Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -10/14- Indianapolis Colts Again Injured In Secondary, Need Clear Focus Offensively

Episode Date: October 14, 2016

Following some minor roster moves, the #Colts have us scratching our heads again, are still noticeably banged up in the secondary and need to focus on their success often revolving around the tight ends being targeted heavily. The Colts running backs need to become more viable weapons, and Dorsett needs to break out in order to quiet his critics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's for my crazy day. My packed commute. All those unread emails in my inbox. But I'm getting stronger, faster, and pushing myself further every day. I don't care if I'm not like everyone else. This punching bag is the best way to end my day. Fearless is knowing yoga isn't your style. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program.

Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. You are Locked On Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts. I'm your host, Matt Dainley. And tonight we are going to get ourselves fully prepared for this matchup Sunday night in Houston against the Houston Texans. And first and foremost, I want to say again how much I appreciate you guys listening, interacting, sharing everything about the show.

It really is good stuff. I appreciate some of you guys. I've heard from people in California. I'm hearing from people overseas. This is really great. I really appreciate it. And, uh, all of you guys sharing the show and helping out, uh, getting this thing to grow day by day is doing nothing but improving it. And, uh, I'll have a little information for you too,

uh, on our giveaway. And, uh, but first let's jump into, uh, the injury report for the Colts this weekend. As of Wednesday and Thursday's practices, I'll just go straight to Thursday's. I kind of touched on it a little bit in previous shows. Mike Adams, who did not practice on Wednesday, not for health, Jonathan Harrison, Zach Kerr, Dante Moncrief, and Patrick Robinson all did not practice on Thursday. McNary, Robert Turbin, Robert Mathis, Kendall Lankford a hip, and Luck was limited as well with his shoulder, his weekly shoulder limitations through Thursday. But I would like to see him get on the field tomorrow. I think he will be. I think that's more of a – I think we've touched on this a few times.

I think that's just more of a rest and relaxation thing for him. As many times as he has to throw per game, he needs the extra day off, I guess, to allow that shoulder to rest up. I don't think that we're going to see Butler this week. I hope that we have Quan Bray, but that's a shin. That's a touchy issue. I mean, nothing necessarily at a joint or anything like that, but that's not something, you know, getting dinged on your shin that hard to where it's had you sit for two days isn't exactly something that's going to heal unless it's just a bruise on the outer bruise. But that sounds to me, if it's a shin and he

hasn't practiced for two days, that sounds to me like it could be a bone bruise. Harrison, obviously you guys know he's been out because of his surgery for appendicitis or for his emergency appendectomy, I guess, more or less. Zach Kerr was out. He's had ankle issues, so that probably means we're going to see a little bit more of T.Y. McGill up front, which is either or. Those two guys have done a pretty solid job there. I think McGill's got a little bit more natural talent,

but definitely don't want to see Zach Kerr out or missing any games, that's for sure. He's an important guy there. They need that rotation to be top-notch, and as long as he's in the game, they can have that. Robinson obviously is becoming about as injury prone as it gets. He's got a knee and a hip issue. I wouldn't count on him being real active throughout the rest of the season. It just seems like he's been continually getting nicked up with something new every week. The Colts did bring up Frankie Williams to the roster,

and they also signed Chris Carter, who's been with a few different teams Williams is a cornerback out of Purdue if you guys remember him from preseason stuff I think he's got a lot of possibilities I remember a couple times watching his film before the draft and thinking that he could cover forever there were several times where he was covering probably more likely it was the number two wide receiver for whatever team it was, but he was covering them for quite a duration. So I had a little, I had some high hopes for him when I heard he was coming in, but at the same time, watching him through camp and watching his preseason, he was a little less, quite a bit less than impressive for me, but they simply need him because their cornerbacks are banged up. And we apparently are going through

this all over again. We've got Darryl Morris and Frankie Williams there who are going to be two guys that probably, I don't know how much Frankie Williams will see the field, but Darryl Morris will see the field too. Rashawn Melvin will be getting quite a bit of snaps, I would assume, at the second corner position. And so that's going to leave that. You know, this is just an issue. It's a consistent issue in the secondary that the Colts are going to have to fight through.

It'll be interesting to see how much they use the three-safety look, how much they use that for nickel situations. But they really need some speed out there. But, you know, Frankie Williams hasn't really had a whole lot of success in covering at this level in the NFL. So we'll have to see how that turns out. But it'll be interesting to watch. It's just a sad situation that the Colts' cornerbacks have been as banged up as they have so far. Bringing in Chris Carter, the Colts really don't add a whole lot because they had to get rid of Trevor Bates.

