Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -2/09- Colts Shrug Off Sanders' Talk; Ballard Brings Focus To Forefront

Episode Date: February 9, 2017

After hearing Deion Sanders defend one team's cheating by complaining about another's quality film review - we put that clown show behind us. Also Chris Ballard knows exactly how to re-build the Colts roster. #Colts 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 am your host, Matt Dainley, and thank you for joining me here on a Thursday, February 9th. And we are going to get into a little bit of what's happened in the past couple of days with the Colts. Not a lot of great big news, although of course there's a couple things out there that we're going to discuss. And I just wanted to thank all of you for coming back. Of course, I took my Wednesday off and now we're back here in midday on Thursday.

As always, subscribe to the show. That way on days like this where I do do show a little bit later in the day, then you guys can get that as soon as it pops up on your feed. So first and foremost, we got Deion Sanders going on and talking about the Colts cheating and by stealing signals and whatnot. And if you guys heard what he was talking about, he was basically talking with LT, LaDainian Tomlinson there, and basically he was actually acting like everybody knows that the Colts were stealing signals and whatnot during games, talking about the defenders looking over to the sidelines of the opponents

and stuff and seeing their signals and then adjusting to what they saw. Look, I'm going to make this real simple and real easy for you. It doesn't matter what fan base you're from. It doesn't matter if you're a Colts fan or not. Look, the Spygate thing, that was totally determined on where the cameras were set up. You know, to be honest with you, there was a lot, if you don't really know and all you go is by narrative from everything that happened with Spygate. Go check out Spygate. Read up on that a little bit more. You'll see that a lot less of that was really against the rules than the media originally portrayed it to be. Second of all, this is stealing signals. Baseball, basketball players, when they come up the court, they're holding up certain things

with their hands, just anything, sidelines in college, they hold up all those big old pieces of paper or whatever with pictures and numbers and weird symbols on them. And coaches in the NFL are the same way. Look, if you don't change up your signals, if you don't change up how you relay the plays in, if you don't have everything done and you have your play sheet there, you're given your play sheet. You have the headsets in the quarterback's ears now. That's supposed to help with this as far as play calling and whatnot. Same thing with defenders. The linebacker has the same headset in his helmet. The defensive coordinator can relay his plays in. He uses his, and you see that they cover their face with their play sheet a lot. You know,

that's for, I think that's more for real time stuff. You know, as far as whoever the opposing team is watching their play calling or watching the broadcast or whatever, they can't read their lips. That's more or less what that's about. But let's say you're a team and you're watching the film review of the team that you're getting ready to play for that week. And what are you doing? You're watching everything. Okay. And if you're stupid enough as a coach or a player or a team to not change up your signals or how you're relaying your plays in or anything like that, then that's on you. That's not cheating. That's being, that's paying attention. You know, I mean, if I'm watching a guy,

if I have people who are there to study my tape and they're not doing that, you're no use to me. Very little use to me. I need to know the subtleties in every little defense. We're trying to win this game. How are they getting these guys into place? What exactly are they doing to tell their guys to switch to a different front or whatever? What is their keys? What are they doing on both the sidelines, on the field, everything? That's what these guys are paid to do for all 32 teams. There is not a single team in the NFL that doesn't do this and do it openly. So for Deion to go and act like this is cheating, this is ignorant.

And this isn't the first ignorant thing Deion has ever said. I mean, when you look at his life, uh, and how he's lived it, he basically spends all his money on his lifestyle and proving that he's still prime time wants to show off everything. He, his wife, and one of his sons have all been accused of assault. Um, and then, and then he goes on and then, you know, some of these highlights, highlights, or I'm sorry, headlines were basically afterwards saying that he fires back after everybody is basically saying he's an idiot for bringing this up. Look, he's not firing back. He's backpedaling.

You know me. I don't lie. Ain't nobody sports-wise got nothing to fill their boring talk shows. That's not the point. It's that you're trying to downplay other stuff from the Patriots, basically, by saying that other teams were doing quality film review on both the players and coaches. And that's what he considers to be cheating. So it's Deion Sanders running his mouth off. And you know, you look at LT there, and I mean,

if you ever, this is just my own personal opinion, and I'll probably stay away from it now that I think better of it. But anyways, he's sitting there with LaDain Tomlinson and Tomlinson's doing nothing but nodding his head. He didn't say anything about it. And Sanders says, oh, LT knew about it, this and that and the other. Everybody knew about it. And Tomlinson's just nodding his head. He doesn't know anything about it. Look, it isn't hard to figure out. You go into the game, you do all the necessary film work, both on the players and coaches, of what the league gives you for that matter. And if you don't take the time to look at everything, then you're not doing your job. Plain and simple.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. And it doesn't surprise me a bit that Deion Sanders is who it came from. Let's be honest about the situation. I don't think anybody outside from maybe a couple things about defensive backs, does anybody learn anything quality from Deion Sanders and him at his job? Just a thought. So now let's move on to Chris Ballard. He's getting all set. You know, we've got the NFL scouting combine coming up here at the end of the month, the beginning of next month. He was on JMV earlier in the week and basically, you know, was talking about all of their needs, basically saying that, you know, he's know they've got defensively defensive needs and need to do well and get that done. We've got to make sure that we get Andrew Luck protected and give him

