Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -11/21- Indianapolis Colts Improve to 5-5, Have Now Won 3 of Last 4 Games

Episode Date: November 21, 2016

The #Colts have won three of their last four games, have improved to 5-5 and retake second place in the AFC South which is still very winnable at this point. The first five games, and last five have featured some strange trends -- some polar opposites in fact -- and the Colts face a difficult task on Thanksgiving night on a short week. 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 Dainley. And this is not an angry Monday podcast for Locked on Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Dainley, and this is not an angry Monday podcast for Locked on Colts. This is a joyful Monday, Locked on Colts, because the Colts ended up taking out the Tennessee Titans, albeit only by a touchdown, but the key is that they won a very pivotal game, and if you listen to our show on Friday where we had George Bremer on,

he did a good job explaining that, that this game was going to be critical because of the amount of losses that each team had already in the division and how difficult that would have been to make it up with a loss. So the Titans are really, despite being even with the Colts in the win category, but the Colts having the half game lead on them in the loss column, they have a very tall hill to climb because they do now have three losses in the division. The Colts, on the other hand, ended up squeaking out a win and doing it in a strange fashion, something that we have seen over the past few weeks, something that is, you could call it alarming or you could just call

it agitating either way, but one thing's for sure, the Colts do have some room to grow, most definitely. They've got a lot of stuff to clean up, still had eight penalties on the day, you know, stuff like that. There's definitely some things that the Colts need to clean up, but all in all, the Colts had a pretty decent game, especially in the first half, obviously, and we'll go through that. One of the biggest things that the Colts were successful at this week that they weren't so successful at in Week 7 against the Titans was holding DeMarco Murray to only 70 yards on 21 carries. They didn't allow him to get into the end zone, at least on the ground. But, you know, the fact that they held him to that

showed that they did a much better job of closing holes. And, you know, one guy in particular, and I'll talk about him here in a little bit as well in another aspect, but Rashawn Melvin did a nice job in run support on the outside. Clayton Gethers was very good today. A host of guys. DeQuel Jackson was very good against the run today, and even DeQuel Jackson had a pass defense.

That was nice. It was very timely too. You just don't see him do a lot in coverage, and his technique was good. He kept Delaney Walker from getting a catch that very well could have been for a sizable amount of yards and he knocked that off on the other hand Marcus Mariota who wasn't great in the first half at all but was still pretty accurate for the most part when he did actually attempt to throw to his target was 25 or 38 for 290 and two scores. Matthews caught nine balls for 122 on 13 targets. Tajay Sharpe caught four for 68 and scored a

touchdown, the one on Vontae Davis, and he just ran away from him when he was crossing the field. And that was a critical one too because that was on third down. That was something that the Colts really needed to, it was at a point in time where the Colts really needed to make a stop and they didn't. It was basically those two and those two alone downfield. There was very much a packed box. There was very much max protect called by the Titans, and the Titans won that battle because they were able to get sharp deep on Vontae, and Vontae couldn't keep up, and I had him beat by a few yards easy. So that was pretty much an easy pitch and catch for those two. But other than that, we didn't see a lot of really bad secondary work this week, which was nice to see. I mean, there were some plays where the Titans receivers were open, but that's going to happen every week. But all in all,

we didn't really see just constantly over and over guys being just wide open with nobody around to tackle. The Colts did a pretty good job tackling today. They had a couple of misses, but nothing. Mainly the one was probably T.Y. McGill in the backfield on DeMarco Murray. He could have had him for about a three-yard loss, I think, and he ended up scooting forward for about a six- or seven-yard gain. So that wasn't real great, but, you know, on the other hand, all in all, like I said, 70 yards on 21 carries against DeMarco Murray is something that the Colts really needed to do. That was a very good outing for them, all in all, defensively. On the other side of the ball, the Colts had five sacks on the day, and they only allowed two. Now, that sounds good in theory, and if you look just at the stats of it all,

a couple of those sacks that the Colts did have were coverage sacks, which is good. I mean, it's good in either way. That means that the Colts were playing good in coverage. So, I mean, you can take it as, you know, it wasn't really a high quality sack or whatever, but when you look at the fact that the defense was playing well and they were playing well in coverage especially, and that allowed their guys to get up when Mariota would step in or out of the pocket or up in the pocket or what have you. And the Colts looked pretty decent today getting some hits on Mariota. So that was nice to see as well. Like I said, the Colts only allowed two sacks today on Luck. But the flip side of that is that he was pressured quite a bit, especially in the second half.