They had to waive him. And I don't really see the upside of this, to be honest with you. Carter has played in 53 games, I believe, in his career. And he has yet to notch a sack yet. So I don't really see the upside to this move um I guess if you if you want to err on the side of experience that's great but I just don't see the positive from it when we have a young guy like Bates there who they didn't even get on the field so what's the point you know what I mean why is Bates even being considered to take off the field? I don't see that Chris Carter is going to help any. I don't understand the move whatsoever. That doesn't mean that it was a good or bad move. That's just my line of thinking. guy who's even yet to have a shot at proving himself to bring in a veteran who's had 53

chances to prove himself and he's yet to do it kind of makes me kind of he just gives me a cause for concern more or less that is a wasted move I don't think anybody's gonna take uh Bates off waivers or anything like that but it's more than possible he's been on the practice squad before too and nobody took a stab at him so the the Colts should retain him, but that doesn't mean that they're going to. And even if they do, it just seems like a very wishful thinking type of move. I don't really necessarily understand it whatsoever. So I'm going to take a quick break here and tell you guys about our sponsor. Colts fans, are you in the market to sell your home? If so, call Mike Ernest of Century 21 Sheets at 317-285-9691.

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So Colts fans, when it comes to selling your home, don't get burned by amateurs. Hire a professional. Let Mike Ernest and his Century 21 Sheets team go to work for you. Whether you live in India or any of the surrounding communities, Mike and his team can help. Call Mike Earnest at 317-285-9691 or find him on the web at mikeearnest.com. Again, that's mikeearnest.com or call Mike at 317-285-96. Now, we've had some conversation. I think a lot of it seems to be about why Dorsett isn't getting the targets or why Dorsett isn't getting big games or anything like that. And also, for some reason today, during the coaching interviews,

they asked about Dwayne Allen and said that he's apparently put it all together, you know, in the past couple of weeks. Well, I don't know about that. That seems a little presumptuous to me considering the only reason that they're really saying that is because he caught all six of his targets this past week and he had a touchdown. Now I'm going to run you through this and I will tell you something that is good if he can maintain this, of course. I think that was the idea with keeping him over Flaner. But here's something that I want to bring to your attention. In the first five games, he's caught 17 of his 25 targets.

Not bad, almost a 70% catch percentage. Typically, his yards per target, which means how deep down the field he is when he's throwing the ball, has fluctuated between nearly nine yards per target all the way down to five, back up to seven, just around eight again. And then they have Jack Doyle who has been Mr. Reliable and has caught 16 of his 19 targets, okay, for an 84% catch percentage. Again, he's only had 19 targets. He's only got two touchdowns, just the same as Allen does, but when you look at his targets and where they fluctuate, I mean, you go from four to five to six the first three games, so they understood that he was catching everything thrown his way. He only missed one target in his first three games. I'm sorry, two targets.

And then he gets down to one and three targets over the last two weeks. And can somebody explain to me why that is? I can't explain it. I think that they are force-feeding Allen to luck. Get him the ball. Throw it to him more. But he doesn't catch the ball as well as Doyle does. That's just a fact. Doyle isn't the speed guy. Doyle doesn't have probably quite the athleticism that Allen does. I think that's pretty obvious. But Doyle is, if you're looking for a guy to

catch the ball, get the ball to him. I mean, his have fluctuated dramatically. And we all know how critical their tight end success is to the Colts winning. It just simply is. There are many, many factors that go into a Colts win. And with this depleted roster for the most part, especially in certain areas, and then you add injuries in there, and there are a bevy of things that probably need to go right, I guess you could say, for the Colts to win. But their tight ends are absolutely crucial to their success. But when you look at this year's stats and this year's targets, there's really no rhyme or reason to it. The fact is that the Colts in the past need to get those short passes going in order to get Luck on a roll. This year, Luck's playing at a better level, I think, than he's played so far,

at least for the majority of his career. And if you try to differentiate between the two, you see that Luck necessarily doesn't really need the short passes to get himself on a roll. He's making his own roll because he has no choice. So this kind of makes me think that maybe he's, that the offense, especially when you see Luck getting pressured, a lot of the routes are 10 plus yards downfield. Now this is good if you've got the protection, especially up front with the offensive line. Those guys have to do their job for longer. But when you're doing it with three rookies or even two rookies, it's proven to be an issue. So I think they need to hone that back in a little bit.

