right now. They're just getting decimated. And you had no rocky sense tonight anyways due to injury as well.

And then linebackers, obviously Okereke and Leonard play all their snaps. Leonard looked a lot better tonight. But how much blame do you put on injuries, Matt Eberflus' play calling, if any? How much do you put on the pass rush? How would you decipher that pie chart, so to say, of what went wrong tonight? Because Lamar Jackson has torched them. So the tough part is when the Ravens really got going in the second half, they started going to hurry up and wasn't allowing the Colts to substitute.

And when that happens, the broadcast actually brought this up, is on that third or fourth play when you go to hurry up the defensive line at that point is pretty gassed and they're still not able to get out and so unless you've got like quitty pay i think probably could have still been going at that point but at the time you had i think it was teray or lewis and aqm the one of those three on it and then on the last drive i I believe they put in Banigou. But they were definitely going no huddle. They were keeping the defensive line out there.

After you get like that third or fourth play, it's really tough. Now, on that first touchdown that they had, the one that ended the third quarter, or sorry, the fourth, that it was only five plays. The second one was six. And then the last two touchdowns they had were 11 plays and 10 plays, and they didn't go out of their hurry. Like, they didn't huddle. So it's really hard to blame, put a lot of blame really on anywhere

but injuries in this because the Colts were forced to play zone. Like they didn't have the personnel because of injuries, because you lose Rocky's scene, you've got TJ Carey out, Xavier Rhodes went out, you lost Kari Willis, you ended up having to go with like Chesley and they ended up swapping Kenny Moore or yeah, came more out to the, the outside because they had nobody really to play inside. So like the defensive backfield was just absolutely decimated and that forced the Colts to play zone. And the trouble is when you play zone, you really have to rely on your front four getting to the quarterback. And once you got to midway through these drives, they just didn't have any gas in them. So at that point, I actually probably would put this more on Ibraflues because at that point you have to artificially produce some kind of pressure so you need to send a linebacker or you need to send kenny more and bring a corner um to to get get lamar jackson

uncomfortable because when he was uncomfortable he like the tough part is that that first drive or that that last drive that they had where he got hit and they got some pressure on him and he floated that ball up and it just like quacked up in the middle of the air and then the Colts just couldn't get to it and normally that's one that the Colts defensive backs get to and they make a pick on after that they just got no pressure um but Eberflus needed to dial up something to get pressure in there. And it's really easy to sit here now and be armchair quarterback. But I feel like that's just something that he should have known.

Because when you're playing a shell, when you're playing just like a pre-event cover two defense, yeah, of course, teams are going to know where to go in your holes. Once you go so far down in the injury injury list and injury chart and you're playing guys that you just brought up off the practice squad like Bokey Keys I think was one of the corners as well and and so you're you're playing guys that you claimed off waivers and that you picked up off the practice squad and you're expected to do anything with it the broadcast is like well you know they they need to play man and i'm going these guys are barely in the nfl

like you can't sit there and expect them to cover sammy watkins and marquise brown man to man and mark andrews man to man like it's just not going to happen so at some point Ibraflus needed to realize once like he got past those third or fourth plays of those drives that they needed to find a way to artificially come up with pressure and he didn't Colts fans Bill Barr is the place to go if you want to eat a healthy snack while on the go it is easily the best tasting protein bar I've ever had and so many of our listeners have said the same thing as well. They have a limited time flavor cookie dough chunk that I've recently tried. It is easily the best flavor I've ever had as well.

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because obviously a huge loss, 31-25 net for the Baltimore Ravens. But like we mentioned at the top of the show, a lot of positives. Carson Wentz had an awesome game. Young playmakers had great games as well. But after this, you have what should be a layup game against the Houston Texans, but they almost just beat the New England Patriots on Sunday. So that's not going to be a gimme in my opinion unless they come out just with –

they should come out with a super aggressive approach against this Houston team. This is a game where you have to get back and bounce right. But after the Texans game on Sunday in Indy, you go at San Francisco on Sunday Night Football where it sounds like Trey Lance isn't going to be playing in that game either. He got hurt against the Cardinals. Jimmy Garoppolo might not even play either. So it could be former Indiana Hoosier quarterback Nate Sudfeld

