Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -10/24- Indianapolis Colts Improve to 3-4 Despite Injuries; Luck Quietly Having MVP Worthy Season

Episode Date: October 24, 2016

Injuries, penalties and drops couldn't stop the #IndianapolisColts from maintaining their dominance over the #Titans in Week 7. #Luck is dominating in spite of roster shortcomings, the defense looked formidable and Jack Doyle is one of the best tight ends in the league. TY Hilton notches his third 130+ yard game of the season. 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. No, I'm not for sale. You are lockeded On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I am your host, Matt Dainley, and our Colts have defied the odds and have gotten themselves up to three and four on the season and despite the injuries despite some really really costly penalties the Colts ended up pulling one out down in Tennessee to the tune of 34 of 26 well I'll tell you what guys we we really saw the guys I, seven, seven, eight guys that were inactive that are somewhat

consistent contributors to the offense, not to mention our best lineman was out, a couple of our better receivers, the Colts ended up just, just plugging away, man, they did a good job today. It was really nice to see this win. They really looked good all the way around the offensive line for the most part, did a really good job protecting Luck. Luck went downfield like crazy. I think it was 9.1 yards per attempt, and there for a while it was over 11 throughout the majority of the game. The defense came up big in a couple of big opportunities, most notably my guy T.Y. McGill, the strip sack on Mariota that Robert Mathis ended up running back for a touchdown.

That was huge, obviously. The Colts had, they were starting that possession on defense there against the Titans, where the Titans had scored 10 points on their past two possessions. So the Colts were getting them while they were getting hot. The Colts ended up just stymieing them right away. It was very reminiscent of the way that the Broncos actually beat the Colts on the very first play of the drive down just four points or, you know, in the Colts case it was six, but the Colts were up four, Titans take over, they get down, drop back, strip sack, return for a touchdown. It was really,

that's exactly what it reminded me of actually at the time. So all in all, we saw a pretty good game from our Colts. It was nice to see them put for the majority of the time. I think they put pretty close to four quarters together. But let's kind of dig in just a little bit. You know, right off the jump, the Titans put a 10 play drive together and go up six nothing on a missed extra point, which was nice uh but they put 10 plays together then the Colts come back and put their own 10 play drive together and the Colts are up seven six looked like you know this is either going to be a a shootout or the Colts you know we're going to get lucky and keep this maybe closer than a lot of people a lot of people

expected it to be uh but it kind of it kind of pooped out a little bit after that. Each team went three and out. And most notably, let me tell you, another guy that I've talked up, Akeem Ayers, was a big part in that incompletion there that took the Titans off the field on their second possession. Good coverage. Murray had his back to the ball, so it wasn't like he was going to catch it. But Ayers tried fighting through Murray to go get the ball, and he couldn't. So we almost had the pass been slightly off target and hadn't hit Murray right in his back. Ayers may have been able to pick that off even.

But the Colts reciprocated and went on their own three and out, like I said. And then the Titans put roughly a four-minute drive together, but the Colts ended up forcing them off the field. And the Colts come right back, and then the Titans put roughly a four-minute drive together, but the Colts ended up forcing them off the field, and the Colts come right back, and in under three minutes, get themselves on the board again. Luck hits T.Y. for that 37-yard touchdown pass. Absolutely beautiful pass. Luck has been phenomenal, and we'll get to that in a minute, but right in the basket, perfect catch. He had to really work for the catch too, because the safety there, or the corner, had his hands on the ball at the same time. T.Y. hauled it in all

the way to the ground. Really nice. Luck had just abused that free safety, catching him looking in the backfield where he was supposed to be deep man, and it was really a beautiful play. Only took six plays for them to put that one back on the board. And then the Colts come right back, and something we haven't seen from Pagano in a while was a little bit of little risk involved with the onside kick. It was perfect squibish onside kick, gets the Titans off guard. Colts recover. Colts go down. They don't score a touchdown, but they do get themselves in position to put three more up on the board with Vinatieri. Vinatieri had a big game too, obviously a record

setting day. So that's nice for him. Just a lot of guys really played pretty well today. I mean, and I mentioned that Muhort wasn't in, but the guy who was there, Joe Haig, really stepped up to the plate. So he played really well, good for the most part, played well at the right guard spot. And Wright's played pretty well other than some costly penalties that resulted from him. So other than that, the offensive line played pretty well. Luck only got sacked twice for a total of 12 yards. He was pressured a little bit, you know, probably a good, a solid handful of times, but Luck, Luck had good pockets to escape from, if that makes any sense. His line, though they had gotten eventually beat, they had pushed them out wide enough or they had crashed them down inside enough to where Luck could escape one way or the other.

