Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -11/09- Indianapolis Colts Brass Very Upbeat After Week 9 Win; Updated PFF Grades

Episode Date: November 9, 2016

Rob Chudzinski was very pleased with the #IndianapolisColts offensive line in Week 9 win over Packers, praised Denzelle Good and others. Brian Shottenheimer getting some love from Chud, and the Colts updated Pro Football Focus grades heading into the bye week. 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'm your host, Matt Dainley, and we are here on November 9th on Wednesday and again the Colts are on their 10 day off uh span not so much 10 days anymore but they are on the bi-week and uh we're going to keep these shows uh kind of uh short until probably next week around the 15 to 20 minute range try to keep you guys get you guys some all little nuggets of information and stuff uh try to do similar stuff that we usually get to through the course of a week, but just kind of

give it to you in maybe a little shorter span and keep your ears fresh for next week. Real quick, I'll go through a couple things that were brought up today at media availability. Basically, it was Chudzinski talking about how impressive he thought that the offense was throughout the game this past week. He kind of talked about how the offensive line played pretty well. Costanzo, he thought, played well. He said Denzel Good probably had his best game of the year. And just a multitude of things as far as they kind of spoke on play calling and how they were able to do a couple things that they may or may not have seen yet. But Chudzinski didn't seem to think that his play calling had changed much.

And I don't necessarily know whether it had or not. It didn't look all that different to me either. It just looked like they were having some success in what they were doing. And he pointed to that too. Execution is everything, and ultimately it is, but it starts up front. And the offensive line had a pretty good game. They weren't too bad. Luck got sacked in a couple of bad spots, but overall it was pretty good.

Something else he spoke on was his play calling there towards the end of the game and how they, you know, basically the question had something to do with them. How do you combat the mix of aggression and conservation, so to speak, to try to get the first down, but try not to stop the clock and all that good stuff. But I think I said to you guys the other day, I was pretty impressed with the fact that he was aggressive and allowed Luck to throw the ball on first day and second down on the second drive. So that was nice to see that they kind of tried to go for the jugular, so to speak, because the defense was playing the way they were.

They're towards the end, backing off, allowing everything underneath and allowing Andrew Rodgers to scoot his team down the field. He also talked about Brian Schottenheimer. The question was brought up, and I'm glad that it was. He basically was just singing his praises, how smart he is and how detail-oriented he is, especially with fundamentals for Andrew. And he also believes that Andrew's benefited greatly from Schottenheimer's tutelage throughout the year. And basically that Schottenheimer has been aggressive with Andrew and that, you know, listen, check this out. This is what we want from you. This is what you have to do.

And Andrew is apparently is extremely coachable and was good. And I'll be honest with you. I think that I brought this up early, early, early in the season is that had I not seen significant improvement from Luck this year, it would make me wonder if he was coachable, you know, or how coachable he was, I guess, because you see, you know, nobody's saying he's a bad guy. My point is, is that when you get to a point where you have to have good eye discipline, you have to go through your reads, you have to have good footwork and all that good stuff. And at times in the past, especially last year,

and at times throughout his career previous to that, he wasn't doing that. And it just didn't make sense to the point. So it was good, and I was happy to see them talk about that. But there wasn't much else. It was just basically talking about how good they felt that the game went. It was a good game for the most part, all except the last few minutes, the last couple possessions for the Packers, I thought.

Otherwise, the Colts played a really good game. It's a really good game for them heading into the bye and to go really full force into the second half of the season for their final seven games. The Colts desperately need to win at least five of those. And, you know, five of those would put them at nine and seven on the season. And that would be a significant upgrade from where we all thought they would be. So I'm going to go through the pro football focus grades and kind of let you guys know where the Colts are

at now. We'll do this a little quicker than typical. Just wanted to get you guys updated on these. I don't know if a lot of you guys have these subscriptions, so it's nice to be able to give you guys this without you having to mess with it because this is ultimately all pro football focus offers anymore to casual observers unless you want to pay 300 bucks a month or whatever it is that they charge, something outrageous to catch everything. But Andrew Luck is now at third with an 88.9 grade. Andrew Luck having a fantastic season. Definitely got my offensive MVP award in today's pigskin article.

You guys should be able to see that today. And I think that you might be interested in a couple of those, the awards that I gave. I don't know that the offensive MVP left too much to be desired. I think we all know who that would be. And so I did leave some honorable mentions on there for each award. So you guys might want to check that out, today's pigskin. But Andrew Lux at third overall, like I said, and he's done a really fantastic job throughout the season so far.

