Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -12/12- Indianapolis Colts Drop Biggest Game of Year with Pathetic Performance Against Texans

Episode Date: December 12, 2016

Why can't the #Colts maintain any sort of consistency? They look good one week, then the chain falls off the bike the next. Don't misplace the blame on the Colts defense or offensive line though, there were other areas that cost the team this pathetic loss to an awful #Texans team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Talkspace.com slash BOOM. B-O-O-M. No, I'm not for sale. You are Locked 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, of course, we have now had another crappy outing by the Colts overall.

Terrible offense, defense, often playing for their lives when being put in a crappy position. And the Colts are now 6-7 and have absolutely zero control for the most part right now at this point in their fate in making the playoffs. In fact, their odds are slim to none at this point. And they don't look like they deserve to be in the playoffs after that game. I mean, talk about after being embarrassed two of the past three weeks. Now, once by the Steelers, when the Colts should have at least made that a game. And then they blow out the Jets, and now the Colts lose to Texans, an absolutely pathetic team, and they just proved that they're just not the team that they need to be at this point. I mean, the Colts have had five years now with luck, minus the three games that he's still left to play,

and they've just absolutely shown no initiative to make this a well-rounded team, and it shows week in and week out for the most part, other than more, I mean, what was last week pretty much an aberration, I would assume, right? You know, blowing out an awful team on their home turf. I mean, basically, the Colts right now prove that they are just a sub-standard team, not very good, very little to look forward to when you look at the whole picture combined, and that they have some of the most inconsistent playmakers on any team. As dangerous as they want to be on offense, they have some of the most inconsistent players than I think a lot of teams who expect to be good have. Now mean, now listen to these scores. This is since week

eight. A loss against the Chiefs 30-14 when they should have at least been in the game and had every chance in the world to play and win because the Chiefs looked like crap too despite putting 30 points up on them. We all know that wins and losses can be deceiving, but here's the issue. The Colts beat the Packers 31-26. That was not that close of a game. Played really well. Looked really good on the road, right? Week 11, Colts beat the Titans. Really wasn't that close, but the Colts end up getting a seven-point win. Could have been at least 10, possibly 14-point win. Looked good again. Then they get embarrassed by the Steelers with Scott Toulzine under center because the receivers can't catch the ball. They still can't protect, and defense looked awful. Then last week, we have a week 13

win again on the road against the Jets where they blow them out 41 to 10. The Jets never even looked like a professional football team in that game against the Colts, and now we have to chalk that up to the Jets just suck. Now we have another team come into Lucas Oil Stadium that's awful in the Texans, and the Texans beat the Colts 22-17. Now, if you take those three turnovers away, or if you take the Colts nine points that they gave the Texans basically on that, the defense was pretty solid in that regard, right? I mean, take over three times inside their own red zone and only relinquish nine points to that. So that gives the Texans 13 legitimate points against this Colts defense. As bad as they looked at times and as bad as they were on first and second down, they only gave up

13 points. And the Colts only put up 17 points with everybody, I mean, ultimately playmaker-wise healthy at the beginning of the game. Some things that jumped out to me, Dante Moncrief needs to come back to the ball when it's passed to him instead of just floating and allowing the ball to come to him. That's why a couple of his targets were broken up. I'm not saying he's typically a really good route runner, but you see if you watch his targets that were broken up by the defender, you can see that he's floating and it's not a crisp on a straight line coming out of his break and when he does he's kind of just waiting for the ball to come to him you can't

do that in the NFL and he knows that I think Moncrief's a fantastic receiver I'm not knocking him I'm just simply saying that's something that needs to happen that's something that they need to address with him and then you look at uh T.Y.ilton, who was double covered for a large majority of that game, still broke out and had a fantastic game later in the game, of course. But it still is something that the Colts were able to move through, which was nice to see. I mean, T.Y. had nine catches for 115 yards and a score. And then you look at the reverse of that. Dwayne Allen, zero catches after a three touchdown game last week, and then on two targets. Okay. Now they were forcing those

two targets. T Y R. I mean, Allen was never really open on those throws and he just looks awful. He looks terrible. He can't catch the ball. He can't run a solid route anymore. And he's, he's a detriment to this team more often than he is a playmaker. And then you have a guy like Jack Doyle who's only missed two of his targets since week 11. Okay? Why are they shoving the ball and, more importantly, Dwayne Allen down our throats or down this offense's throat? It is not working. Get over it.