And that was nice. Even though he was getting away from pressure, we didn't really see him get hit much after the throw. So that was telling too. Yes, it was a pressure, or yes, there were some pressures, but a lot of it was he escaped from easily for the most part, other than the couple sacks that he took. But after this field goal that Vinatieri kicked to put the Colts up 17 to 6. We saw Mariota get a little rattled. He had to double clutch on this pass where Johnson, I don't know why the commentators were complaining about him not letting the ball go immediately because Johnson had his back to him. That's why he double clutched. And by the time Johnson turned around, he had no other choice but to throw it. It

was a terrible pass. But, you know but the bad pass was on Mariota, but the fact that he double clutched, he had no choice because Johnson wasn't ready. It took him an hour and a half to get out of his break. So the Colts had him rattled a little bit. The Colts ended up getting forced off the field towards the end. This was one of the possessions that Luck got sacked by Derek Morgan. And then that little pass to Robert Turbin almost got the first down. I think he was a yard or two short, but the Colts ended up punting out. And then when we get into the two-minute warning here where the Titans were on their last drive,

they ended up capping it off with DeMarco Murray touchdown from two yards out. And this was on the pass interference call on TJ Green. That was awful coverage I mean he jumps in the air has him probably a good I mean it seemed like a full second when you watch it in an instant replay but he just was in no position to make a play on that ball and I think he just figured I got to get in the way somehow he wasn't looking for the ball and he certainly didn't make a play on a legit play you know i guess whatever you want to say but at halftime uh the colts were still up 17 13 luck had been was 13 of 19 for 210 and two

scores gore 8 for 34 yards hilton 4 for 90 yards uh swoop had 2 for 51 yards he was really nice you know and uh even though doyle had had a couple catches at this point, he hadn't really made his impact quite yet. At the half, the Colts had only given up one sack. They had no negative yardage runs to that point in the game, which was nice. And there was some dispute, I guess, if you want to call it that, over the Colts kneeling with 40-plus seconds to go in the half, the Colts were going to get the ball back in the second half. So that kind of, to me, that kind of might be the mitigator. I understand that you guys want Luck to go for it,

but you're up four points and you're getting the ball back in the second half. Can you imagine what you would say if Luck got too aggressive, threw the ball on his side of the field, and they got an interception inside the 50-yard line, giving the Titans 35 seconds or whatever it ended up being afterwards, less than 20 yards to go to get themselves a field goal, and they'd only be down one. And that's best case scenario probably so I'm not upset about it the Colts are getting the ball back to me it's a smart play if you're down in that position if the Colts are down four then I say go for it because you've got you've got to come back you know maybe uh even still I probably wouldn't be upset about it so I don't

want to I just think it's too nitpicky I think that as bad as Pagano is, I think that every time he does something that we want something else to come out of the, out of the end result that we nitpick the hell out of it and then expect, you know, him to take all the chances in the world just because he's not a chance taking coach for the most part. Like I usually say, reel yourself in just a little bit on that. If nothing negative came out of it, we could say, oh, good, he's aggressive. If nothing good came out of it, but they attempted to, you'd like that he was aggressive. If they turn the ball over there inside of their own territory, you hate it and you complain about that. Now that he kneeled it, he didn't do anything, you're complaining about that. So just in general, it's not that big of a play. I mean, it's not that big of a play.

Okay. I mean, it's not that big of a deal. Let's not a molehill into a mountain. That's, you know, just too much probably. And real quick, and before we get into the second half, let's talk about my man, Mike Ernest. Are you in the market to sell your home? If you are, call Mike Ernest at Century 21 Sheets at 317-285-9691. Mike's an expert in the greater Indianapolis area in the market and has helped people just like you achieve their real estate goals. As a professional realtor, Mike will not only help you navigate the real estate market, but he guarantees he will sell your house for full market value or he'll pay you the difference. If you live in Indianapolis or any of the surrounding communities, you probably know that the greater Indianapolis area is currently experiencing a seller's market. You need a real estate professional on your team who will get you every dollar of what your home is worth.

