Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -12/27- Jim Irsay Needs to Override Pagano's Decision; Some Possible HC Replacements

Episode Date: December 27, 2016

The Week 17 matchup with Jacksonville means absolutely nothing yet Pagano wants to start Luck. Jim Irsay needs to step in and protect his franchise investment (show him the rings), Pagano needs to be given his walking papers and we discuss a couple possible replacements should that occur. 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 thank you for joining me here on a Tuesday in Locked On Colts, December 27th. I appreciate all of you guys coming back and listening.

I appreciate you guys here every single day. Again, hope everybody had a fantastic Christmas. And today we're here to kind of touch on this game against Jacksonville Jaguars and touch on a couple other things about kind of where the organization is headed, at least where we assume that it's headed, where it looks like it's going, and maybe a couple of other things. But at the moment, the Colts come into this game against Jacksonville. They're going to be hosting them at Lucas Oil Stadium. It's a pretty bad team overall. they kind of blew out the titans this past week under doug marone nothing uh real significant about that i don't think i think that's always been kind of a uh one of those matchups that can go either way for the most part but you know they're playing a pretty bad team with a pretty decent defense uh got jaylen ramsey on the back

end there uh telvin sm. They've got some good defenders. They definitely do. Their offense is garbage for the most part, but I think everybody knows that. I mean, they just put TJ Yeldon on IR. The Colts are battling some injuries right now. Dante Moncrief waiting for his MRI to come back. Darius Butler's got a concussion. They've got some injuries on their end too. And, you know, I don't really know what's going to happen. There's not a lot of trust in the Colts right now as far as I'm concerned. if he had planned on sitting anybody out of the ordinary or whatever. And he kind of said that he didn't have any reason to, and what would be the reason for that. And I actually tweeted about it because it really bugged me,

and this is kind of one of those situations that I feel like, you know, I think Pagano's a good guy, but this is a stupid move on his part if he fails to protect the better interest of the organization for the next decade. And they've already wasted a few years of that decade, to be quite honest with you. When we drafted Andrew Luck, we said guaranteed at least 10 years, right? Well, five of those years are gone, and they've got five years left. And Pagano is talking about suiting up our organizational franchise quarterback in a Week 17 game that means absolutely diddly. We're going to be going up against a Jacksonville team that's awful,

has nothing to lose, you know, as if this doesn't mean anything. They have a better defense than offense and Andrew Luck's on offense. Their defense is going to be head hunting to try to take any shot at Andrew Luck. This is just a, in my opinion, a colossal idiotic move here to not sit Andrew Luck. If there's any ever a situation where I feel like the owner should step in to a coaching decision, which is very, very, very few and far between. As far as I'm concerned, both the GM and the owner, you know, you hire a coach to coach, you let him do his job, and you step aside.

You get your butt out of the way and you treat it the way it is. You hired him to do a job. You allow him to do it. This is one of those cases that I believe Jim Irsay needs to step in. First and foremost, Andrew Luck is far more important than anything that he could possibly do in this Week 17 game. There's just no doubt about it. I don't know what you could possibly hope to get out of having Andrew Luck in this game, other than throwing 30 touchdowns maybe, to actually get your record to 500 maybe, other than that significance,

there's not much there to be had. So on the other hand, if I'm Jim Irsay, the way I look at it is I brought Pagano in here to do a job. He and Grigson now are apparently, and I use air quotes, tied at the hip where one stays, one both stay, one goes, both go. And now he's talking about starting our quarterback in week 17 game where we're not going to the playoffs. We can get nothing out of this game. He's here to do a job and he's not doing a good job. First and foremost, I mean, let alone, I don't know if I'm going to keep him right now,

let alone keep him how far into the future. I look at it if I'm Jim Mercer as if that's my quarterback, that's my organization's quarterback, that's my franchise quarterback for the minimum the next five, six years. Minimum. He's not Pagano's quarterback because Pagano is not going to be here that long. Whether he stays or goes this year, if he stays another year, I mean, he's pretty much got to go all the way to the Super Bowl to keep his job if he stays another year. I mean, but who knows because we've been talking about that

forever. That's besides the point. Ursa's got to pull the plug on that decision. That's just the smart money. I mean, that's the way to go. How are you going to allow this guy to put your franchise quarterback out there and possibly ruin what little hope you have left for the next few years? That's ignorant. That's just plain old stupidity. That's either Pagano being dumb or in a stupid moment,

or that's Pagano just saying the right thing, and they're going to come up with an injury for luck to put him on the injury report this week. If that's the case, bravo. That's smart. You say the right thing in the press conference, and then you put him on the injury report. Sorry, he's got an injury. He's not playing.

