Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS - 10/5 - Colts Updated PFF Grades | Colts Drop Cromartie, Moore; Elevate Trevor Bates to 53-Man Roster

Episode Date: October 5, 2016

Discussing the #Colts elevating Trevor Bates to 53-man roster, let go of Antonio Cromartie and Sio Moore and what that means for the team. Matt goes through the Colts updated #PFF grades Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our healthy benefits and sign up at fepblue.org slash choose blue by December 11th. 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, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Dainley, and this is Locked On Colts for Wednesday, October 5th, and we are going to go through the Colts' updated pro football focus grades. We're going to talk about some roster moves that have just happened and what those could mean for the team and what we can expect in the future for the roster.

Well, as you all know today, the Colts let go of Antonio Cromartie, released or waived C.O. Moore. This is good news. We talked about this yesterday with Bob Kravitz, and I've talked about it a couple times, mainly on Monday when I was talking about what they need to do in order to get Trevor Bates up on the roster. Well, Trevor Bates did make it up to the roster.

They elevated him to the 53. And if you're not real familiar with Bates, he had a lot. I think he had a little bit of hype coming out, you know, and through camp and such, but most of it was pretty tempered because he's, you know, somewhat of an undersized guy. And that should kind of remind you of where Mathis came out of a little bit. He's 6'2", 247. He's been on the practice squad all year. Now, there were some things that I saw out of Bates that I really liked at training camp. I was down there, and I would talk to a couple of the guys that were around.

And one of the things that I mentioned, both on Twitter and kind of voiced to and from just in casual conversation with some other guys, is that his body type isn't the prototypical body type, but he is a natural pass rusher. And now they let go of the inside linebacker, C.O. Moore, and they have used him on the scout team a little bit at inside linebacker, and they've kind of flip-flopped back and forth of whether what they think he is inside or outside he is a pass rusher in my opinion uh could he play inside maybe but a lot of that's been done in practice not very much of it in fact none of it i don't not that i noticed anyways it was in camp so I can't really say as to what his attributes at that position would be, but he come out of a small school in Maine. He was the seventh round pick for the Colts.

The guy just has, I mean, he gets low, transfers the speed to power really well, I think. He's got, you know, he doesn't have a full arsenal of pass rush moves, but the way he comes off the snap and the way he can, he can bend the edge. He, he, I am excited to see him in action. How many snaps will he get? Uh, you know, I think that's, uh, probably going to be pretty limited in my opinion, but I'd love to see him in some situational, uh, pass rushing, pass rushing situations. And I think that he'll get probably a lot of the majority of his snaps on special teams at the moment, but you know, it'd be nice to see him rotate in and out. He and Kurt Majette and, uh, Eric Walden, who surprisingly have we,

as we've spoken about has been the majority of the majority of the Colts' pass rush to this point. So it would be nice to see him get in there and do it. I'm just glad to see him get a shot because at a minimum, we're going to see what he's got. Nobody's saying that he's going to be the second coming, and I'm certainly not. But I'm excited to see what he can do. I think he's got a lot to offer,

and I think he could be really good. I'm not going to say I think he can be great. I think he can be really good, though. Like I said, he's just got the knack for coming off the snap. He gets through. He's good taking the inside route on the tackle. He does a pretty good job of getting low when he goes outside on the edge of the tackle. So I'm pretty excited to see that. Ferguson didn't go anywhere. And it's not like I'm, you know, trying to get for, you know, I'm not filing out a petition to get rid of Ferguson. I just don't see the point in him being on the roster, to be honest with you. But outside of that, they got rid of Camardi, who was getting beaten up pretty bad, you know, in coverage. And he just wasn't, he wasn't really working out the further it got down. I think we talked about it, you know, in his first couple games, I thought he was solid.

He kind of gave, you know, the Colts another man, press man guy, which was what he plays. He was solid at, especially in his prime. And he was just not durable enough or going to last long enough. You know, he's just too old to go throughout a full season at that. And we've spoken about that. I don't remember what show it was on, but I remember talking about it. In addition to that, C.O. Moore, poor tackler. And the real thing that, you know, just

kind of aggravates me the most is, you know, and I've made my love affair, so to speak, known with Junior Sylvester, who the Colts cut before even final cuts were necessary. But C.O. Moore came into camp with the Colts brass basically saying, he's the guy. Everybody else is going to have to beat him out. Happened the same way with Nate Irving getting cut. Basically, everybody was coming in to battle with Moore for that spot opposite to Quayle Jackson. And I think that's stupid. You can't just hand the starting position to a guy who hasn't done anything yet to begin with. I mean, he only played a couple games, I think, last year, if that. And they just were way too high on him, not typically on everybody,

but it seems like this happens quite a bit. They get real high on somebody, and that's their guy, and he never proves that he should be their guy. And they end up ditching him. And credit to him for ditching him, to be quite honest with you. I'd rather do that than to see them continually drag this out and have Moore starting every game and just being awful and just stinking up the field.