He had a great game. He's had other great games in the past. How many of those has he had? There's so few and far between. It's just something. He's not consistent. This offense is not consistent, and it's pathetic at this point. I mean, it's just something that has to change and has to be improved. I mean, it's just really bad. Other than that, nobody caught more than four catches, and has to be improved. I mean, it's just really bad. Other than that, nobody caught more than four catches, and that was Turbin. He caught four balls for 33 yards. Chester Rogers, as far as I'm concerned, needs to be in this lineup a lot more than Dorsett does because Dorsett sucked.

He had eight targets, caught three, and dropped at least four of those that I could count. Terrible. I mean, some of those that they're saying, well, it wasn't a great throw. It was a good throw. On two of them, he mistimed his jump, which made it look like he had to go completely out of the way to get the ball. That's not true. Watch the tape.

And on the other ones, they were just flat-out drops. Andrew Luck goes 24-45 for 276. Two picks, two touchdowns. He was only sacked one time. But here's the caveat to that one sack. He was hit 13 times. I counted 14. The official stats have him for 13. That's insane. 13 hits in one game. Now, this is not all the line's fault. I'll give them a third of that. Okay. I'll give them at least four or five of those because those are on the line at some point or another, whether we want to admit it or not, or whether, you know, I mean, they deserve to get a third of those regardless because they've been so crappy throughout the

season. But when you look at how many times he had five, six, seven seconds back there in the pocket to make a throw, those receivers are not getting, are not winning at the line of scrimmage. They are not winning at the top of scrimmage. They are not winning at the top of their routes, and they are not running good routes. Like I said, Dwayne Allen, perfect example. Dorsett, how many times was he open and dropped the ball? So he was getting open. He just couldn't catch the damn thing. And then you look at T.Y. He was doubled. So Moncrief, he wasn't winning at the top of the route. The only guys that were really winning was eventually T.Y. because eventually he shakes everybody and Jack Doyle.

And then you can say that Dorsett was winning. But you've got to complete the whole play. I mean, you've got to catch the ball. And he just didn't, and it was pretty awful. It's just so disappointing to see such a team who is potentially so good and dangerous. And I've talked about this time and time again, and all they do is disappoint consistently over and over and over again, Lux, uh, interceptions. I know at least one of them, he was hit. I think the other one, he was too. Oh, no, no, no, no. He overthrew, uh,

Dwayne Allen who slipped on a perfectly dry turf somehow, and overthrew him. I don't think that was particularly a good throw. Just going to put that in there. But it was, nevertheless, it would have at least been hit by Dwayne Allen at some point. He would have either caught it or knocked the ball down or, you know, possibly tipped it and been intercepted anyways. Who knows? But it was a uh you know bad route uh he has i mean this is simple stuff running a route i don't he doesn't run fast enough to fall on dry turf i mean everybody else in the nfl for the most part is playing outside and they're running routes without falling and duane allen's running on a dry turf and he's falling so uh i'm over

duane allen i'm tired of it i don't want to talk about him anymore. I'm sick of it. He's not the best tight end on this team. He never has been this year at all in any way, shape, or form. The Colts, if you're going to shove somebody down our throat or down the offense's throat, it needs to be Doyle because you know what? Teams are preparing for Doyle, and he's still winning constantly over and over and over and over again, and they need to use that. He's a vital part of this offense, and he needs to be used accordingly, continuously. I want to tell you guys about my man, Mike. Colts fans, are you in the market to sell your home? If so, call Mike Earnest of Century 21 Sheets at 317-285-9691. Mike is an expert in the greater Indianapolis real estate market and has helped people just like you achieve their real estate goals. As a professional realtor, Mike will not only help you navigate the real estate

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Hire a professional. Let Mike Ernest and his Century 21 Sheets team go to work for you. Whether you live in India 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. Let's look at the first and down.