This game doesn't mean nothing, guys. That's smart. But if he's not and he does plan on playing luck, we need to get his head checked because that's not intelligent. And Jim Irsay, if he does do that, you need to pull the plug on both him and that decision immediately. So that's where I stand on that. I just think that's a stupid move. You just don't benefit any, nobody benefits from that. Nobody. If anything, you benefit from allowing Stephen Morrison, Tolzien to play a half

each. You know, I mean, let a couple guys who, you know, Tolzien's seen a game. Let Stephen Morse get in there and prove his worth. If he does, sign him again and then maybe use him for what you can get out of him or keep him on the roster, you know, so show what he's got in a game against some real NFL, you know, if you want to call Jacksonville that, some real NFL defense. I've also got some bad news for Pagano in this organization. Just real quick, we're going to have this is kind of going to be a quicker show than the normal one of our shorter shows. It's just one of those weeks, guys, you know, getting ready to get the draft guys on board to come in, thinking about a lot of things that we want to do for future shows.

And quite honestly, the thought about this week 17 game and it meaning nothing disgusts me. So I'm going to get to you some things right here. And here is about as good a case for dropping Pagano and or Grigson as you can get. I've gone through all of the specifics on the defensive pathetic play over the years how it's dropped uh and uh you know and you can catch any of my articles on that or anything that i've said in the past on here uh somewhere around the 50s episodes i believe i talked quite a bit about it um but more specifically let's look at the first three years of Pagano because that's kind of about two years plus, you know, a few games because of his sickness. And then let's look at these last two years, one with, one without luck.

So it kind of evens itself out if you want to call it that. In the first three years, 2012 through 2014, the Colts were 19-5. That's a 79% winning percentage at home. They were 7-8 over the past two seasons. That's a 46% win percentage at home from last year to this year. Now let's look within the division. 17-1 from 2012 to 2014. The past two years, 6-5.

You see a trend. Let's go to even football outsiders, their team efficiency. You can see that when there was a massive overhaul from 2011 to 2012, you knew that things were going to, you know, take a while to shake out. Okay. Luck was enigmatic, young skill position players, a really strange backfield, you know. And basically they were terrible situationally, but there was all kinds of comebacks, you know, all these comebacks in the fourth quarter of the first two seasons,

that's for sure. In 2012, their team efficiency was 25th. The next two years, 2013 and 14, they were 13th. Okay, so they had come up, kind of plateaued a little bit there and kind of showed that that's mainly due to luck and a bend-don't-break defense. And you know what? And that was one of the first years that we brought in Vontae Davis as well. So the secondary in a couple different spots had improved, and it was a

decent team. Not great. 13th was pretty solid, though, if you look at it that way. And they were winning games, and they were winning a couple games that they probably shouldn't have won. And then you look at the past two years, 2015, 2016. 2015, they were 23rd in team efficiency. And then this year so far, they're 24th. So we've seen they start out cruddy. They kind of hit their most potential there for a while, even with an underperforming roster. And then now, after they've really got all their draft picks that they have been able to keep, you know, without cutting them, or, you know, all the free agency guys that they've brought in, those that have done something, they've dropped to 23rd and 24th the past two years.

They're just, I mean, and I didn't necessarily mean that I was going to give you guys a wholesale on how to fire Pagano, but as if there wasn't anything enough, somebody, if you're, I mean, you're under 500 right now in the past two seasons at home. You're one game over 500 in the AFC South over the past two years. That is god-awful. I mean, there's a reason that they call the AFC South the worst division in football, and it has nothing to do with the Colts. This year and last year, it has because the team's poorly coached, and they've had just a terrible time with the roster as far as keeping guys on the roster,