First half, Luck, he got hit a couple times as well, but all in all, in the first half, Luck had really good protection, and it showed. He was on fire in the first half. And in the second half, it wasn't so great. They were unable to really keep, especially guys like Derek Morgan, out away from him. But two sacks on the day is something that you look forward to no matter what because you know Luck's able to get away from a little bit of that pressure.

So that was nice to see. Hilton had a big game, five catches for 97 yards, a couple of big catches, and a couple of big catches for first downs, especially on third down conversions and other ones where you can just see his chemistry and Luck's chemistry just flourish. And it's just really nice to see that. Gore, on the other hand, he also had a big 49-yard catch on that Wildcat play where they ran Luck in motion, came back to the ball, flipped or Gore pitched it back to Luck. Luck ultimately just found Gore again. He and playing a little two-man game, he and Gore. And ultimately the Titans defense completely forgot about him. I think they assumed that he was sitting back to help block and he leaked out and there was nothing but green grass ahead of him or green turf todman my guy did get a snap on offense and it was kind of a you know a bittersweet type thing

you saw him getting there they were trying to get him in space on a screen but the defense read it first of all and the ball was tipped so that was his only snap on offense unfortunately but the good thing is is that they are actually putting him in there now how often they put him in there in the future is yet to be determined of course probably won't be very much but they still need to have the opportunity to try to get him in space and to see what he can create because he is very fast very shifty and and I think they need that in the end. Defensively, Rashawn Melvin led the Colts with 11 tackles. Gethers and DeQuel Jackson both had nine.

Jackson had a sack. Edwin Jackson had seven tackles and a sack. And David Perry, Eric Walden, and Robert Mathis all had sacks as well. So a pretty well-rounded game all in all for the Colts. And it was nice to see them actually put a little bit on both sides of the ball together in order to get a win. Now, what they didn't do is put four quarters of football together. We've seen this, guys, for how long now, where they'll put one or two quarters together, and the other two quarters are just really pretty bad.

They're not putting any points up, or they're not playing defense, or they play really well for three quarters and get a nice lead, and then the play calling starts to go downhill, and they allow the other team to at least get back within striking distance. And that's, you know, cardiac, you know, constantly. But one of the things that we, that I've noticed, and I think that you guys probably have too, and I think that it's something that we just think of in the back of our heads. But when we look at the numbers, it's actually exactly what we think. You know, in the first five weeks of the season, it seemed like the Colts were struggling to get on board with themselves, struggling to get started early in the game in

the first half. You know, not so much in week five, but still, if we're going to split it up into halves, that's what we're going to do. So week one through five, the Colts averaged 10.2 points a game in the first half. They averaged 17.2 in the second halves of games. Now that's a big difference. I mean, that's a, that's a full touchdown right there where the Colts are not getting any scores on. They're not, not putting points up on the board. Whereas week five, they scored 16 in the first half and they were scoring on early drives and often, and that's nice. I mean, you need to see that because your team needs to be able to come out of the gate hot, and that was one of the things that we would pick apart about the Colts

is that they weren't coming out hot. They were coming out sluggish both offensively and defensively, and it just wasn't working. And then, you know, since week six, we've seen especially – well, I take that back. Especially since week five, but've seen, well, I take that back, especially since week five, but also through the last five weeks, we've seen the Colts scoring more points in the first half than they are in the second half. And it's even a bigger deficit than that seven-point difference between first half and second halves

in the first half of the season. They've scored 16.4 points in the first halves of week six through 11, and now they're only scoring 8.8 in the second halves. Now that's a six point increase in the first half scoring, or 6.2 points per game increase in the first half, and that's down almost nine points in second halves of games. So what are they doing that they're not, you know, the play calling? I don't know. Sometimes I struggle complaining about play calling just because it's a result based game where you see what happened and that's how you determine whether you think it was a good or a bad decision. I'm not one to pick too much of that apart. Sometimes it gets to more of what

package are they in? what down is it in, why is that not a smart play call because you don't have so-and-so in the game or just whatever. But all in all, I mean, luck wasn't really efficient in the second half. They weren't doing actually a whole lot to score. Now the one that they probably could have scored another touchdown in the second half was late there where that passed deep to T.Y. Hilton. And he came back.