who they play in San Francisco on prime time. So that could be a really easy gimme game for them as well. You play at Tennessee at home, and then you play the Jets and the Jaguars at home as well. So four of the next five games, Stephen, are at Lucas Oil Stadium. And honestly, I thought San Francisco would be the toughest game out of all those. But if you don't have Trey Lance out there, or even Jimmy Garoppolo, that becomes a huge game in favor of the Colts, in my opinion, especially with the way they played tonight. This is a stretch for me, Steven, where now with the situation in San Francisco where it might be unlikely to see Garoppolo or Lance a quarterback, you have to go 5-0 here. I really do. I think you have to

go 5-0 these next five games. You have to win against Tennessee. That's a must-win game whatever way you want to slice it you can't lose the series to Tennessee you got to split it at this point the way you've started this season off and I honestly just think you have to beat you have to beat these easy teams Houston New York Jackson we have to beat these easy teams that are gimme games your schedule and the 49ers should be a gimme game at this point honestly if they're without their top pick a quarterback or Jimmy Garoppolo as well. So I really think 5-0 has got to be what you've got to get your next five weeks,

Steven. This is a stretch where it's going to really decide to us whether the Colts are going to try to climb out of this and make it actually a fun second half of the season or if the season's going to already be over by the time we hit Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think the next five to six games, it's going to tell you whether the Colts are going to end up finding some injury to put Carson Wentz on injured reserve for, to be honest.

If they can stay, if they lose a couple of these games prior to that run into it with Tampa Bay and Buffalo, then I think that the Colts I just don't have a great feeling about the the team long term um in terms of whether they can make the playoffs and ultimately that's that's what it's going to comes down to is can you make the playoffs because if the Colts can make the playoffs then they're looking at a pick in the early mid-20s which you know you don't mind giving that up for Carson Wentz um but if they if they're just like on the cusp of like the worst thing that could happen for Colts and Colts fans right now is if they're like a 500 team and they're like two games out of Tennessee going into like week like week 13 because like at that point at week 13 is

basically the week that they have to decide whether they're going to shut Wentz down to keep their pick or not and that's really what it is um unless he gets hurt which you which the way the offensive line had played up to tonight was a really realistic possibility. But yeah, I think it's the next five or six games that are going to determine whether the Colts season starts to go on the up and up or whether it just heads straight south. Because if the Colts, first off, if the Colts lose the season series to Tennessee, you're effectively down an extra game because you lose that tiebreaker.

You lose that head-to-head tiebreaker. So even if the Colts are one game away from Tennessee in the win-loss column, they're effectively two games back because you already have that tiebreaker loss factored in there, so that will play into it. If they lose to San Francisco there's a couple games in there that are tricky I mean shoot if they lose next week to Houston I'm just going to be like

alright guys this year's a wash we're unlucky with injuries we need to get rid of all of the artificial turf in all of your stadium all the stadium all the training facilities slop it to grass and stop dealing with lower leg injuries and let's just call this season what it is and and move on keep that first round pick

get yourself a left tackle or a corner or another wide receiver or something to help the defense and and just just move on but i don't want to do that obviously i want the colts to make the playoffs i want to win the afc south win um but if they don't get healthy do that. Obviously I want the Colts to make the playoffs. I want them to win the AFC South win. But if they don't get healthy and they drop a couple of these games out of their next five or six unexpectedly, then it's really going to be hard to justify giving up what will ultimately be like a top 15, top 20 pick for Carson Wentz when you kind of knew this was going to be the case.

Steven, appreciate it as always. Obviously a tough one to swallow tonight. And I can tell by Twitter tonight it's going to be one hell of a week just to see everything that's going on. But everyone, thanks for listening in here on Locked on Colts. Go ahead and follow Steven Cowder already on Twitter at NiceReadSteve. And go read and listen to his work as always over on Stampede. We'll be having him as always back on each week on Colts. Go ahead and follow Steve and Kevin already on Twitter at NiceReadSteve. And go read and listen to his work, as always, over on Stampede. But we'll be having him, as always, back on each week on the podcast. Steve, appreciate your time tonight.

All right. Thanks, Evan. Have a good one.