Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -11/08- Will Indianapolis Colts Take Similar Defensive Approach In The Future?

Episode Date: November 8, 2016

The #IndianapolisColts took a somewhat unusual approach defensively against the #Packers in Week 9 and it payed off. Will they implement a similar game plan in the future against pass-heavy quarterbacks, and can it be successful? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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'm your host, Matt Damleyley and we are here for you on November 8th as the Colts get ready to enjoy virtually two weeks off as they head into their week 10 bye week. And today we're going to discuss a little bit about how the Colts were successful in beating the Green Bay Packers. Now a lot of people are calling this the Colts' best win of the season. You know, theoretically speaking, I suppose it is, being that the Packers are considered to be a, you know, one of the top teams, but they're having a down year, obviously. So I guess that's subjective in how that's considered.

However, it was interesting to see how the Colts lined up defensively. We talked kind of about how yesterday about how the Colts approached it a little bit, but we didn't really step on the neck of it, so to speak, as to discuss exactly how the Colts went about it and what they actually did to implement their plan. Ultimately, when we look at snap counts or scheme-wise how they went about trying to shut down Aaron Rodgers in this offense, we knew that there was going to be some running game. There was going to be a lot of passes to the running backs, and ultimately the team only ran the ball 19 times. Green Bay. They did, like I said, we talked about yesterday how Ty Montgomery gashed them.

He only had seven carries for 53 yards. I mean, Frank Gore had 19 for 60, so he definitely was on top of it. And, you know, after that, Don Jackson and Aaron Rybk, combined for six total rushes, you know, for 20 yards. So, uh, those scrambles from Aaron Rogers boosted that rushing total quite a bit. So you can see that there's definitely a way to combat, uh, green Bay. And I think that that's putting them on wax, so to speak, for a lot of teams that are facing them. It's predictable and they've got probably need a lot of, you know, time to rethink their strategy going forward, because if they're only rushing the ball, you know, 13 times from guys who are lining up in the backfield, that's a pretty easy thing to do. And that's exactly what the Colts did. They actually took a smart approach to it. They figured out a way to

put themselves in the best possible position to beat them. And they did a good job. And you can see that some of you may have noticed that they lined up Darius Butler in a second safety role. Actually, depending on how you want to look at it, a third safety role. A lot of times, Clayton Gethers was used pretty much as a dime linebacker. He was effective, had seven total tackles. But the part that was probably, you know, what people didn't notice is even on the play where Darius Butler almost intercepted the touchdown pass to Jordy Nelson, I don't think that people realized that he was actually in the safety role in that position. You know, it's just, he's back there, he's a wide receiver. It must have been his assignment. But we see that they used Edwin Jackson as the, if you want to call it their base,

3-4 inside linebacker opposite DeQuell Jackson. But everybody else, I think he got 10 snaps. But everybody else, Josh McNary, that was about it as far as who they lined up opposite him. McNary only had a few snaps, none that really were memorable anyways. He only had a couple tackles total, and I think only had one solo tackle. So you can see that they only used him when they felt that there was a really good chance that they were going to run the ball, Edwin Jackson that is. That allowed the Colts to drop more guys into coverage, and if you noticed, a lot of times, very seldom, were they rushing

more than four guys. They were often rushing three and four guys, and they were leaving that fifth guy, whoever it was, whether it was a defensive end, outside linebacker, inside linebacker, kind of in a spiral up near the line of scrimmage, maybe a few yards deep, just to watch and keep track of Aaron Rodgers in case he'd get out of the pocket, that spy wasn't there. But oftentimes he was there, which did a couple things. It allowed Rodgers basically to just sit back there in an easy chair and watch the routes and take his sweet time, kind of gallivanting around, waiting for somebody to come open to throw the ball to. But the thing was, is that a lot of guys were not coming open very often because the Colts had six guys in coverage. So it worked both ways. The Colts didn't get a lot of opportunity to get after Rodgers, so to speak. But you know, he's a guy who excels when he's being blitzed. That takes another guy out of the secondary or out of coverage and allows him to kind of chew up a defense with only four or