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Whether you live in Indy or any of the surrounding communities, Mike and his team can help. Call Mike Earnest at 317-285-9691. Find him on the web at MikeEarnest.com. Again, that's 317-285-9691 or MikeEarnest.com. Now, if you would like to advertise on Locked On Colts, hit me up on the email at LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com, and we can get that in the works. That'd be great. So now let's jump into the second half. Now, we've spoken a magnitude of times about how the Colts are with their third

down conversion rate and how successful they are on first and second down. Now the Colts and the Titans both had 26 first downs for the game. The Colts were four of 10 on third down. Not great, but again, here's the kicker. The Colts had 22 first downs on first and second down. That is phenomenal. Okay. I mean, it was really good. They were getting a ton of big yardage chunk plays on first and second down a lot of them were first downs it was really great uh to see them really move the ball in those early downs so that i mean mixed with the protection that was given the fact that ty was getting open deep the colts with I said, there was no door set there to kind of take some of the pressure off of Hilton.

Chester Rogers stepped up. Devin Street kind of looked bleh at first, but he made a big play. Again, Doyle was phenomenal. And this second half is where Doyle really came out to play. And the Colts' first drive, the Colts had yet another drop, which was an issue in this game. I think I counted at least five. You could probably make a case for another couple, but they were just off target,

a little too much where the guy either had to go too high for the ball or it was behind him or something like that. There weren't very many of those, but it was debatable. We'll call it that. The play where Hilton was open and Luck threw the ball behind him, ultimately resulting in an incompletion there that T.Y. probably would have been able to get into the end zone on had he let him. Call that a drop? I'm not really going to call that a drop.

It was kind of a bad throw. T.Y. had his hands on it and such. But, I mean, you can, like I said, flip a coin. But any way you look at it, five drops in a game is a big problem. On their first drive, Street ended up dropping one on third down. Huge, huge play. I mean, it was only what, like third and three maybe on that. So I mean, you got to have those. You got to have those to keep those drives going. On the Titans' next possession, the Colts did stymie them again and ended up forcing an incompletion to Matthews. Really good coverage by Robinson in that case.

It wasn't a very good pass. It was kind of high by Mariota. But either way, it was nice to see Robinson in there mixing it up a little bit better and actually being in the play. So that was nice. Now the Colts' following possession, they put together an 11-play drive, but on third down, luck got sacked, and they had to settle for a field goal attempt again,

which ended up putting them up 20-13. Got a nice little cushion here. Then you get to the next Titans drive, where we have Josh McNary negating a Patrick Robinson interception because of a stupid hit on Delaney Walker. Absolutely no reason for that. I mean, just watch that in slow motion and try to figure out what is going through McNary's head right there. I mean, does he assume because the ball, I don't know, but he had his head down, so it's not like he could have seen the path of the ball anyways. I mean, legit, the ball did come in their direction well over Delaney Walker's head so

much that Delaney Walker stopped looking for the ball and then he plugs him right in the gut and knocks him down gets a penalty where Patrick Robinson gets the Colts first pick of the game and ends up not counting because of McNary now the Titans were starting to roll a little bit here and I think they put together uh 12 or 13 play drive here. And then it ended up getting down to the wire where Mariota throws a touchdown to Walker, and McNary got completely schooled out of his boots and was not in the play at all. So this is something typical we keep seeing, McNary being out of position, McNary being stupid. Can we stop talking about him as if he's a legit coverage linebacker, please?

I mean, because he's not, and I keep hearing that from people, and it's just making me out of my mind because he's terrible in coverage. He's showed solid a couple times. He's just nothing consistent at all, I guess. So terrible might be a little strong, but he's just not very good. We'll put it that way. Colts ended up punting on their next one. The Titans ended up getting a field goal out of their next one. So it's now 23 to 20. The Colts with six minutes to go, take the ball and get it all the way down inside the two minute warning on this possession. It's really nice to see

them put all of it together. But then we get to a play where a penalty plays another part in taking some points off the board luck steps back looks to his right one time turns to his left and throws a slant right to ty hilton with no other defense there he beats his guy man up and ty gets in the end zone however an illegal shift which was a late movement by gore but the you could see, I mean, I'm not going to place it completely on Gore because the receivers out to the right couldn't figure out where they wanted to line up either. So, I mean, you can blame it on several people, but anyway, you look at it, it's a bad, costly penalty at the wrong time that costs the

