Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -12/1- Locked on Colts Mailbag

Episode Date: December 1, 2016

Today we branch out to our listeners taking questions from social media and email to see what questions you want answered. 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 today we're taking a slight break from Jets talk specifically, and I'm going to answer the questions that you guys threw out to me via email and social media. So we're going to do this somewhat of a locked on Colts mailbag, so to speak, and kind of

see what you guys wanted answered and where your heads are at as the Colts are set to finish up the season here with these last five games. So without further ado, it's not going to be a real long show for this Thursday show, and it's probably going to be a little later than normal. Typically, these are out first thing in the morning, but we're going to go ahead and do this and get this answered for you, and we'll go from there. The first one is off of twitter and it comes from

colt strong 16 and he wanted to know at this point with the team not looking like it's going to take a turn would you prefer a high draft pick or playoff chance this is something that i've spoken about a little bit in the past and i still fail to understand the logic behind at least with this organization in this front office i fail to understand the logic behind, at least with this organization and this front office, I fail to understand the logic of let's shoot for a better draft pick. To give Grigson a little bit of credit, I mean, this last draft pick or this last draft class seems to be fairly solid. The 2015 draft class, you know, was better than before and basically out of other than that he's living off of the 2012 draft class um this isn't a situation in my opinion

where you can really hope for a top 10 top 15 draft spot even if you could i i do i wouldn't trust grigson to make the right call i think that he would continue to do what he has done, make a possible questionable decision with a first-round pick, maybe try to draft another project guy. And that just aggravates me to no end when they draft a project guy who's maybe a 4-3 D in. Just the obvious example here is Bjorn Werner, and then try to turn him into a 3-4 edge rusher when that's just not his style.

That's not his strong point. He was a solid rusher at Florida State, but that wasn't his makeup. A 3-4 defense is just not the same. The bigger issue is are the Colts going to take whatever draft picks they get and then are they going to structure the defense around the talent that they have? That's something that they need to start doing. That's something that they've failed to do, in my opinion, for the most part. I would love to have a top 10 draft slot, but at this point,

I still think that beyond all the issues that this team has, there's definitely a possibility that the Colts with Andrew Luck and some of the firepower that they have on offense and some of the potential that could be there defensively. Obviously, rushing the passer is a real issue, and we'll get to that here in a minute off another question. But, you know, they just have so many issues. But those, that's, defensively, they have the ability to play better. Not play great, they have the ability to play better and with that offensive firepower they can they've proven that they can you know rack up 40 points uh in a heartbeat so

it all depends if the coordinators and the offense is uh is clicking at the same time so i'd rather them go to the playoffs because uh you know draft picks aren't a sure thing i mean they could just as easily uh end up done like the Jaguars with Dante Fowler, top five pick, and the guy's out for the season. So draft slots don't make much difference to me. You just hope that they can stay healthy. But I'd rather go for a playoff shot. You never know what could end up happening.

So let's get to the second question here. And this is via the Gmail account, LockedOnCultPod at Gmail.com. And this is from Brian. He didn't want his last name used. And I find this kind of funny that most of the questions here came from the email account just prefer to do it somewhat anonymously, or not anonymously, but they don't want to comment on social media. And that's fine, too. It doesn't make a difference, but I appreciate them either way.

This one comes from Brian, and he wants to know if I see Pagano. Let's see. Is Pagano going to stand the test of time and be the coach in 2017 with, let's see. Sorry, Brian. I'm kind of butchering your question here. Ultimately, what Brian wants to know is he wants to know if Pagano is going to be the coach next year, despite the fact that he's still under contract for a few more years. I'm going to go ahead and say that this is really difficult because you just never know what Jim's going to do, Ursae. And I would say that there's

a better chance that he will be the coach than there is a chance that he won't be. I don't think that he should, but that age-old question always pops up. You know, who are you going to hire? You just never know who is going to be, you know, worth bringing in and are they going to actually be a better coach? Are they going to do, you know, would chemistry take a hit? Because these guys are used to Pagano. I'm not saying that they're playing great for him because they're clearly not there are some of these

defensive stats and and stuff like that are historically terrible for even Colts defenses but I just I don't know I I like I said I would I don't think that he should be. But then again, I couldn't necessarily come up with a name right now that I could tell you I think would be a better coach for this team for next year. And I think that would probably be the similar situation that Ursae would be in. Yeah, there's obvious flaws with Chuck, but, you know, whoever I bring in is going to have to start from scratch and so on and so forth. And you notice I'm staying with Pagano here and I'll get to it in just a second. But I just, yes, I'm going to go ahead and say

yes, because yes, I do think that he'll keep him around just because I don't think there'll be a lot of options out there. Certainly not the big splash option that he would want to bring in if he was to replace Chuck so I'm gonna say yes and then there was another question here from Danielle and Danielle wanted to know if I saw Grigson staying so uh and she actually asked uh if they were the two were if I feel like Grigson and Pagano are tied together, I do not feel that they are, regardless of their contracts, length, and so on and so forth. I know that's typically believed to be the case. I just don't.

