Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -11/23- Indianapolis Colts Keys to Week 12 Victory Over Steelers & Stephen Morris Should Start

Episode Date: November 23, 2016

On a short week with poor news on the injury report the keys to a Week 12 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers are even more pertinent. And with Andrew Luck likely sidelined Thursday night, the #Colts should start Stephen Morris instead of Scott Tolzien. 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 I am with you here on Wednesday, November 23rd. We are only a day away from Turkey Day, and I hope that all of you are going to have a fantastic Thanksgiving, get some time with your families, some time to relax, watch some football, most importantly, some Colts football Thursday night.

You know, the news keeps pretty steady here as we are. You know, I'd say that there's a pretty high chance that Andrew Luck is not going to play Thursday night. There's just too many steps in this protocol for him to get through it, I think, in all likelihood. It is possible, and they won't sound off, so to speak, that he's not going to play. But, you know, there are these reports out there, and I'm sure you've seen a couple people say that players have already been notified. You take that for whatever you want to take it for. I mean, but they are acting as though they're going to be without Andrew Luck.

So I think it's more of an assumption amongst a lot of people. And like I said, you can kind of take that for what it's worth. It's highly unlikely that he plays, in my opinion. But there is still a shot, depending on how he comes through. And the pair is also, I mean, I told you guys yesterday that I thought that it was from the play where he was running towards the goal line. He was tackled. Helmet to helmet hit. His helmet also hit the turf. And it appears that it was on a sack where he was taken down by the legs. And then another defender, I think it was Jarrell Casey, took him down from the top.

It may have been Derek Morgan and his head bounced off the turf that time as well. But, you know, we never really saw any side effects during the game. He never looked up and looked woozy. I actually watched the replay of it again just to check and see, and I didn't notice anything in particular. And, in fact, several of the players yesterday even mentioned that, you know, it surprised them to hear that he was in the concussion protocol. So, but he is, and the Colts now presumptively are looking for Scott Tolzien to go under center Thursday night as they host the Pittsburgh Steelers. This also presents a bit of a difference

in what I said yesterday. I also said that they may bring Stephen Morris up, but they would have to do a roster move on that. Well, here's the thing. They need a backup quarterback if Andrew Luck can't go. He is absolutely going to be brought up if Andrew Luck is not active. So they have plenty of room, a couple corners and stuff that they could probably decide between. One of the interesting things is how do they get rid of like for example Frankie

Williams if he is one of the guys they consider waiving to in order to bring up Stephen Morris now because he has a non-football injury I'm not sure exactly how that works with that I don't know if they can waive him or if they have to do some sort of an injury settlement with that but I don't I mean I don't think that they do if it's not football related. Don't quote me on that. That's not 100%, but I'm just not sure on that. So they will absolutely bring him up because they'll need a backup at a minimum, but my push would be to start Stephen Morris. He looked better than Tolzien in preseason. I don't think that's debatable. He was more accurate. He presents more of a threat. He can get around better on his feet. He has a stronger arm. He's less predictable,

you know, and I think that's all something that the Colts really need to take into consideration. In fact, Chuck Pagano would not necessarily say Scott Tolzien is going to be our quarterback on Thursday, even if Andrew Luck is gone. So he's being a little hush about a couple things. First of all, he's not really answering questions about Luck being in the protocol, any specifics. Just keeps continually repeating that he's in the protocol. And like I said, he says, well, if luck can't go, does Scott Tolzien. Scott Tolzien is the quarterback, right? And he says, time will tell.

So I think it's interesting that he won't necessarily say that's the guy that they're going to go with. And I think that they need to really look hard at Stephen Morris as an option. Do I think that they should start Tolzien and then maybe use Stephen Morris sporadically through the game? No, I don't. I don't think Scott Tulzean brings anything to the Colts' offense that is beneficial for them against a team like the Steelers. He's statuesque, so to speak. He doesn't move well outside of the puck. Not great.

I mean, he's mobile. He's not great. He doesn't have a great arm. He is, on the other hand, very predictable and kind of tips his hand to where he's throwing the ball, stares down receivers. At camp, it was noticeable that anytime he threw outside the numbers, it was probably going to be a pick. And I mentioned a little bit of that yesterday, but I just, I don't see that Tulsa, you know, look, the Colts are going to have a heck of a game ahead of them Thursday night. And if they're going to take any chance in like taking Pittsburgh by surprise in any way, shape or form, Stephen Morris should

probably be under center. In my opinion, they're not going to lose anything by it. I don't think he's noticeably less of a quarterback or anything than Scott Tolzien. In fact, Scott Tolzien, in his only real NFL action, was over like a three-game stretch in 2013, and he had a nice completion percentage. It was 55 of 90, somewhere around 700 yards over three games. But he only threw one touchdown and five interceptions. So it just, I don't know.