Colts some points at that moment. Now, Colts come back. Doyle draws an interference penalty. The next play is incomplete to Swoop. Then Gore loses a couple. So Colts are at third and long here. Then Luck hits Street for a first down. Then Street after he catches the ball for a first, really nice catch by the way. But then he spikes the ball. Nothing hard, nothing that big a deal. And in fact, when he throws the ball down, it bounces directly to a referee and he catches it. So aside from the fact that it has to be a delay of game penalty because of him spiking the ball, that in itself is the delay of game penalty, which is silly, considering that when these guys get tackled,

a lot of times they just carry the stinking football around with them for five minutes before giving it to a referee anyways. But anyways, it bounces directly to a referee. I thought that might save him, but the referee who caught the ball and started to put it down threw the flag. So anyways, after that, you get a big run by Gore. Turban gets stacked up, then the two-minute warning. And then again, on this drive, penalties just galore.

Wrights gets a false start penalty on a third and goal inside the three-yard line, okay? Then we get the great catch from Doyle for an eight-yard touchdown from Luck. It was a fantastic pass from Luck that was actually behind Doyle. But Doyle, I mean, but it was the pass that had to be made to the open spot, or it's going to get tipped up or possibly intercepted. Doyle does a fantastic job, and he does this a lot, and he doesn't get a lot of credit for it. He is super reliable. He's caught 29 of his 33 targets this year. That's phenomenal. I'm telling you right now, that's darn near tops in the league, but he makes a great adjustment to the ball, turns his body completely back around, catches it over his opposite shoulder of the direction

that he's going, and pulls it down. The Colts go up 27-23, and it didn't stop there. Then the very next possession, the Titans are taking the ball with a buck 54 to go. T.Y. McGill, my man, who's caused internal pressure all day long, gets in there, swipes at the ball, knocks it out of Mariota's hands. The ball ultimately bounces twice or three times maybe, but bounces right up into Mathis' hands, and Mathis returns the fumble for a touchdown. The Colts are up 34-23. Now the Colts are ready to celebrate because there's a minute 47 left,

and the Titans, I mean, legit, the Titans should not, I mean, my God, that would be awful, but we've seen it happen, right? I mean, for the most part with two 47 to go, well, there's one minute left, one minute less on the clock than there was last week in Houston. So the Colts come back to defense. The Titans go down to Sharp, another to Sharp, down to Walker. First downs, you know, this is where a lot of the Titans' first downs came from on these last couple drives of theirs. The Titans end up having to settle for a field goal, and then they try the onside kick. Colts recover, game over. I mean, I can't tell you guys how fantastic it was for Doyle because a lot of the national coverage on Doyle was kind of like,

oh, he's the, I don't know, he's, you know, the second best tight end or he's, you know, the cute story or something like that coming out of Indianapolis. I don't get that. But, you know, obviously it's kind of like when you hear him talk about one story, whether it's an offensive lineman story or something else, you constantly are hearing national guys just plug the narrative part of the story. Like I said, 29 of 33 targets is pretty amazing for any receiving position. And Doyle caught nine balls for 78 yards and a score. And he did have one of the drops that was in the end zone. But, I mean, I kind of want to give him a pass for it because he's so reliable.

But that was an absolute cannon shot from Luck in the first half where he could have come down with it. It would have been nice. But, I mean, he's human. He can't catch every single ball. So I'm going to let that drop from Doyle go because he doesn't drop anything. Okay? It was a cannon shot yes

he could have caught it it would have been amazing catch though had he caught it am I wrong with that you guys agree nod your heads because you agree also Eric Swoop again had a nice game two catches for 51 yards TY was fantastic seven for 133 and a score Frank Gore ended up catching one I really liked that play actually where Luck had to throw the open side of the field of like two or three linemen. Gore comes down with it and gets inside. And I mean, guys, this was a fantastic win for everybody involved. OK, you've got to appreciate that they came back. They were aggressive for the most part in their play calling. They were good play calls. They were play calls that were executed. The Colts did a good job of staying active in the first half, getting some points on the board. They took a little bit of a lull in the second half, kind of like they did last week, but came back and got some points. We got our first defensive

points that I can remember of the season. Another couple sacks, you know, three sacks on the night. That's, I mean, what, they had five, maybe six previous to that. So they increased their sack total by 50% in one game. It was, I felt throughout the game that despite the points not really adding up a whole lot, that it was one of the most dominant offensive performances that I had seen them have this year other than probably the first half and most of the third quarter against Houston. So I was really surprised, guys. You guys know that I picked them to lose this game because of the injuries and that their

offensive line, their defensive front seven were significantly more talented than what we were going to put on the field, I thought. But everybody who stepped up in a Colts uniform on Sunday truly came to play. I don't know what else I can say about it. I was somewhat dumbfounded a little bit at some times that the Colts were playing so well. Chester Rogers has legit become a real target. I don't think he should be doing returns anymore, but did you notice who wasn't in the lineup today? I don't know if he got a single snap.