I told you how crappy the Colts were on first and second down. They gave up 16 plays to this pathetic, anemic Texans offense of six yards or more. Now, they had one, two, three, four, five of 15 yards or more and had multiple between six and 10 yards. It's just terrible. They gave up 240 yards on first and second down. That's pathetic. This is not something that the Colts can afford to do. If you look at the combination of the two, they gave up terrible first and second down yardage, but the Colts were pretty good in third down percentage, holding the Texans to only five of 14. That's pretty good. So you have to weigh both of those factors together.

But it doesn't change the fact that if they were playing a decent offense, that would have been an absolute rout. Because of their first and second down yardage allowed, plus the third down percentage would have been significantly better. And then you look at the Colts on their hand. I mean, they have Andrew Luck and T.Y. and all these guys who are good. And they had 266 total yards on first and second down. That's terrible for the Texans, but the Colts are not an anemic offense, or at least they're not supposed to be. They had only 17 plays of six yards or more. So against this defense, the Colts had some big plays, right?

But they had 42 yards on first and second down on their first drive. Against this defense, the Colts had some big plays, right? But they went, they had 42 yards on first and second down on their first drive. Their second drive, Andrew Luck throws that pick. On their third drive, they had 17 total yards. Zero on the next one. Then 28, then 8, then 37. So they could not keep consistent drives, okay? And it just was, it got to a point where you saw the momentum start to shift towards the Texans in that regard, because the Colts held them to 27, uh, or I'm

sorry, 25 total yards on first and second down in their first three drives. And then their fourth and fifth drive, they had 52 and then 21 on their sixth drive. So you could see the momentum start to swing. They're starting to get these first down things. Plus they were starting to connect there at one point. They were five of their last six on first down. They didn't make any on third down conversion attempts. The Texans were, they didn't get any of their first three and they didn't make any of their last five.

But in between there, they were really good in the middle of the game. I don't understand how you can have a tear, such an awful team and have Andrew Luck and still not find some sort of way to protect him or help him out. I mean, Andrew Luck's completion percentage Sunday was just over 50%. And I think it would probably been closer to 60% had just the drops not happened. I mean, you take those out and you have a significantly better completion percentage. There were a couple of woe throws, like just

terrible. One was in the end zone to Moncrief, was like 10 yards behind everybody. And then I think that Dwayne Allen throw, and there was another one in there somewhere as well. And other than that, luck was pretty spot on for the most part, right? I mean, he was just getting hit on every single play. I mean, not only was he pressured on an inordinate amount of plays, but he was hit, actually physically hit and knocked down 21% of the plays, of their total plays. That doesn't even count. Drop backs.

21% of the Colts' total plays today, Andrew Luck was hit. Think about that. That's once every five plays. I mean, it's bad. And then, of course, we get to some of the more nitpicky stuff of just, there were some pretty good things in there mixed in here with all this. But at the end of the half, the end of the first half, Luck was 9 of 22 for 91 yards and a pick. Gore had four runs for 18 yards, ended up with 10 for 41. Okay. Like I said, Allen had two targets already at that point and had no catches. He did not have another target the rest of the game. But then you look at, I mean, let's just get all the way down to the end. Okay. Because that's ultimately where this conversation, this argument gets to a lot of people. I'm not one. And you guys know

this. I've talked about it several times on the show. I am not one to question play calling very often because it's so, uh, result based argument. You know what I mean? Um, Oh, you got to pass on fourth down or you got to run on fourth down or you got to run on fourth down. Yeah, I don't care either way, but at least have a solid play call. You know what I mean? At least have the right package and all that other stuff involved. And if it's not, and there isn't a good situation and the quarterback doesn't check out of the play or something like that, when there's eight in the box and he's running right up the middle on a fourth and two or whatever it is, then that's on the quarterback. That's a stupid play, but that's more or less bad line of scrimmage

notification and observation by the quarterback, so to speak. But when we get down to this, the Colts took over with 247 to go in the game. Okay. Still more than easily possible for the Colts to win this game down 22-17. They have a first down pass to T.Y., a 10-yard first down run, or pass to Turbin. Luck goes incomplete, then throws to T.Y. for four. T.Y. run backwards a little bit on that play. I'm not going to complain because he was trying to get extra yards. I mean, at least he was showing some effort. You know what I'm saying? It was a second effort anyways. Then the two-minute warning. T.Y. gets another one, goes back down