If they need to use Doyle more along the line of scrimmage, so be it. Or whether it's Allen, it doesn't really matter. But they can't force feed these tight ends into being primary targets in an offense that is pushing them downfield as much as it is. So when you add that into a struggling backfield, as far as catching the ball, it kind of makes for a bit of a worrisome transition for you guys. I mean, you have Chester Rogers out wide a lot. He's kind of running the number two slash three spot. He and Dorsett are flip-flopping in between the slot for the most part. But they are vastly differing from week to week in their game plan. And maybe that's really the message, or maybe that's really the idea behind all this. Not so much

where guys are lined up and all that, just what the game plan is. And the game plan needs to be use the pass to set up the run. The Colts did that a little better this past week, but they are not taking advantage of what's in front of them. How many screen passes have we seen this year? Four, maybe five, three, five games. And maybe I'm vastly underrating that, but it doesn't seem, I don't, I can't remember a ton of them. And the Colts have this, this quote, great threat out of the backfield in Ferguson. Well, then they need to use him as such. I think it's very obvious, though, and even today, Chudzinski was a very matter-of-fact in that that's what Ferguson's going to be used for.

And I don't think that's really hard to read from other teams, especially when they've heard it now for a month or better, or a couple months, you know, leaning into the season, that that's what his role is going to be. I've said it before the season started, but also hundreds of other people were saying it before the season started. So it's something that everybody's known, and the Colts know that they can't use him in the running game. Defenses know they can't use him in the running game, but they yet they fail to use Jordan Todman in virtually anything at all. And they've got Robert Turbin who's banged up. He'll be coming back this week. I think it's pretty safe bet, but there's just so

many issues with this team and they really have to be diverse and make it difficult for teams to read what they're doing. Because if the teams can game plan a week in advance, I mean, this really puts the Colts behind the eight ball when it comes to diagramming plays and trying to beat teams at their own game, so to speak, or to try to be able to out-execute them when the Colts are having massive issues executing at the moment. So there's a lot of issues with this. This also brings up another point. Yesterday, we heard Andrew Luck say that he's, you know, blame him. He's holding the ball too long. That would make some people who are negative on Luck very happy to be able to do that. But the fact is, he's not holding the ball too long. Those routes have to come open, folks. He can't just throw the ball into an open area, okay? That doesn't do anything. If he throws it where

nobody's at, it's just an incompletion. I'm not sure exactly what people want him to do. He's held the ball too long in the past when there were routes open. A lot of underneath stuff was open last year that he was bypassing. So that's an obvious critique. But look, especially year to year, but also game to game, that stuff changes. You can't just use some default excuse as to why things are happening. Everything is an in-game situation. It's fluid. Andrew Luck is holding the ball longer because the routes are deeper. It takes longer for those guys to holding the ball longer because the routes are deeper. Okay. It takes longer for those guys to get to the top of their routes. Some of the times the receivers are not beating the defense off the line. And sometimes the line isn't protecting more than two and a half seconds. There's varying issues. It's a systematic issue where they have to

get not only the protection better, they have to get the routes cleaner and they've got to make the routes, the route combinations more applicable to Andrew Luck to be able to help him be successful and to help the team be successful. Because Andrew Luck can run around for hours and end up pegging somebody right between the numbers. And he's basically proven that. I won't go hours, but seconds. How's that? But the point is that there's a ton of issues with this, but it all starts straight up with the offensive line.

I do back them up a lot because they're young. I think they're going to be very good in the future, but at the moment they're not very good. They've got a lot of room to grow, and I think we would all hope that they can grow really quickly. Sometimes that just doesn't happen, but Chudzinski has got to get together with Philbin, and those two have really got to put their heads together and get something that can move forward smoothly and help this offense succeed readily and more consistently. And to be able to put those 10 and 12 play drives together without Luck getting bashed two or three times per drive, that was one of the best things that I really enjoyed was how many plays they were putting together.

The bad part of that is, like I said, luck was getting hit at least once a drive. So that's not good. Another thing that the coaches mentioned yesterday was how they needed to improve on first and second down. Where have you heard that? Okay, I'm not trying to act like I'm the only guy who said it, but I've been saying it and we've been saying it. We've been talking about it. Their first and second down defense is awful. Awful. I can't find a stat for how bad their first and second downs has been, but it's terrible. I can go through all the plays of

every game that I've charted and I could probably do it that way. But let's just say it's a bunch. Their first and second down efficiency on defense is pretty putrid. They're allowing first downs a ton on those plays, and that's just unacceptable. Those are plays that you obviously are trying to force into short yardage gains. You don't want teams to be on third and two and third and three every single possession constantly, but that's what they are allowing to happen. And those third down, sometimes they're lucking out. Their third down efficiency is better than terrible, okay? But it doesn't matter. Like I was telling you

guys this past week against the Bears, the Bears did not have a third down conversion in the second half, but it didn't matter because they had about 14 of them on first and second down. I mean, it just you see what I mean? It doesn't matter. Third down efficiency does not matter if they don't get to third down. You know what I mean? So needless to say, the Colts defense has a lot to work on.