Josh Ferguson. I think the Colts guys are starting to come around. Akeem Ayer has gotten more play today. He got a sack. He had maybe not a pass breakup, but he was darn close to getting one. His hands were in there as the play was coming through. T.Y. McGill, another guy that I've talked up considerably, he played awesome. Obviously having one of the most pivotal plays in the game, causing internal pressure the entire game. Eric Walden had another sack. I mean, there were a ton of contributors today. And can anybody tell me on the play that we all thought by watching it that they were somehow calling a pass interference on Vontae Davis, but they called it on TJ Green?

He wasn't on the field? Can somebody show me on that field? If you have All-22, go check that out. I've looked at it. It was not the All-22 version, but I have looked at it from the TV angle and several different angles, and I cannot find a single Colts defender interfering with any Titans receiver in that play at all. It was perfect coverage from Vontae Davis, and everybody else was maybe three to four yards away from their assignment.

I have no idea why they threw that flag. There were some questionable calls. I thought some of the penalties were kind of weak sometimes, but all in all, the Colts had 12 penalties for 131 yards. They can't afford to have anywhere near that. The Colts honestly need to be under five penalties a game, especially with the roster that they have together and everything else. They just absolutely have to come prepared better than that. And you can call that coaching if you want, but guys that is all about paying attention to what's going on in the field

for those players. That is on the players, especially the false start penalties and some of the dumb stuff. That is, I mean, the very first one, my man Akeem Ayers gets a penalty on the first or second play of the game hitting DeMarco Murray late out of bounds. I didn't care because Ayers is the only one that's hitting anybody on this defense to that point. That was one penalty, but then 11 more stacked up on there,

and it just, 131 yards is a lot of yardage off penalties, guys, too. So I think if you're a Colts fan anywhere that you're happy with this, there's nothing to complain about Pagano on this one. There's nothing we can possibly complain about Grigson about this one. The play calling was good. The execution was even better. We've seen them put guys on the field who deserve to be there, and they took a guy off who doesn't deserve to be there. So I'm very pleased with the Colts' performance on Sunday, and I think that you all should be too. Also, Paolo, who won the Luck jersey giveaway, you need to contact me, you need to email me.

I want to make sure that we have a listener getting this jersey, and you'll have until Friday to contact me with your address so that I can send you the jersey. And if not, we're going to redraw for the jersey. So everybody, I hope that you guys are happy with this win. I know I was. This was a great win, Colts are 3-4. Now the Colts will host the Chiefs this coming Sunday,

and I will be at the game, and I hope to see a lot of you guys there too. So if you're there, you can look for me, and I'll be with my son. We'll be in the 100 area there behind the 100 seats, and we'll be waiting to talk with a few of you guys. If you're going to be there before the game, we'll probably head down to our seats with about 10 minutes to go until the game, but we'll be there plenty early and see if we can't get a couple of you guys to chit-chat or whatever and hang out a little bit before the game. So Colts win, Jaguars lose, Titans lose, and the Texans play tonight against the Denver Broncos, and we are going to hope for another loss of them.

The Colts are right back in it. We didn't have to worry about the talk today about they lost three straight to the division and is Pagano going to be fired. We didn't have to have that talk. I'm happy about it. So the good thing is that the Colts are moving forward. They looked fantastic on offense. The defense came to play, made some big plays, did a good job overall. Some guys who had been struggling this year made some plays. Some guys who hadn't had many chances to make plays made plays. It was just overall a great game.

I hope that you guys all enjoyed it. I loved watching it. It was one of the better games of the year, in my opinion, for them. So with that, we're going to close up shop, and I will talk to you all on Tuesday on Locked on Colts. You are Locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked on Podcast Network,

your team every day. We'll see you next time.