again a little bit. And then the Colts are in a fourth down situation now. Fourth and really short, fourth and one. And the play call is a screen pass. Now, I think that you can count the total Colts screen passes in the past three games on one hand. Okay. Here's the problem with this play call. The play call sucks because the Colts are running screen passes when the situation does not suggest that the defense is going to blitz or send at least five after the quarterback. This is no different. This one was no different. The Texans rush four, just their four linemen. They have their linebackers sitting back and the Colts call screen. This is something that the Colts, I mean, the Texans, I rewatched this play four or five times. The Texans never even showed blitz in this. You want to call that on luck? Maybe a

little bit, maybe just a touch because like I said, that pre-snap stuff. However, this is just a bad play call. It's fourth and one. You've got a running back that can get one yard falling forward. The Colts had run the ball for the most part pretty good, despite the fact that they didn't run the ball very often. And if you can't get one yard on a fourth down play, then your offense sucks. And this Colts offense doesn't suck, at least not by the definition of

the playmakers plus the opportunity. And they decide to go on a screen pass that was never there to begin with. Why don't you design a pass for Jack Doyle? Or why don't you design, if you're going to pass the ball, why aren't you passing to Jack Doyle? If you're going to run the ball, run that ball. I mean, bring somebody in motion and have them crash and crack back on that defensive tackle or something. I mean, be inventive, a little bit creative here. Not a screen pass when there's no chance the Texans are going to blitz. You're sitting back there with one running back with luck in the shotgun why would they blitz at most they're going to send one additional guy to plug a hole but the colts get pretty much tipped their hand that they were going to pass so the texans intelligently chose not to blitz

they didn't even choose to send five guys i mean at any point like i said they never even faked that they were going to blitz they were, their linebackers were spread across the line, three yards off the line of scrimmage, and never even faked or showed blitz at any point. That was an absolute piss-poor play call. And this offense, terrible, terrible execution on the day. Wide receiver's not getting open, two through four. I'm not going to blame anything on T.Y. Hilton.

If T.Y. Hilton doesn't come alive in that second half, the Colts aren't even this close to winning the game. Chester Rogers, in my opinion, needs to be that third guy in the wide receiver core. I'm pretty sure that at this point, the drops from Dorsett have relegated him all the way down to fourth. Chester Rogers runs a crisper route. He only had one target. He caught one pass. Nice pass. Nice catch. Nice route. Okay, and then we need to get Jack Doyle continually involved in the game plan from start to finish.

This was honestly one of the biggest games that the Colts have had all year, and if not the biggest game, because it definitely would have set a tone. The Colts have three games coming up where they could lose legitimately all three games. Okay? Vikings, Raiders, Jaguars. The Jaguars suck. So do the Texans. Doesn't make a difference, apparently.

So, I mean, they had, but those three games are also so winnable. I mean, you have to win this game. You have to even, even if you're playing like crap, you have to come out of this game a winner because you have these three games that you guys have to be able to say, got away with one there. We got to make sure that we don't let that happen in these next three games. But the Colts are already way behind the eight ball right now. Tennessee wins big game over Denver, puts them at seven to six. And obviously the Texans are now at seven and six also. So, I mean, the Colts had a chance to stand alone atop the AFC South, despite what the Titans did because

of tiebreakers, and they completely screwed it and just pissed it away. I wish I could give you guys an honest explanation of why the Colts were doing what they're doing. I mean, there's another thing. I have to talk about this because I'm not a fire Pagano every five minutes kind of guy, but can somebody, anybody tell me why we have a coach who listens to the crowd, who's all screaming challenge and screaming that they want him to challenge on a play where there's a fumble, where the guy didn't get the first down,

determined by the fumble spot or where the ball was recovered, and there was obviously no obvious recovery by the Colts. In fact, Griffin, the tight end for the Texans, was the guy who came out of the pile with the ball. Why are we challenging that? That's a waste of a timeout. It was a stupid time to do it. It just makes no sense to me. We can't have