five guys back in coverage. But this changed, this kind of turned the tides and allowed for things to roll into the Colts' favor. Naturally, their momentum took off when Todman took the touchdown back. And then when the Colts scored the second touchdown up 14 to three, you know, that almost guaranteed that Aaron Rodgers was going to be throwing the ball a vast majority of the rest of the evening. So the Colts were really smart in this and it was a good approach, although it didn't look like it, you know, you're watching the game and you're getting aggravated and you're seeing, oh my God, is anybody going to get after Aaron Rodgers? But the thought process was valid in that, you know, you'd rather have guys back there covering and making Rodgers make the hard decisions,

ultimately forcing him into bad decisions. He did end up throwing a pick to Butler. Butler almost had the first, like I said, to when Jordy Nelson was there for the touchdown pass, he almost had that if he had two good hands. I don't know how he caught the other one, to be honest with you, because he caught that with both hands. And with his hand injury, that had to have been a difficult catch to make, especially diving. But, you know, it happened. There wasn't a lot of mistakes made by Aaron Rodgers, but he was inaccurate because he had to have been getting frustrated throwing into defense with six guys back there in coverage consistently.

So the Colts ultimately gifted the Packers with two scores at the end of the game on their last two or three drives. And like I said to you yesterday, it took three minutes and 55 seconds, those two drives, those two scoring drives, and that's it. Because the Colts were sitting back all in coverage, letting all the underneath routes come open, and they did the difference in that and the rest of the game is that the Packers weren't concentrating on the underneath routes in the game for the most part the only I mean the one but the guy who got the most the majority of the attention was Richard Rogers the tight end who got 10 targets Jordy Nelson like I said he got 13

targets throughout the night, had seven catches for 94 yards, but a lot of that was in junk time. Devontae Adams, same thing, eight targets, four catches, bad accuracy, and a lot of good coverage. Ty Montgomery had three targets out of the backfield, and a couple other guys had some targets out of the backfield. But that was it. The Colts really did a good job. They knew that they were – look, the Colts are not going to be successful covering tight ends. That's just a fact. That's just not going to happen.

But Gethers did a pretty good job for the most part that night. On those ten targets, Rodgers only caught six. And I think aside from maybe a drop or so, Gathers was right in his grill, you know, majority of the time and had some really good coverage. In fact, Gathers had one pass defense, but I think he should have almost gotten credit for at least two. So this kind of makes you wonder going forward now that the Colts have two weeks to kind of try to write the game plan, so to speak, and try to put forth a real solid scheme around their future opponents here in the second half of the season.

Is this something that they're going to use more often? Butler in the secondary, you know, in the deep in the secondary as a safety, using Gethers, who does a pretty good job in coverage, but is still one of the Colts' best tacklers as far as solid tackling and wrapping up and being fundamental about it. And are they going to completely, for the most part, stay out of their base? And when they do, are they going to use Edwin Jackson as that opposite inside linebacker? Me, I hope that they do. But you just never know. But this is something that they need to, more or less,

the question is just that. Is this something that they're going to use in the future? And if they do, is it going to be successful? How are the Colts going to fare doing this? Are other offenses going to be different? Because we're going to see Ben Roethlisberger, who's going to run a similar style offense as far as trying to go downfield. Ben Roethlisberger is not one for dink and dunk.

Colts are going to end up seeing Derek Carr in the future. He's the same way. The Colts are going to be having to find innovative ways to take out heavy passing when the Colts struggle mightily in coverage in their secondary and especially out of the linebacker position for the most part. So it's something that's very interesting and it's really cool to think about and to see whether this is how things are going to go for the Colts in the future. Because, you know, we all know that the Colts have a dynamic, the possibility for a dynamic offense. We've seen it kind of, you know, get trashed a couple times

with some poor line play, some drops, you know, just the things that we see on a week-to-week basis. But we also know that with T.Y. Hilton, Moncrief, and Gore, who is extremely efficient in the backfield, as far as I'm concerned, especially when they're not telegraphing their play calling, he's effective in the backfield. I'm probably not going to come off this anytime soon until they at least try it, but they've got to put Todman in the backfield and at least give him a shot back there. Get the guy in third down situations. It's very simple.