He was actually in double coverage and came back to the ball and actually should have caught it. That's hard to say, especially after the catch that he made for a touchdown in the first half. But you know what I mean. He should have caught that. And he most definitely would have gotten a touchdown because of the over-pursuit from the Titans defenders back in that situation. So that would have been nice to see him put another score on the board in the second half, but it was really just, especially in the last two weeks where they've scored 24 and 21 points

respectively in the first half, and then 7 and 3 in the second half. I mean, it's really pretty terrible. I mean, they've got to be able to put four quarters of aggressive scoring type football back. It seems like they just kind of, once they get a lead, they kind of rest on their laurels and that's not okay because that is not going to cut it, especially if the Colts are lucky enough to make the playoffs. And we get into these games against really good defenses uh here when you know uh the Steelers aren't known for their defense this year they're having real struggles getting to the passer as well but they are going to be able to I mean it's just the way that the games go between the

Colts and the and the Steelers the Steelers end up getting to Andrew Luck and maybe that's because the Colts are the way they are and they allow too many pressures but either way the Colts really have to put four games or four quarters of football because Brenn Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown can absolutely light up the scoreboard in the second half. We've seen that for sure. So when you look at that and then you look at the defenses like the Vikings that are going to be on the schedule here pretty soon and then when you play another high power team such as the Raiders, then you've really got your hands full and you've really got to put a lot of points on the board, even field goals. I mean, putting three and seven points up, you know,

actually they've scored 17 points in the last three weeks in the second half of the games. That's not going to cut it guys. I mean, you need double digits minimum in the second half in these games and where they didn't, you. And they were in double digits in every single game in the second half, in the first half of the season. So that's kind of scary, and that's something that they definitely need to get ironed out, so to speak. And that may be play calling. That may be a little more of, you know, how are they actually getting through the plays?

How are they executing everything? And are they actually calling plays that, you know, are safer and so on? We'd have to delve more into that. But it's a different animal that we've seen the second half of the game, second half of the season, than we saw in the first half of the season. Now, I want to tell you guys about my man, Mike. Colts fans, are you guys in the market to sell your home? If so, call Mike Earnest at Century 21 and Sheets at 317-285-9691. Mike is an expert in the greater Indianapolis real estate market

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Let Mike and his Century 21 Sheets team go to work for you. Whether you live in Indy 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 317-285-9691 or mikeearnest.com. There's a couple points in the game here where I thought maybe could have turned the tide a little bit. Now, on this specific drive in general, the Titans didn't score. They ended up getting turned over on downs by the Colts, but it was on the play where Rashawn Melvin forced a fumble along the sidelines there, and Chuck didn't bother to challenge the play. Now, Chuck isn't great on challenges, and maybe I'm being a little presumptive with why I

thought he should have challenged it, but I definitely saw that receiver catch the ball, tuck the ball first of all, then turn and try to change hands with the ball when Melvin made contact with him and forced the fumble. That, to me, there's no greater explanation of a catch in the NFL, in my opinion. They have where they constantly are saying, you know, there's always an excuse. He didn't make a football move or he didn't get a chance to tuck the ball or didn't take two, three steps or whatever the case is. To me, he did all of that. He caught the ball.

He tucked it. He began to change hands with it. And on the impact of, from Melvin, the ball came out. I don't understand how you don't challenge that. And if I'm not mistaken, that was right along the Colts sideline. Now there was plenty of time in that. And I don't think that the Titans hurried up to, uh, to make sure that the Colts were not going to challenge that, but there's not going to challenge that. But there's just a problem with that. I don't understand how you don't take that opportunity to challenge a play when you're getting driven on and you're only up by a touchdown late in the game. That, to me, was the perfect time to win a challenge,

and it was an obvious fumble recovery by the Colts. That was a point, in my opinion, that could have turned the tide of the game, completely turned the momentum with, I think it was about five to six minutes to go in the game, and would have allowed the Colts to put up another score as opposed to having a non-important drive and just kneeling the game out. So, like I said, maybe I'm being too presumptive, but I definitely could not understand why he didn't choose to challenge that play. Uh, guys that I thought did a really good job.