Frank Gore still at 23rd. I believe he was at 23rd last week. He's at a 70.9 right now overall grade. Doing really good. I am very surprised with how well Frank Gore has played this year. He's done a fantastic job just being efficient when he does get the ball. A lot of the second half carries that he had this past week were really, I mean, poor timing. Run the ball when they knew they were

going to run the ball. Very easy to tell what was going on with the Colts offense at the time. So naturally he's not going to get a bunch of yards on that, but I think Andrew, or I think Frank Gore has been fantastic this year for the most part. He's gotten some bigger chunk runs than we've expected in the past and he's done a nice job. When we get to the wide receivers, T.Y. Hilton is 11th overall at 82.7. He's done amazing this year, too, and you guys probably, if you were watching the game, you saw the graphic on there where they had basically any time T.Y. has a big game and the Colts win, that's actually fallen pretty much right in line with how the Colts are doing throughout the season. It's kind of interesting to see how those two tie together.

Dante Moncrief's at 30th among wide receivers with a 77.3. I think that's a pretty nice grade for him, especially because he's been missing a few games. He's done really well coming back from his injury, and I've been impressed with his ability to get back in the swing of things. Philip Dorsett is at 98th overall, 52.9. Chester Rogers is the next Colt receiver with a 51.7. I'm not so sure that we're going to see Chester Rodgers too much more the rest of this season. We might not. Now, I don't know how to explain this. They waved to Von Smith earlier yesterday, and they ended up elevating Marcus Leak to the 53-man roster. So I don't know if that's just maybe switching out or if they kind of feel that maybe Leak will offer something in the return game or what exactly.

But I'm hoping that we still see Rodgers as a wide receiver, as lined up to help out with that. Because he's really done a good job when he's in there. He's only got 11 catches on the year, but he's done a really nice job. He's averaging like 14 or 15 yards a catch. And he's done good after the catch. So I'm hoping that they keep him around. He's not a game breaker by any means,

but I like his arc to improve for sure over the next couple years. Jack Doyle among tight ends is 19th of the 71.8. And, you know, Jack came to play. It took him a while to get to him, but, you know, he's done a pretty good job, especially when, you know, just being patient in the offense and allowing it to come to him. Eric Swoop has jumped up to 33rd overall with a 64.2 right there underneath Charles Clay and above Crockett Gilmore. Pretty interesting there for Swoop. He's done a pretty nice job. I'm pretty proud of him. He's just a guy who's been in

the system for a couple years now. You weren't ever really sure if he was ever going to get on the 53-man roster, and if he did, would he stay? But he's done a good job. I'm pretty impressed with him. He's done pretty nice, and he just still looks kind of raw, but he definitely looks like he can eventually be a playmaker. Then they bring in Dwayne Allen, who is 44th. No, bringing the third guy, 44th overall with a 53. We'll see what that turns out

for him throughout the rest of the season. I just don't think there's a lot to be impressed about with Dwayne Allen right now. He's had a couple catches and such, and he did a pretty nice job this past weekend, but we'll just have to see. Anthony Costanzo is down to 17th now among tackles. You know, his grade is an 81.5, and actually Taylor Decker is right down there next to him, who's a rookie. You know, but he's solid. He's always been pretty reliable. However, this year it's kind of a strange one, thinking that he's had some thinking that he's struggled.

He's had some really rough games. But he'll get better, and everybody's entitled to a couple bad games. So it's hard to pass judgment on him quite yet. Joe Haig is 49th overall with a 50.9. That's not too bad for him as a rookie. I'm kind of impressed with that. I don't think you can expect too much out of a guy like him, but you just have to accept what he is for the moment, and he is a rookie,

and that's turned out to be a pretty good draft pick in my opinion. Jack Muhort is 12th amongst guards with an 83.1. He hasn't, you know, he didn't play the past couple weeks, so that's not obviously changed much, his grade anyways. Denzel Good is down at 69th with a 48.2. Now he did have a pretty good game this past weekend, and I think, I still think there's a quite a high upside for him. So I'm not down on him in the slightest bit. He's definitely going to be a mainstay. However, I still really, really want them to flip Hague and good and put good out at right tackle just to see what happens

because I think that might gel a little bit better. The Colts are most successful right now, running the ball right up the middle, right behind Kelly and in between the guards. So maybe they keep him there because they think that Denzel Good's that much better as a run blocker than Haig at the moment. I'm not really sure, but either way, it's okay. And speaking of Ryan Kelly, he's 23rd amongst centers in the league with a 78.1, and his run blocking is kind of poor at the moment. It's a 65.7, which kind of makes you wonder how the Colts are second in the league right now running in that direction, but they are.