I'm not for that. That doesn't entice me at all. That doesn't make me want to watch the game thinking about Scott Tolzien under center. Stephen Morris, on the other hand, whether, you know, sink or swim one way or the other, but Stephen Morris presents an interesting concept to me for the Colts offense. I think he gives them a lot more latitude to be inventive with the offense. And like I said, I think he's more accurate anyhow, and he's got a stronger arm. So I don't really see the downside of it. Whether or not they agree with that, I'm guessing that they don't agree with that. So that's just my opinion on that part of it.

But I think that that definitely brings the odds into the Colts' favor a little bit just because there's not any film on Morris. There is that inherent risk because he doesn't have any NFL action under his belt. So you kind of weigh those options. But, man, give Stephen Morris a chance. I love this guy in preseason. I thought he was great, especially considering he's getting more snaps like on the scout team than he, than probably Tolzien was as Lux backup in practice. So, I mean, consider that as well. So I'll let you guys decide that. But to me, if I'm, if I'm the coach,

I'm going with Stephen Morris because I think he gives the Colts a better opportunity to win. He just adds more dimensions to the offense, I think, than Scott Tolzien does. He's very much drop back pass, no anticipation really. He really limits, in fact, the offense, in my opinion, more than Morris does. And he's certainly not an upgrade on Hasselbeck so if you think about last year when Hasselbeck was in there for luck when he was injured um you know after a couple games teams started understanding you know they're going to take a two three step drop and he's going to fire so you know if they do try doing that with Tolzien, Tolzien is not as

accurate and he's not as good and he's not as smart as Hasselbeck was. So if you think that Tolzien's going to be a similar fill-in to then like Hasselbeck was, then I think you're mistaken. So just something, you know, go back and look at any of his games if you guys have league pass or anything like that. He's nothing really to write home about. He was solid enough to be a backup, but nobody's ever accused him of being a potential starter in the NFL. So let's move on. Let me tell you guys a little bit about the best app on your phone. SeatGeek. SeatGeek is the smartest, easiest way to find tickets for football games you want to see up close and in person this season. If you guys are going to have an opportunity to go to this Thursday's game, that would be a great time to use it. I mean, get these seats because there was some return tickets from the Pittsburgh fans and everything. So, I mean, take your shot at

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I mean, the Colts have been absolutely wrung out the last two meetings against the Steelers. Roethlisberger in general has like almost 900 yards, 10 touchdowns, no picks. The Colts have allowed 96 points in the last two meetings. So this has been an absolute woodshed moment for the Colts the last two years. Tomlin and his crew have done a fantastic job preparing against the Colts in the past. This is a situation where they've got Le'Veon Bell, you know, they've got Antonio Brown, they've got Roethlisberger, and it's at home. That doesn't make anything any worse for

Pittsburgh, that's for sure. In fact, that makes anybody on their team just that much quicker as well. So the Colts are going to have to be fantastic if they're going to hope to leave any sort of a dent in that. And the obvious key to anything that has anything to do with this game is to turn over the Pittsburgh offense. That offense has been absolutely unstoppable the past two times that they've played, and they absolutely have to be on top of their game, and they've got to turn the ball over. They've either got to get them to fumble a couple times, or they've got to get Roethlisberger into bad situations with getting pressure on him and having him throw an interception.

Maybe a fumble on special teams, something of the sort where they can take over in their territory, flip the field, and get some points on the board, and force the Steelers to kind of come back, to be the comebacks. Now the Colts cannot afford to take a backseat to getting pressure on him. They can't take a backseat in their pursuit of Le'Veon Bell. They have to tackle good. They have to tackle very good.

And the Colts have been a better tackling team over the past few weeks, so that's a nice sign. And, you know, they've got to get the interior pressure. Henry Anderson, second week back. We hope to see him make a real impact there. Vontae Davis would be nice to have back, although he didn't practice yesterday either. So Wednesday is a real big day today for this Colts injury report.

You know, are we going to see any movement with Andrew Luck, hear about any movement with him in the concussion protocol? Are we going to have some of these guys who have missed practices the past couple days come back? You know, we need – don't forget Clayton Gethers is in that protocol as well. So we want to see what he's doing, if he's making any progress as well. But ultimately, you know, turning this team over and getting everybody healthy is huge. Remember, the Pittsburgh Steelers are not only

good against the Colts, but they're a top 10 offense right now throughout the league. So they've got to stop the running game. They have to kind of mimic what they did this past week with stopping DeMarco Murray, keeping him under 75 yards. And Le'Veon Bell's going to get his 20 carries. So the Colts need to kind of punch him in the mouth, so to speak, right off the jump. And that's going to be a tall task. He's one of the most electrifying running backs in the league, and he's one of the most consistent.