I thought Clayton Gathers was fantastic. Again, I really have been enjoying Rashawn Melvin. You guys have heard me say that. Uh, I think he did a nice job. I think a lot of the Colts D line and the linebackers did a good job today. It was nice to see, uh see everybody kind of put a full game together defensively. I felt like there were some times where on blitzes the Colts left the middle of the field very open and Mariota naturally took advantage of that. Other than that, I mean,

there were some short passes in here and there. Colts did a pretty good job overall of keeping the ball in front of them, even when they were press and man and uh the the one thing that I think that stands out to me the most is T.J. Green is just tasked to get better in coverage even when they were on the goal line there it was the touchdown pass to DeMarco Murray DeMarco ran a bit of a stop and and then came across the middle of the field and before the ball's even thrown T.J. Green is running towards DeMarco Murray. T.J. Green was in the middle of the field DeMarco Murray was to the right of him I'm sorry to the left of him and then DeMarco Murray goes to cut towards him T.J. Green takes his eyes completely out of being level up against the field and using his peripheral vision

or being able to see him whereas all he had to do was step up if he hadn't ran directly towards DeMarco Murray, and he would have been able to make a somewhat of a defensive play. But instead, he didn't see the ball. He had no chance to make a play on the ball because he wasn't paying attention. It's just, it's bad coverage skills. This is not stuff that they're taught. He is not taught to cover like that, plain and simple. The only time that he should be covering like that is if DeMarco Murray goes out into the flats. There was not an opportunity for that. There was already two receivers going into the flats. There is no reason that T.J. Green should have expected DeMarco Murray to do that. That is clearly where DeMarco Murray is going to go up the seam and try to catch a ball in the back of

the end zone. That's rarely going to happen because of DeMarco Murray's size and his ball skills. He's not a tall tight end. He's not a receiver. That's the tight ends area of the field for the most part in the red zone. He should very much expect for a comeback route there from the running back, and he didn't. I'm just tired of seeing him not getting any better in coverage, I guess. He does a nice job in run support, and he's a nice physical guy. I think he'll get better, but right now he's a very big disappointment to me as far as being able to just have the fundamental skills to cover even a running back when he clearly has more speed

than a lot of the running backs that he's going to face. I think Mike Adams had a good game. I think he played really well. He was very good in run support. He did a good job in coverage. Vontae Davis saved for that touchdown that he gave up to Tajay Sharp. Played pretty well in coverage. Had a couple nice batted balls and did his part as well. Now the offensive line, like I said, they were pretty good in the first half. They didn't allow a whole lot of leaks, and then the second half it was just a completely different ball game for them. When you look at tight ends, this is the part that bothers me here, is the tight ends were only targeted four times in this game, where Doyle only had one catch for seven yards and Allen didn't have a single catch look Allen dropped a ball that was a sure first down um he clearly is not the I mean it's

just crazy to see to say that too because he was clearly the better option between he and Fleener he's still if even if you look at their seasons this year he's still the better option but we still have Jack Doyle in this offense and Colts' play calling went completely away from him other than two plays. One was downfield where he stretched out as much as he possibly could. The ball was a little overthrown. I don't think it was a bad throw by Luck. He wanted to make sure the ball wasn't picked off, but it was not a pass that was going to be completed.

And then Doyle also caught a ball that led to a first down. And it's just, it's disheartening. The Colts have to keep their tight ends involved in the game plan. And they've got to look at them a lot, you know, or things happen like this. Luck goes 15 for 28 and has a good game, just not a great game. And when he adds his tight ends into his repertoire and he uses them efficiently throughout the game, they're a huge weapon for him. I mean, especially Doyle. He's proven that he is where he needs to be all the time. He catches everything and he makes big plays. This is something that they have to go back to, especially when you get into a team like the Steelers, who have really good linebackers, but they're not great in coverage. I mean, they're pretty good. They're better than a lot of teams, I'll say that,

in coverage. But the Colts absolutely have to utilize Jack Doyle, and they have to at least have Dwayne Allen be decent, and he's just not being decent. Whether they're using him too much in protection or otherwise or in the run game to block is beside the point. He still needs to be a receiving threat. And without that, the Colts' offense is going to sputter and it's going to be difficult. This Colts team has a lot to work on, but we are very happy that the Colts are at 500.