But his pass block is, I believe believe 12th overall in the league and uh that's an 81.6 so that's nice to see that his pass coverage is good obviously that's the most important thing for the moment and with the colts being a pretty decent run blocking uh offensive line that's uh obviously the protection of andrew luck is far more important than how good the running game is because right now at the moment running game is not really winning a lot of games but uh when we get to the secondary Darius Butler is 38th overall with a 77.2 for the Colts Rashawn Melvin is still 50 is at 50th with a 73.1 he's still above Vontae Davis and this just blows my mind the way they have Vontae down here at 67th with a 68.9 he's got the most pass breakups on the team

he doesn't you know Vontae does not have great ball skills and I saw an argument the other day about somebody saying that if a new regime came in that they would probably get rid of Vontae Davis. I don't understand that argument at all. And basically the argument was he was trying to say that because Vontae doesn't intercept anything that past breakups aren't nearly as important. And I just, I don't, I mean, maybe to a slightest extent, you're not getting, you know, you're not taking possessions away. However, pass breakups, you know, at that rate are pretty damn impressive and pretty important. So I'm inclined to say that's not a factual, I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't compute because getting, keeping them from a reception, even if it's a 12 yard reception is far more important to me than three picks,

but allowing everything else to go through. So you can kind of make your own decision on it. That's very subjective conversation, so to speak. But, you know, you can kind of make your own basis on that and decide whatever you want. The Colts' safeties right now are at 29th and 30th, Mike Adams and Gethers. Gethers did a phenomenal job. We spoke how the Colts kind of changed their approach defensively this past week,

and it worked. And I really like Gethers. I really do. I'm very impressed with how he's changed this year and how he's come along from last year, his rookie year. So I'm pleasantly surprised with him, and I have no issues with his grade. I mean, these grades are what they are. You know, this is just kind of how they rank them, but I'm pleasantly, pleasantly surprised.

Get into the linebackers. 79th is McNary and 80th is DeQuelle Jackson. But when you consider that Edwin Jackson hasn't quite gotten a snap count. This past week, he only had 10 snaps, but his grade is pretty good. When he's in, he's doing his job. It's a 78.1, and if you were to take the snap counts out of it, which is important, but you can also make an argument without it, he's right at 27th, 28th right now in the league. So I'm impressed with that. That's nice to have that kind of a guy in there. And I just, you know, I'm impressed with Edwin Jackson. I liked him in camp. I wasn't in love with him, so to speak, but I really liked him. And he's done nothing but raise my eyebrows ever since.

And we get to the interior defense. This is kind of one of those things where you argue stats over effectability. Man, I don't even know if that's a word. How effective a guy is, despite the fact that he's not necessarily making a ton of tackles. And that's T.Y. McGill. He's at 32nd right now among the league with a 76.4 grade. Now he has two tackles on the season, and one of them is a sack. So this goes to show you that his skill level is so defined right now, and he is just taking on multiple blockers. He's shedding guys, getting through.

He's disrupting in the backfield. This T.Y. McGill is the absolute epitome of a tape guy that you need to watch. You have to watch him every play because he gets lost in the shuffle because he's not making a lot of tackles. He's not a guy you hear his name a ton until he does make a big play. But you have to go watch his tape. If you get a chance to go, if you have NFL Rewind or whatever it is, just sit there and watch T.Y. McGill the entire, you know, 10, 20 snaps or whatever he's in there for,

and just watch how he manhandles the opposition. It really is a thing of beauty. It's hard to convey to somebody unless they can actually just sit and stare at him. But the next guy in line is Hassan Ridgway, another guy, a rookie. Impressed with him, happy that he's coming along nicely. His grade's not great, but when you're looking at who the Colts have to choose from up there, he's doing a pretty good job. Now, as we get to the edge guys, Akeem Ayers is still atop the Colts list here. He's at a 74.8. He's 53rd in the league right now. According to Pro Football Focus, he's had himself a very nice season thus far. Again, not getting a ton of props, so to speak,

but he's doing what he's supposed to do. Now, 88th is actually two Colts tied for 88th, Eric Walden and LeVar Edwards at 44.9. Now, you guys may not understand, but LeVar Edwards has a lot of snaps from his past games and past teams, so he makes the cut on this, and he had a sack the other day too. So that was nice to see. And Robert Mathis is down at 103rd with 41.8 grade. So the pass rush right now ultimately belongs to Akeem Ayers. And I'm just overly impressed with some of these guys. It will be nice when this Colts team can put everything together

and put another full four quarters together, save the three minutes and 55 seconds. And yes, I'm going to keep harping on it because it's garbage of prevent defense that they keep allowing other teams to do. So with that, we're going to close up shop here on Locked On Colts. I want to implore you to go subscribe to the podcast, follow the show on Twitter and Facebook, Locked On Colts for both. If you need anything, whether it's you're looking to advertise on the show or you just want to spit out some questions, you can get me at LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com, or you guys can leave me a Skype message if you want at M-A-M-I-D-A-N-2-2. So do what you like when you like, and let's keep talking and keep this thing going. We've got another several days before we see any Colts football again, so everybody relax and get ready for the next game against Tennessee

and see where the Colts are going to be at. But until then, I'll be here every weekday keeping you guys informed and doing what I can to keep your ears happy. So I will check all of you out on Thursday 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.