The Colts offense has a lot to work on, The Colts' offense has a lot to work on, but they're going, you know, like I was telling you guys the other day, and if you listen to the crossover with myself and Robert Land from Locked On Texans, the Colts' offense, who can be extremely explosive, is going to be going up against a top-tier defense. Now, the good thing for the Colts, I guess, if you want to consider that, is that they've had some injury problems as well in the past couple weeks on defense. So the Colts could, I mean, conceivably take advantage of an ailing defense this weekend in Houston.

On the other side, you're going to have the Houston's deplorable offense, at least statistically, going up against the Colts' deplorable defense. And that's more than just statistically. So, I mean, we're seeing the missed tackles, the lack of pass rush. Obviously, we have our own set of injuries in the secondary. However, it's injuries to number two cornerbacks and number three cornerbacks, number two linebackers. So we got even further down in the depth chart. You know what I mean? The safeties appear to be healthy. So that's a good thing. I mean, they've been our,

one of our strong points in there. Now we can only hope that Hendry Anderson can not only rush the passer from the interior, but that he can somehow become an edge rusher too. And I would love to see Akeem Ayers get some more time, some more snaps, because he's been effective both rushing the passer and in coverage. I think the Colts need to swallow their pride a little bit there and get him on the field. I don't care if they're sitting Mathis for more plays or what. He's done nothing. I think it's overrated when you simply play a player because of their name. Okay. That doesn't do anybody any good. He looks terrible. It makes the team look terrible.

And the team doesn't care who's on the field as long as it's successful. Okay. Is Mathis going to come out of his slump? That was an article that was put out on Colts.com today or yesterday. I don't know that it's a slump. If age is a slump, then no, he can't come out of it. But if you're considering that his start to the season, his first five games is a slump, then I think that we're probably in trouble because if he's coming out of a slump, I mean, anything's coming out of that slump. One sack is a complete turnaround almost if you consider that. So then where does he go from there? I mean, in order to come out from a slump, he needs to have sacks in multiple consecutive games, and I don't see that happening. So I don't know.

I don't think he's going to come out of a slump. Could he get a sack? Yeah. Could he get one this week? Probably. Is it likely? I don't know. I don't think he's going to come out of a slump. Could he get a sack? Yeah. Could he get one this week? Probably. Is it likely? I don't know. I think that when you put a defense on the field against an offense that has a poor offensive line, yes, he could get a sack this weekend. Not only next week, but next week, the Colts travel to Tennessee. They've got one of the best lines in the league. Is he going to get a sack against one of the best lines in the league?

Then they play Kansas City. And then they play Green Bay, who has a good offensive line as well. Folks, I fail to see where he's going to have an opportunity to break out of a slump, so to speak. So if breaking out of a slump is one sack, then okay. Let's say that he broke out of a slump is one sack, then okay, let's say that he broke out of a slump. He simply isn't good right now. And in order for him to be good, he's got to do it for more than just one game. So I'm all hopeful. Nothing personal against Robert Mathis. I hope he does. And I hope he starts to play well. It's just one of those things. You just don't see it coming.

You don't see anything that he's doing that leads you to believe that he's going to be better than what he currently is. So let's hope for the best in that regard. But I think that we can all agree that we don't see that it's something that's likely to happen at any kind of a consistent rate. Now I'll kind of end with this and some closing thoughts here. I don't understand the question every single time the Colts play a number one receiver who's in the top eight to ten wide receivers of the league where they ask if Vontae Davis is going to shadow them throughout the game. Vontae Davis does not shadow receivers ever. Can we quit asking that question, please? He's not going to

follow a top receiver around. That's not what the Colts do. If they did it, it would be abnormal. I think that they've been asked that at least four to five times a year, every year he's been here. And the same answer applies and the same scheme and approach applies. They don't shadow him and they don't need to shadow him. I'm not saying that Hopkins isn't a fantastic receiver and that he couldn't dice up the Colts, but he can dice up on either side. It doesn't really make a difference who it is. They're just going to have to adjust their coverages to follow him or to shade to his side a little bit, which is naturally going to open up stuff for Fuller and some other guys.