This year it's 5-5. Now they are officially in second place of the AFC South. The Texans are still falling, in my opinion, and will not be able to retain the top spot in the division unless Brock Osweiler has some sort of a come-to-God moment where he just starts chucking the ball downfield and he's accurate all the time. I don't see that happening. So the Colts have, they have the

opening right now. And we spoke about their second half schedule. They've got the opportunity with some of the teams that they play. A lot of these guys, you know, Vikings actually beat the Cardinals so that, you know, they're back on track as far as defensively and they put up some points offensively as well. But they have to beat the Steelers. This is the big monkey on their back Thursday, which is Thanksgiving night. Big monkey off their back that they have to beat the Steelers. This is the big monkey on their back Thursday, which is Thanksgiving night, big monkey off their back that they have to get the Steelers, and they've got to put a hole in them quick. And not only that, but they've got to maintain through the second half.

Putting 21 up on the Steelers is nothing. I mean, I think that it's fair to say that we all felt pretty safe about putting 21 on the Titans in the first half. Nobody really thinks that. I mean, beside the fact that we talked about how dangerous their offenses could be, their offense didn't really shine on. I mean, the Colts were allowing them back in the game. The Steelers, however, are nothing like that. The Steelers, regardless if Ben's having a bad game, regardless if Antonio Brown's having a bad game,

they have the weapons and they have the means and they have the brains to come back in a heartbeat on the Colts. And if the Colts are only going to score in single digits in the second half, they're going to get blown out, plain and simple. The Colts have to put four quarters of scoring football together. The Colts don't necessarily need to be fantastic against the run. They don't have to be fantastic against the pass. They just have to not allow touchdowns and they have to score more than nine points in a half on in each half. And that's and that's the point here. The Colts are going to put up points. They've got to be able to space it around. They've got to be able to do it in both halves. And other than that, you know, like I said, not upset.

Just pointing out some things that I know that, and you know, and you guys know as well, that the Colts need to work on. The Colts need to get this stuff better. But all in all, it was a pretty good game. We saw a lot of guys get healthy and come back. Henry Anderson wasn't a big factor in this game, although I think he and Arthur Jones helped a lot in the run game as well. But David Perry was pretty good today up front. Hassan Ridgway was effective. These are things that, when everybody's healthy, are fantastic to see. And hopefully these guys who have just come back are going to be healthy enough to put put a little bit more of this together and uh and really put four quarters of football together and

allow this offense to be on the field more often and on the flip side of that chudzinski's got to really start calling an even game too he can't be calling a game where you're trying to just take their head off in the first half and then you've got nothing left in your playbook for the second half. That's just not going to cut it. So all in all, we should be very happy the Colts are where they are. The Colts are playing pretty good football overall when you look at it, but their second halves are lacking pretty badly and pretty soundly. The Colts have to put up a bunch in each half,

at least enough to be formidable and we'll see if they can do that so this is a good Monday we're all happy to be here and we're happy that the Colts have won Colts are five and five now they've only got three days in between games now so I mean we're going to jump right into this Pittsburgh situation here on Tuesday and and talk to you guys a little bit more about what we can expect on Thanksgiving night on the Thursday game. Colts are going to be in their Color Rush uniforms. That should be interesting. And other than that, we've got Colts football twice in five days. I don't think anybody's complaining about that. So thank you guys for listening. Thank you for

joining me here on a Monday. Colts are now 5-5, like we've said. And please go out and rate and review the podcast on iTunes or any other podcast platform that you guys are listening at. We are also at audioboom.com. And hopefully all of you Colts fans will be here with me throughout the week because then we'll have another recap day on Friday. And we'll be able to get through all this together and hopefully the Colts can put two big wins under their belt before

they get kind of a mini buy and then they'll have to go into their week 13 game. And that would be very interesting to see if they can do that. If they do, that could be a huge boost of momentum for this Colts team. So for today, I'm signing off. I'll talk to you all on Tuesday 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. Napa know-how.

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