But now at the moment, that inside linebacker, they didn't trade for anybody. They didn't bring up another inside linebacker per se. So it's basically McNary and Morrison. and Morrison's got a ton of flaws. So I don't know that this made the inside linebacking core any better right away, but I think at least they were willing to cut bait when they needed to. And bringing Bates in, you know, is he going to be another rotational guy, an inside linebacker?

He might. He might work out of both positions. I just don't know. I'm not real sure what they see him as, but I like what he can offer as a pass rush. So maybe they'll do a little more of a 4-3 front, you know, in some subs and get him on the edge a little bit and add another pass rushing option. Or they may just rush him out of the, you know, like I said, they may rush him out of the middle. It's just hard to say at this point, but that's interesting. So we have that to look forward to, and there is still a roster spot

available. And my opinion is that that's being left open for Arthur Jones. Now, Jones, you know, I've seen it before and I think I, you know, my, I'm drawing a blank right now, but I think the Colts have actually done this one time in the past where they've had a guy either on suspension or was waiting to come back from injured reserve and the week he was to come back they cut him whether I they're not going to probably do that with Arthur Jones. They still owe him over $5 million from his $16 million guaranteed in his contract that he signed in 2014. So I don't think that's going to happen. But man, Arthur Jones is old too. It just gets to the point where it's like, man, who's young on this team that can revitalize this defense and get this thing some energy. I just don't know.

I hope Arthur Jones can come back because when he's there, the run defense is solid. The run defense, aside from last week, has been decent. But, you know, man, he needs to stay healthy. He's nicked up, it seems like, every couple games. So hopefully he is healthy and comes to play, gets his head out of his butt, and doesn't have any more issues like he did that got him the four-game suspension to begin with,

and that the Colts' defense can start to grow a little bit. Hopefully some of these young guys can kind of start to take hold and make their impact felt. So my opinion is that's going to end up filling the 53-man roster. I would assume they'll do that tomorrow. Too many moves in one day leaves Earth Day with nothing to do on a Wednesday. So I think he'll probably do that on Wednesday. And then when everybody's coming back to practice, they'll get everybody squared away, and they'll have their first practice of the week.

So let's run through some of the pro football focus grades, and I'll kind of tell you guys where everybody's at at the moment. At quarterback, Luck is third in the league, according to pro football focus, at 87.4. That's pretty solid. And like I was talking to Bob last night, a lot of people were kind of downplaying Luck. Guys, he's been pressured on 41% of his snaps, dropbacks. That's quite a bit, you know.

He's still at a 62% completion rate. He's, you know, Luck in the past also happened this year as well. He used to run into some pressure himself. I haven't noticed that as much this year, to be quite honest with you. He seems to be stepping up, climbing the pocket, and just going forward, just trying to make sure that he's not getting a major loss of yards. Sometimes on those rollouts, though, or where they move the pocket, there's no climbing the pocket in those cases. Frank Gore is at running back.

Frank Gore is still in the early 30s here, 32nd in the league with a 62.6. I think his grade is slightly climbing a touch, but until he can get a good handful of carries in the second half, I don't see his rank. I certainly don't see his rank improving, uh, if at all, but I don't see his grade really rising much because he's just not getting a ton of, of snaps. He's not getting those breakout. You know, he did have like seven, I think it was 16 or 17 yard run last week, which was nice to see him kind of break open. Anything over 10, 12 yards is nice from a Colts running back. But you know, he's right there around Duke Johnson,

Fozzie Whitaker, and some of those guys. Nothing great, but he's definitely a piece. And the Colts are going to have to get themselves a little more leveled out, I suppose, in order for him to climb the grade. Grade doesn't really matter with him. We know what he's going to give the Colts and where he stands. But at the wide receivers, Hilton is at 12th with an 81.1. And if I'm not mistaken, without – I think Moncrief still is right around – yeah, Moncrief's still right at 34 with a 74.6. Obviously, he's not able to improve or drop or decline or anything like that. Then we have Dorsett.