But the Colts have to be aware of that. That's what a defensive coordinator does. That's why he gets paid a crap ton of money to do this and to put guys in the right position and to design their defense somewhat out of the Stone Ages. So let's hope they do that, and let's hope that people start asking questions that make sense. And the questions that can actually be given one or the other answer to, you know, not something we already know the answer to. But additionally,

let's talk about this giveaway, this Andrew Luck jersey. Here's what you're going to have to do. If you guys want to be eligible for the Andrew Luck jersey giveaway, you have to email lockedoncultspod at gmail.com and tell me why you want it. Really quick, doesn't have to be long, drawn out, two, three hundred word, anything, nothing like that. Tell me why you want it, why you're a Colts fan, why you love Andrew Luck, why you should be giving for the giveaway, any of that good stuff.

I don't care. It can be 50 words. I don't care. Tell me why you want the jersey. why you should be giving for the giveaway, any of that good stuff. I don't care. It can be 50 words. I don't care. Tell me why you want the jersey. That's what I want. And then we'll have more information next week on how we're going to go about doing the giveaway and how we're going to go about deciding who gets it. Again, email lockedoncoltspod at gmail.com.

Tell me why you want the jersey. You'll be entered automatically into the giveaway. So do that, and let's get that ball rolling so that we can get those up. We'll have a whole week before I give it away. I'll be giving it away next Friday, or I'll be announcing the winner. Let's put it that way, next Friday. So you guys have a whole week to get yourselves emailing Locked on Colts pod to be eligible for that giveaway. So get that in and I can't wait to give it out to somebody. So again, whether you are

buying or selling your home, get ahold of Mike Ernest. If you live in Indianapolis or in the Indianapolis area, Mike can help you with buying or selling your home. One of his specialties is first time home buyers. So if you're a new married couple, getting ready to have a kid, need a bigger house, get a hold of Mike. Mike's going to hook you up with a really nice place. He's going to get you exactly what you want. And you hear his guarantees. If he doesn't get your house for full market value, he'll pay you the difference. So be sure to get a hold of Mike Earnest of Century 21 Sheets at 317-285-9691. You can also get a hold of Mike at MikeEarnest.com. Also, be sure that you guys are subscribing to the podcast.

Follow Locked On Colts on Twitter, the Facebook page also. You can follow me at mdanley__nfl. Really appreciate, like I said, you guys interacting with me and interacting with each other. It's really nice to see. Keep that up. Make sure you guys share the show. Tell your friends who are Colts fans about it.

Tell your parents, whoever you want to tell, tell them. Let them know that there's an Indianapolis Colts podcast and they need to listen to it. Also, if you guys have questions that you want read on the show, you can either email me, you can say so on LockedOnColts on Twitter, or you can also message me on Facebook from the LockedOnColts Facebook page. I have no problem answering any questions to the best of my ability. I'm just here spouting off things that I think.

So I'd love to hear what you guys think and what your questions are and what concerns you about this team, if it's any different than what I think or So I'd love to hear what you guys think and what your questions are and what concerns you about this team. If it's any different than what I think or something like that, that is great. We don't need groupthink around here. We need original thought processes and that's what we hope for. So again, thank you all for joining me again. This is going to wrap up our week. And also, if you guys haven't listened to it yet, go back and check out that Gary Myers interview, the author of Brady versus Manning. If you guys haven't listened to it yet, go back and check out that Gary Myers interview, the author of Brady versus Manning. If you guys haven't listened to that yet, go listen to it. It's really good. It's just interesting listening to him. Trust me, it's well worth your

time for 45 minutes to go listen to that. If you guys have a long car ride ahead of you, or you're going on a walk with your dog or something like that, put that one on. It's good listening, I promise. But like I said, thank you again for joining me for yet another week of Locked On Colts. We will see you guys next week, hopefully talking about a Colts victory over the Houston Texans in Houston. If statistics from past games in Houston are any indicator, then Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton will be having monster games. Let's hope for that. And if you listened to the podcast from yesterday, then you know that I've got the Colts winning 24-20. Only one of their games have been decided by six points or more. So Colts 24-20, it's going to be

a close one. It's not going to be fun to watch probably at times, but Colts are going to come back to Indianapolis 500 and sitting atop the AFC South and ready to finish out the last three games before they're by and then come back nice and strong from that and the Colts are going to get on a roll. So let's hope for that. Good juju to the Colts for their game this weekend and I will talk to all of you on Monday right here on Locked on Colts. You are Locked on Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.