a coach who listens to the crowd. And if you were in that crowd and if you guys were screaming challenge or just whatever it is, that's not on you. That's on him for not being smart enough to say, there's nothing about that play live that tells me that any challenge here is going to change the end result of that play. Nothing. There was no time where anybody on the Colts had more than one arm on it. And David Perry was the only one who had an arm on it. And he had an arm on it underneath Lamar Miller's body. And I mean, there was three other guys that dove in on the other side of Lamar Miller's body for the Texans who are fighting for it. Now, congratulate David Perry for having a strong enough arm to keep it out of their hold. They

didn't come right out of the pile with it. But there's nothing about that play that suggests that the Colts could have gotten that ball. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. It was an absolute awful challenge. And, I mean, guys, there's a 99% chance of this Colts team being done right now. I mean, they're done.

Yes, it's physically possible for them to still make the playoffs, but these guys are so inconsistent. They would have to put the next, I mean, think about it, to do anything in this, in now or in the regular season or in the playoffs, they would have to put six or seven games straight together of kick-ass football. And they're not able to do that. It's not possible for them to do that. This team can't do that, okay? Like I said, can't blame this on the defense for the most part, all in all, because the defense came to play. They did terrible run defense, especially up the middle, but overall, considering Jackson wasn't in the game, I mean, that may have

been a huge difference in this game, too, that DeQuel Jackson wasn't in, game. I mean, that may have been a huge difference in this game, too, that DeQuel Jackson wasn't in. But you can't put it all on the defense. You can't put it all on the offensive line. The Texans were covering the Colts, and the Colts didn't win on their routes. The Colts, either Andrew Luck or Chudzinski, is trying to shove Dwayne Allen down the throats of this offense, and it's ridiculous. Coaching

all the way down, there's issues on this team. All the way down. Nobody is exempt from this team, and they just cannot find... There's something. I mean, they need to look for a winning attitude. They need to look for a winning culture, and this culture within the Colts right now sucks. I don't know what the answer is, guys. I don't have the answer, but it ain't this. I mean, I think we can all see that. Very disappointing loss. Terrible that the Colts are now 6-7 with a very super-duper slim chance of making the playoffs.

I'm still not a lose- out guy for a better draft spot. I think that's stupid. Sorry if you're one of those people, but I think that's stupid. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. This is not nothing that the Colts are going to do over the next three games is going to significantly change their draft order. It isn't going to happen. Get off that boat. That one's sinking. So not a happy Monday here, guys. And obviously, I don't think it was a very happy Sunday for you guys. It wasn't for me. It was a happy Monday here, guys. And obviously, I don't think it was a very happy Sunday for you guys. It wasn't for me. It was a good thing that my kids were napping during the game because there was a lot of times I wanted to throw stuff or scream, and I had to keep it to

myself. So it kept me holstered a little bit during the game. And I hope you guys were able to take it easy as well. If you were at a bar, I hope you didn't just over drink the rest of the day. You got to go to work Monday. So I hope everybody had a safe Sunday and better things are on the horizon. I hope, I mean, I would love to see the Colts have a really good final three games to the season, regardless of playoff or not, but there's going to be some major changes in this off season. I mean, major changes. I think this roster is going to get overhauled, and I think that the coaching staff is going to be significantly different, whether that means Chuck Pagano, whether that means GM Ryan Grigson, or the position coaches and stuff underneath it.

Something's not working, and there's a lot of somethings that aren't working, and something needs to change. Thank you guys for joining me, as always. Get on the podcast, subscribe to it on iTunes, Stitcher, thank you guys for joining me as always. Get on the podcast, subscribe to it on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you guys get the show. Thank you guys for coming back. Get us on Locked on Colts on Twitter, Locked on Colts on Facebook. Tell somebody about this podcast if you guys like it. Share it. Let somebody know. We need as many people on board as possible. And if you guys have any thoughts about the game, hit me up at locked on Colts pod at gmail.com. And, uh, let me know what your thoughts are about the game.

Uh, until then, I'll talk to you guys 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.