I don't see it. I think that if Grigson has a bad draft and next year they don't produce, the talent level just doesn't look like it's doing anything, some of his recent draft picks don't pan out or continue not to pan out, then I think that Grigson will be gone for sure. I think a general manager is easier to replace than a head coach in the aspect that there are a lot of guys

who understand the front office workings and understand personnel. It's just, this is all my opinion. This isn't for sure. I mean, I'm not going to tell you that there's 105 guys that are good coaches and 106 are good general managers. I don't know that, you know, those numbers. I don't have, and I'm not going, that's all subjective anyhow. But I would say that more, there's more of a field

of capable GMs from, in my opinion, than there are coaches. And I think that Grigson would take a hit before Pagano would, if it's in the next next couple years. If those two actually end up being tied together and go out, that would surprise me if he took one out and then said, you know what, I said you guys are tied, you're both going. I don't see that happening, regardless of who gets the ax first. But there is a clear and obvious situation in Indianapolis where something's not working, and there's actually more than one

somethings that aren't working. So I would say no, they're not tight at the hip. And my bet personally is that Grigson would go before Pagano. That's just where I'm at. Timothy, he wants to know if I see the pass rush getting any better in these last five games. I'm going to say no because the talent's not there. Now, the Colts did just reactivate Trent Cole, and they've had some sacks and some luck with Eric Walden, but I don't see it. I do not see this pass rush getting any more prevalent.

A couple sacks a game at best, and some of those will probably be even coverage sacks. They may have a good game or two because there are some awful offensive lines coming up in their near future, namely the Vikings. Their offensive line is pretty close to as bad as the Colts right now, so they could have a big sack game there, but as far as actual effectiveness, I don't see it. I just don't think the talent's there for them. Mathis could be out this next game. There's just so many factors, and a lot of it is young talent.

I just don't see it. I don't think this pass rush is getting any better anytime soon. Here will be our last question for the show. And this is from Julianne. This is from Facebook. And she wants to know if I see Andrew Luck on the upside or the downside these last five games more along the lines of, is he going to be, you know, at MVP level where he's been at times in this season? Or is he going to be, you know, struggling at some point where he's done also in a couple games, more like in a couple halves you know throughout this season so far um and i you know especially and she does mention the concussion and her question but um i don't think that the

concussion will play a big part and i don't think andrew luck really felt like he was bothered by symptoms a day or so after all this happened. I think the protocol was what took more time than the actual symptoms themselves. If I was to be betting, I mean, I think quite a bit of Andrew Luck, but he's also more than capable of having a crappy half. So I'm going to say that Luck will play at an MVP level for the last five games. He's going to play a couple good defenses. He's going to have a couple good teams. He's going to have to carry this team too. So I would say that if there's a chance for a bad game, it'll be possibly against the Vikings or a less explosive game because of their defense. But there's, you know, three games on the schedule that the Colts really could

explode on. Andikings defense has proven that they're not as consistent as they initially looked like they were going to be in the first five games six games of the season so i i think andrew luck's going to be phenomenal i think he's going to have a fantastic end result to the year and uh the just the real shame is that we are continuing to see an Indianapolis Colts team that is entirely constructed with Andrew Luck expected to carry this team. This is something that we continue to see. It doesn't look like it's going to change,

and I think that's something that for all the hubbub that Jim Irsay threw around after drafting Andrew Luck wanting to build a monster, the defense wanting to be better so that he didn't have to rely on a quarterback. This sure as heck is not the way that it's going. So I don't know, maybe, you know, referring back to some of these Pagano and Grigson questions within this, maybe, maybe Jim just blows it up and goes after a couple of guys. He's obviously got money to throw at people, so it's more than possible. He'd have a hefty penny to pay to get rid of both of them so early in their contracts, but money's no object if Jim Irsay feels that it could take the Colts into the right direction.

So that's what I got for you guys. There were a couple other questions, and one of them was in another language. So I didn't understand it. And even after I had it transferred to English, I still didn't understand it. So I'm sorry, and I still can't pronounce your name. But thank you guys for writing in. I enjoyed doing this. I hope that you guys will come back.

We'll have one more show this week here, the Friday show, and we'll get down to business. I'll let you guys know who is healthy, who's not, what we expect to see on Monday. And we'll still have another show for a pregame show, so to speak, on Monday to discuss this game with the Jets in Week 13. So thank you all. As always, subscribe to the podcast.

Check it out on Twitter, Facebook, LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com. Thank you all for listening, and I'll talk to you all on Friday 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.