A few plays a game, second and third down, second or third down, I guess I should say, and kind of rotate him and Turbin in. Why not do that? Why not have more diversity in the backfield when you're clearly not getting any production out of a guy like Ferguson? I just don't understand that. I hope that they do. I think that they will eventually. I just hope that it's successful when they do do it. But on the defensive side of the ball, this is what we have to wonder if we're going to see. The Colts, like I

said, are going to see some heavy passing guys, some guys who go downfield like Carr and Roethlisberger again. And, you know, are they going to wait to employ something similar in that aspect? Roethlisberger has absolutely murdered the Colts in the past. So this is something that the Colts have to find innovative ways to deal with these guys, because if they don't, it'll happen again. We'll just tune them up and it'll be all over with. With Carr, the Colts haven't played Carr, I don't believe, since he's been in the league. And there's a couple other guys. You know, the Colts are going to have to present a different look with Osweiler and Mariota

as well. The Colts are going to have to find a way to stop Jacksonville as awful as that sounds, but the Colts couldn't do it the first time. So the Colts are going to have to find something to where they can match up well with their receivers if they're healthy. So this is something that we should be looking forward to. We've got two weeks here virtually of no games and we've got a lot to talk about. We'll kind of go in to some different aspects of the Colts games here a few days out of this 10-day span. We'll dissect a little bit about what the Colts are talking about and kind of go from there and get completely 100% ready to see the Colts take out Tennessee.

You know, the AFC South is interesting to say the least right now, especially for us and probably not for anybody else on the outside because AFC South is not exactly the sexy division. But with the Colts being in second place and having that head-to-head win over the Titans, they get the edge with the identical record. But Houston is hot garbage right now, and the Colts can still take the division. The thing that I think a lot of people want to know is, are they even going to take the Colts seriously at all? Because Colts, whether they can win the division or not, are they any kind of a threat to win a game in the postseason?

We'll see. We'll see. Things can definitely turn back around. The Colts are heading in the direction of having the ability to do that. So it'll be interesting to see if they're able to pull that off and get a couple of big wins here in a row. If they do that, they're above 500, and the Colts could feasibly get to 9 or 10 wins. It's something that none of us thought was even possible just a couple short weeks ago, and I definitely am included in that. It looks like it's certainly a possibility at least. It'll be interesting to see.

It was interesting to see how the Colts played defense this week, kind of looking back at the film, and it worked for the most part. Like I said, it was boring, and it kind of looked like the Colts were just allowing Rodgers to sit back there and marinate for five, six, eight seconds at a time. But in the end, it was the heavy dose of extra guys and coverage that ended up being the turning point in the game for the most part for the Colts. It allowed them to maintain that lead. And then when the Colts went into the prevent stuff, then they allowed the Packers to come back. So it's good that they had the lead that they had. We all know that, but it would be nice to see the Colts be a little proactive and try to get some pressure on Rodgers and try to get

them to force into mistakes. But, you know, he was already having success downfield on them in that regard. So, you know, as much as I hate to say it, maybe at some point it wasn't the worst idea in the world. Ugh, felt dirty saying that. So we'll look forward to it. And I look forward to talking to you guys again the rest of the week, every day right here on Locked on Colts. And I just suggest that you guys subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher or anywhere else that you guys get the service.

Come be with me here every single day on Locked on Colts. I'm the only guy here talking with you five days a week, giving you anything that's rattling around in my head. And we can talk about this together. Also, if you guys want to leave me a message or whatever on Skype, you can call me on Skype. I don't have to answer. You can leave me a video message or just a voice message or whatever. It's M-A-M-I-D-A-N-2-2 if you guys want to do that. And I'll listen to your messages. And we may even play a couple on the air. So I look forward to talking to you guys

the rest of the week. Next week, getting ourselves ready for another divisional game. And, uh, thank you for being with me here on Tuesday. And, uh, I'll talk to you guys all on Wednesday, right here 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.