keeping guys healthy, and having free agency guys actually stick and be worth a crap. This has been one of those things where now the Colts fall into their surroundings. Now the Jags, the Titans, and the Texans, who have been terrible for years just the same, the Texans actually have a solid defense. They've gone through this season. They are going to make the playoffs and it's because their defense was pretty good this year their offense sucks they're one of the worst offensive teams in the league and they made the playoffs that kind of goes against all knowledge too because that's not something that makes any sense to me you would think uh and in

fact uh the Colts are a perfect barometer for that you look at their teams 11 and 5 the first three years their defense sucked and then you've got luck and he's kind of carrying this team he takes him takes him to the playoffs uh texans have had pretty solid defense for the past couple years, few years. Titans, that's by far the best thing they've had because they don't have much else. And the Jaguars, you know, they've had a couple offensive years, and that's about it. So it kind of goes against knowledge to assume that a team with luck in the division could win the division. It's just so sad to me. It makes me sick.

But like I said, as if I needed to give anybody more ammunition to want to boot Pagano to the side, there are a lot of coaches that are going to be available. There are some first-time head coaches. There are a couple coaches that have been through the ringer one time and then are coming back around. Those are the guys that I think that a lot of us should keep our eyes on. Coaches come back for their second tour, so to speak,

tend to be a little more successful. I think that if you were to say Saban came back around, I think he would be more successful. I think he would be more successful. I think he would have been more successful in Miami had he got Breeze. I think that's kind of a given when you consider between him and Culpepper. I think that's just something that you learn your first go-round. If you're lucky enough to get a head coaching job at that age, at a young age,

then I think that you're probably going to blow it unless you've got a premier staff around you. And a lot of the guys, Lane Kiffin, you know, when he went out to the Raiders, he was just a head case and he shouldn't have got the job. He's a really smart football guy, but he's a head case. You know, this group here is really no different when you look at Josh McDaniels and a couple other guys that are that are in this coaching hunt right now you know those guys are probably going to be successful in my opinion they've got the kind of the moxie you know and maybe a guy like Todd Haley too his first time around with the Chiefs wasn't so successful. Now he's offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh. I think any of those guys that drop themselves down, go back to basics and become coordinators or position coaches again and flourish and get a

chance to come back through, I think those are the guys that are going to be successful. If I'm looking right now, I uh outside of that maybe Kyle Shanahan and uh you know Todd Haley Josh McDaniels those are my three picks and they should I think that they should be they've got the moxie to go out and get uh those defensive coordinators they've got the moxie to go out and get the uh position coaches to get those guys that they know have been around the league to bring in old school guys that can teach people and really buckle people down. However that's going to turn out, I don't know, but I want an offensive guy for Andrew Luck. I think all three of those guys could be,

you know, could work miracles, so to speak, or, you know, work wonders with him. I think he would really do good with Shanahan, especially how he's turned out this year and how he's improved. And I think a lot of that credit should be given to Brian Schottenheimer. I think he's done a fantastic job. I think a lot of people looked highly on Clyde Christensen when he was in town, but I don't think he got anything close to what Brian has gotten out of Luck. I really don't. I don't know if it's just a language barrier type thing,

and I don't necessarily mean that. Neither one of them are foreign or anything. I just mean they're just a communication barrier, I guess, is what I meant to say. And I think maybe those guys just may be on a different level as far as how they can communicate and get through to each other and how Luck can understand what Brian's trying to tell him. And I think Shanahan and he, as far as communication, I think that they're probably closer to each other. And I think that could be a nice fit too. So there's a lot of things that are yet to be determined. I'm fully on the Pagano go train for sure.

I think that some of you might be surprised if Pagano does leave that Grigson may or may not be leaving with him. Just a feeling I've got. And I think I've said that a few times. So it shouldn't be anything new to my loyal listeners who've been around for a while, but, uh, that's about all I got for you guys today. Uh, thank you for joining me as always, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, anywhere else you guys get podcasts. You guys continue to be fantastic. I appreciate everything that you guys are doing as far as sharing the show, listening, telling your friends. I appreciate everything that you guys are doing as far as sharing the show,

listening, telling your friends. I appreciate it. Great comments, great everything. So please keep sharing the show. Tell some more friends and family about it and so on and so forth. And hit me up at LockedOnColts on Twitter, LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com or mdainleyNFL on Twitter as well if you guys want to talk to me.

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