He's at 84th with a 56.1. Not real sure what his issues are, whether he's just not getting enough balls himself or what, but they're not too keen on Dorsett at the time. When we move on to tight ends, we do still have Jack Doyle at 14th. He's got a solid grade, 71.6. That's nice. Jack Doyle continues to block well, continues to catch balls, whereas Dwayne Allen is struggling to catch. And to be fair, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet or not but I don't see that Dwayne Allen dropped that pass on fourth and one I mean maybe he should have reeled it in because he did have both hands on it but the defender had a hand on it too and

it's kind of a flip of a coin whatever you want to call it you call it but it uh I didn't see that as a major drop compared to some of his other drops that he's had recently. But his grade is a 52.1. I'm not impressed with Allen. We definitely still got the better tight end out of the group when they chose between he and Fleener. Fleener obviously is, for lack of a better word, is garbage. And people in New Orleans are seeing that firsthand right now. He's capable of breaking out. He's not going to, though. If he does, it'll only be for a game or so. It won't be anything substantial. Costanzo, despite giving up a couple sacks this Sunday, is 14th in the league amongst tackles with an 81.5.

And I haven't had a chance to rewatch the game yet, but I'm wondering when I go back, Bob yesterday was talking about how the right side of the line gave up a ton of pressures, and they probably did, but I'm anxious to see how long Luck was holding the ball in those situations. Not to blame it on Luck, but just to see what the situation was, whether the coverage was good, whether they were coverage pressures

or whether they were legit inside of three seconds and he was already being pressured. I just don't have a good recollection of that for some reason. So I'm kind of anxious to rewatch it, and I'll report that back to you guys later on in the week. So Costanzo's at 81.5. Nobody else is in contention for the Colts. They've moved in from good to hague and rights, and those guys have all had some bad games,

so they're not going to be anywhere near the top or, for that matter, anywhere near probably the midway point, uh, amongst the, uh, the other tackles, uh, now guard Muhor, a solid 10th at 82.6. I like that for him. I'm a little surprised that it's that high. I think he's had a good season thus far, but I'm a little, I'm just a little surprised that they have him graded out so highly. Denzel Good is at 66 with a 47.9, not good, but Good is still probably their third or fourth best lineman, or non-interior lineman.

I think he's still a good, a solid interior lineman, but I still think he's better suited for the tackle position. I just was really high on him last year, watching him fill in at the position, and I thought he did a fantastic job. I actually suggested that I thought he should start at right tackle this year, but he's doing a solid job at guard. He's not doing great. He's young. He's just a second-year guy. So we'll see more from him in the future. Ryan Kelly's dropped. He's at 23rd right now overall at a 71.6. I think that's probably due to his decrease in pass protection grade. But he's got a 75.5. I just think it was higher than that. But his run blocking grade is at a 53.3. That's shocking to me. I've always, I mean, he doesn't do a lot of pulling and getting downfield or anything like that, you know, at center. But I'm just kind of surprised that his is that low.

It kind of seemed like he does better in run than maybe than they have seen from him but at either at any resort I think he's been solid I don't think that we've had a center as good as he is and he's a rookie so I mean like uh you know we talked about yesterday at a minimum we got young guys Rashawn Melvin is still the highest rated corner even after two weeks of Vontae Davis Rash Rashawn's at a 58.5. He's given up some big plays. He's missed some tackles. We've talked about that. But man, he's been a solid pickup, guys. He's a nobody. And he probably will continue to be a nobody throughout the season. But he's filled in nicely. And especially the issues that we're going to have if Darius Butler comes back and struggles in the slot.

He's a nice depth piece for sure. Patrick Robinson and Vontae Davis are in the 90s. They're 92 and 93, Robinson at 92 with a 47.9. Vontae's right there, 47.8. So we kind of have some issues, it looks like. It just seemed like that defense when Vontae came back looked so good, and you didn't see anything. You didn't, you know, hear of any real big plays he's given up. I'm curious. It almost makes me want to go back and watch the last two games to see, like, what they're seeing that he's not doing well.

Maybe it's his run support that's killing him. He and Robinson are basically even in both categories, both in the coverage and in run support. So I don't know. And then Daryl Morris is right there just behind them at 97th. So we're not seeing a lot of great corner play from the Colts, especially from the guys who were supposed to be pretty good. Robinson came in, and a lot of people have been kind of crap-canoning because they brought him in instead of keeping Jarrell Freeman. And I think they could have done both, to be honest with you. Let's not assume that they only had to pick one.