So they're going to have their hands full with him in the running game. They're also going to have their hands full with him coming out of the backfield in the receiving game. So he's a multifaceted guy. The Colts are going to have to be on top of their game. They're going to have to have great scheme drawn up by Monachino, you know, a short week. It's kind of hard to prepare for all these guys, but a lot of their position coaches and a lot of their quality control guys right now have worked their butt off over the weekend post the Titans game and gotten these guys game plans and tendencies and situations to the coordinators and everything else to get them prepared for this game so let's hope that they did their job and got them all squared away.

Another key to this game, in my opinion, this is going to absolutely, I mean, look, a key to the game is not, in my opinion, something that they do consistently that they have to do better. This is something that they are going to have to do extraordinarily well in order to win, especially in this game. The Colts were already behind the eight ball, regardless if luck played, in my opinion. This is just a bad matchup for them. It has been.

With Haley calling plays over there, the Colts having to do their due diligence on defense consistently. They're going to have to score on offense, but the Colts are going to need a special team score or a defensive score of some kind they're going to have to get points where they don't typically get points you know whether it's Jordan Todman returning kicks Chester Rogers returning punts or you know somebody getting a pick six or a fumble recovery for a score it doesn't matter they've got to do something

they've got to do everything they can to diminish Pittsburgh scoring and they've got to get something uh to put on the board where they typically don't get it so there there's a couple there for you right off the jump that are uh I would assume are obvious and a couple others here that I'm going to kind of tie together because uh they are also obvious and there's something that the Colts have to work on every single week to be better at in order to be effective in this late part of the season. So, first of all, they can't be giving up a bunch of sacks. I would say that one would be too many.

Their linebackers are very opportunistic. They're good at stripping the ball. Forcing a turnover from a quarterback is going to be detrimental for the Colts, without a doubt. The Colts have to – they just simply can't have turnovers, but they absolutely have to keep the pressure off of whoever is under center on Thursday night. I mean, whether it's – it doesn't matter if it's Stephen Morris, Andrew Luck,

Scott Tolzien, it doesn't matter. Those guys have to be able to stand up and deliver the ball and not be able to have to do it with a 40% pressure rate throughout the game. And when you take the other side of that with, let's say, Scott Tolzien or Steven Morris are under center, that Pittsburgh defense is going to be box heavy on the running game so they're going to have to be very uh try to be unique in how they present the running game um Chudzinski is going to have to bring in you know I don't want to say some more trick plays or anything like he did this past week

but he's going to have to be he and this offensive line are going to have to have something set up to where they are on top of their game in run blocking. Because they've got to establish a running game or this game is absolutely curtains. So, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if someone told me that the Colts had to run for 120 yards in this game to be successful. That doesn't surprise me a bit. I would agree with that. So, you know, that might as well be one of the things that they strive to do. So I'm going to say at least 110 yards. I think the Colts have to have that, especially without Andrew Luck under center, to be successful

in this game. They've got to get points. They've got to get yards. They've got to make impacts where they don't typically make impacts, especially without the franchise player, if they hope to have any chance in winning this game or even keeping it close for that matter. That's going to be my keys for this game. Very simple, very to the point. I mean, for the most point, they're obvious, but this, they're just a little bit more intensive because the Colts are without their franchise player more than likely.

So I don't know what we're going to see Thursday night. It's something that none of us probably want to imagine, but it's going to happen, guys. The Colts are going to be playing Thursday night, and there's, I'd say, about a 75% to 90% chance that we're not going to see Andrew Luck. So here's to hoping that Stephen Morris gets a start and just blows up and blows everybody's mind.

And then we'll be all excited because something happened good without Andrew Luck being in the lineup and that the Colts can still continue this. They've won three out of their last four. Four out of their last five would be fantastic, and it would really boost their confidence going into the remainder of the season, especially with Andrew Luck under center if he comes out of the protocol pretty quickly. So let's all hope for that because that's about the best possible scenario

that I can imagine. So thank you again, everybody, for listening. You guys are fantastic. I absolutely love you guys for getting with me on all the social media and all the kind words. Not only that, but the way you guys are interacting with each other and stuff on certain podcasts and stuff with the comment section. Thank you for all the good ratings and reviews. Those always help. You guys know this. I just ask that you guys, if you haven't subscribed already to the podcast, go subscribe to it.

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