I think that they were probably aiming more towards a guy like Josh Norman or somebody like that to come in and make an impact. I don't know if they made a play at him in the offseason, but nothing was ever publicized about it. So there was definitely no talk of him being one of the guys that they were talking about bringing in, that's for sure. Now, safety, we're still seeing some good play out of Mike Adams. Guys can downplay him all you want. He's still one of the best safeties in the league, as old as he is. 82.9, they've got him ranked 11th overall, and he's within, what, two, three, four of being in the top five he's within four points on his grade of being the top five just a side note kind of interesting Eric Weddle the old man is he's the top overall safety

in the league right now according to them at 90.9 just now you're not going to see probably anybody for the Colts ranked you know in the top 100 uh other than DeQuel Jackson simply because of his run support but DeQuel is ranked at top and uh at right at 50 with a 50.8 grade and Josh McNary is basically tied with 50 other guys at 80 with a 46.1 overall grade so you know he just hasn't had enough snaps for them to grade him accurately and that, and they even show that on there. Yeah. Interior D line, the Colts basically have Kendall Langford at a 49.5 and outside of that, Zach Kerr is at 91. You know, we didn't see much of him this past week. He was getting through a little bit. In fact, he did have a sack,

but that was basically the only play I think that we saw. And to put it into context here, Ricky Jean Francois, who was kind of blah while he was in Indianapolis, he's got the same grade as Zach Kerr, which is kind of cruddy when you think about it. But Hassan Ridgway is making his way up. He's at the same grade as Zach Kerr, which is kind of cruddy when you think about it. But Hassan Ridgway is making his way up. He's at 100th. That's not like he's not topping out.

He's set for a huge thing. But Hassan Ridgway is complementing the rest of these guys pretty well on limited snaps. So I'm excited to see his future. I don't think he's going to have a significant impact this season. But his future is bright, and I think that can going to have a significant impact this season, but his future is bright, and I think that can be said for a lot of the guys on the roster. Now here's where we get into the trash, so to speak. Mathis is at 61st among edge rushers with a 50.1 grade, which surprises me, and even still, we have Eric Weldon at at 84 who's got more sacks than anybody on the team so

I'm not sure how they're grading I would assume it's because he doesn't have a ton of pass rushing snaps but you've got to figure that if he's getting home as much as he is outside of these guys the rest of the guys on the roster it's kind of silly for me to think that he's not out playing Robert Mathis. That's all we got for that. And the Colts, you know, they're going to have the Bears come to town this week. And the Bears are an awful team. It looks like they're going to be playing, defending Brian Hoyer. Is that better than Jay Cutler for the Colts? I don't know. I think Hoyer's probably a little less dubious with the ball, so to speak. I think that if Cutler was coming back, they both would have the big play ability to deal with from Cutler, but they would also be dealing with

a higher opportunity for turnovers, I think. Hoyer's a guy who's kind of killed the Colts in the past. He's at least played solid against them, you know, and that was the issue over the past few years. We've had replacement-level quarterbacks just eat us alive, and, you know, it's time for the Colts to dominate another crappy quarterback, to be quite honest with you. And the Bears are an awful team right now. The Colts aren't good, but the Bears are awful. So, I mean, the Colts at least have the potential to have really good games and look good. I'm not sure that the Bears do. They did win this past week over the Lions, but the Lions are severely depleted in injuries too. The Colts, on the other hand, have just gotten a lot of guys back. It'll be interesting to see Robinson after,

you know, into his second week back, Vontae in his third, Henry in his third. You know, it'd be nice to see some of these guys kind of get home and really have a good, nice breakout game to kind of release the pressure on the organization, I think. Again, you know, just as Bob said yesterday when we heard from him, he doesn't expect anything like that to happen. I tend to agree with that, not so much that I wouldn't like to see something happen. I just don't think there's a better option at this time at head coach, floating around anywhere, certainly not in the building already. So I don't know that that's going to do anything to help. I think we're just going to have to deal with it

and hope that the team plays better. But I wouldn't say that one side or the other is necessarily going to keep Pagano's job safe in the process. You know, did the Colts get to the AFC championship this year? Then I'm telling you right now, Pagano's going nowhere. I don't care how crappy they look off and on during the season. And nobody's trying to push him out the door. I mean, well, I take that back.

A lot of people are trying to push him out the door. But we have to remember something. This team execution on the players is number one, okay? If scheme is the major issue, it plays a lot into the Colts' hands. If preparedness, which is an issue with Pagano, there's no mistaking it, then that's a coaching issue. I think a situation, let's say like Antonio Morrison, I think his issues are his own, but it's on the coaching staff, especially when you have a linebackers coach and your defensive coordinator is a former linebackers coach. That shouldn't be happening. There shouldn't be a guy who is just that absent-minded in your linebacking core, regardless of how talented he could be.

He takes terrible lines to the ball. He doesn't plug holes. He's a good, I mean, he's a mean guy, tackler, so to speak, whatever you want to call it. But he misses his fair share, I mean, just as much. You know, I think they just got sick and tired. You know, C.O. Moore was leading the team in tackles, but I think he missed as many tackles as he actually completed. So, but just to get back to the issue at coaching, very little is

going to happen. We just have to hope that some of these players can execute better because ultimately in the game, it is on them. If they aren't good enough to do it, then it's a talent slash execution issue. And we have to, you know, we're not going to pick it outside of Lucas Oil Stadium about the players, you know, not playing well enough, but ultimately we are going to have to hold them accountable, as opposed to holding everything over the head of Chuck Pagano every time the team plays like crap. They have to come out and get those guys prepared. They have to have a better game plan. They've got to get, you know, the Colts into winning situations, for example, with the hurry up. And I think they will, but they're not going to be able to do it for 60 minutes in a game,

guys. I mean, they're not going to come out and hurry up and run it the entire game. They're just not going to. But that definitely leads to better situations for them. Like I said, the defense doesn't have time to get real exotic in their looks. They don't have enough opportunity to disguise a whole lot when the Colts offense is in the hurry up. And the Colts will be successful in that. But the Colts also have to be successful in, it's kind of like having the basketball when you have a team that is constantly running a secondary fast break, and they are so good on the break. But you also have to be a good team in half court offense. Okay. You're not going to win games. If you can't do both, the Colts have to do both that. We know that they're good in the hurry up,

but they also have to slow it down. They've got to have a solid running game to compliment luck, to keep the defense honest. And they've got to have, you know, the time to get themselves in and out of a huddle and to be able to milk the clock when it's necessary and to be effective in that game. So they're going to have to learn to do both. They will. And if we're looking at the next several games for the Colts, we, you know, the Colts have the Bears this week. They'll go at the Texans and at the Titans the following two weeks, then Chiefs and Packers. So they've got three games here that they can win and conceivably be 4-3 by week eight. Their game against the Chiefs is going to be in Lucas Oil Stadium,

so they're going to have that home field advantage against them, which they'll definitely need, and it's a 1 o'clock game. I think that benefits the Colts. But then they're going to go to the Packers at 425 the week before their bye week. Folks, if they can win those last two games, I think the Colts are going to win the next three. I mean, and you know, the Texans will be difficult on defense. Their offense is explosive, but very, very inconsistent. So it's not like that's going to be a blowout nor, let me put it this way. It's not like that should be a blowout. The Texans are the best, probably the top roster or two in the division, pure talent-wise. But they're struggling too. I mean, they are very inconsistent, very

sporadic. So the Colts have to win these next three against the Bears, Texans, and Titans. And then they're going to have the next two hard games, and then they'll come back following their bye week, and they'll be against the Titans again. So realistically, the Colts could end up being 7-3 in their first week past the bye week. How realistic is that? I don't know.

Green Bay and Kansas City are both pretty good teams, and the Colts have proven to be extremely inconsistent just as well. So where they're going to land, I don't know. But the Colts have a real chance here to get to 500 and surpass that. And we'll see what they can do. If you haven't yet, go to iTunes and give the show a five-star rating and a good review. I would appreciate it. We will be friends forever if you do. And again, thank you again for listening and sharing the show. You guys are great. I see a lot of people sharing it, getting great comments from you guys. I haven't had any negative at this moment. Probably shouldn't have opened my mouth about that, but it's been good to converse with a lot of you guys. I'm glad that you guys are

listening to the show. If nothing else, it makes for great conversation. So whether you agree or disagree with my take on it, but that's what we're doing here. So we're going to have, being that I'm getting a little more of that, we're going to have another show here in the next few days with listener questions. So as many of you that are listening to this, keep this in mind. Follow the Locked On Colts on Twitter. Go like the Locked On Colts Facebook page. And you can follow me, M. Dainley NFL, and Matt Dainley on Facebook as well. But a good number of you are listening.

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