the weapons to be successful. That's true. A lot of the issues are coming up about like what needs, you know what I'm saying? A lot of the, I mean, obviously everybody and their grandmother knows that the Colts need edge rushers or pass rushers or somebody that can get in the backfield. But a lot of people are wondering whether running back is in play there in the first round. I personally would not go running, not with this class. Okay. Uh, Dalvin cook for net. Those two are, uh, by all accounts is going to be the top two backs and, uh, are going to be, you would assume will be successful in the NFL, but this is a deep, deep class. And there's a lot of guys who have similar traits. They're just not on the same level necessarily as those front,

those first two. So it's going to be kind of hard to, it would be hard for me to pick a running back like that when you can get them in the second or third or even possibly later that could be just as effective. I understand running back is a need, but we still do have Gore. Yes, you need a quality back in there in case he falters to injury. Finally, you know, he is a marathon man when it comes to his career. He just stays healthy, plugs away and just runs over people and continues to find little bitty holes. So he's fantastic, but they do need a succession plan in place. There's no doubt about it. Whether that's this year, you know, getting one of those guys or next year, because they do have Turbin. Turbin's a similar runner.

I'm just, I just can't get myself to want to spend an early draft pick on that. But if you think that the guy is a legitimate, you know, 10-year starter in the league and is going to, you know, run for over 1,300, 1,400 yards every single year, then I don't know, maybe you do. I mean, it's going to be up to them. I've just, it just, for me personally, 1400 yards every single year, then I don't know, maybe you do. I mean, it's going to be up to them. I've just, uh, it just, for me personally, that would be hard. And one of the things, you know, uh, as we kind of move into this a little bit, that kind of always, you know, people wonder, uh, what goes on behind the scenes because we see the, you know, the, the, the talk that Pagano gives us at press conferences and stuff like that. I mean, it's always so limited and very metaphorically based.

You know, we all understand that. But the behind-the-scenes stuff with them is something that's interesting. Ballard says that, you know, all the coaching staff's real honest. They're giving it to him straight, what their thoughts are and stuff like that. I would hope that there's no little forks in the road there. Well, but he's my guy and this and that and the other. That's what the Colts understand that they need. And I think Ballard is going to be the guy who's going to take this team by the reins there and be like, look, I want straightforward answers, cut dry, give it to me like you think. And then

he's going to do his own evaluation of everybody. And that's what is necessary. And, you know, I mentioned how much this, I think, improves the Colts as a whole. I think this is the first step in a process of about three years where the Colts should find themselves, barring any major injuries to any of the big guys, that the Colts should find themselves in the Final Eight, the Final Four, and hopefully the Super Bowl within the next three years. I mean, I really believe that too, because I believe that this guy has a premier draft this year to start with, and then I feel like he's got the brains to pick out and weed out the impressive guys in the late rounds of future drafts or mid

rounds and hit on his first round picks in the process, at least a healthy amount of them. So that's something that it makes me feel very comfortable with him running the show. You know, all the byproducts of that coaching changes, no coaching changes, whatever, really doesn't matter at this point to me. We'll see what happens, but that's not something that worries me one way or the other. Additionally, he says that he wants to be on the same page with the coaching staff, i.e. Pagano. He knows that a lot of these guys have been in situations where coaches have been retained in the past, or there have been in the league, have been when in the past, or there have been in the

league have been when a new GM's come in. Doesn't happen quite as often. We've mentioned that. But he understands that he needs to go in and give these guys a shot. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Give this coaching staff a solid shot. Let them prove or disprove the narrative about them. And then go on and just do his job. And one of the best things that Bauer is in his job is building in the trenches. And he's talked about that so much. Building your fronts, offensive line, defensive line. When you've got a good quarterback, you have a good offensive and defensive line, you've got a huge chance to win. If that defensive line can get to the quarterback of the opposing team,

then obviously you've got a huge chance. We've lost Mathis. They have lost basically any semblance of a legit pass rush out there. They do have those guys up front. Now, Kendall Langford, I think Mike Wells put something out the other day which kind of makes me think that something I've been saying for the past several weeks is that I think Arthur Jones is going to be released. That's just my thoughts and opinions, and Mike Wells seems to believe that too.

So it'll be interesting to see if that actually happens. But, you know, they've got to make that offensive or defensive line younger. And I think they've got some building blocks there with Kendall Lankford, who is going to be basically a stopgap guy because he's getting up there in age as well. But they've got Henry Anderson. They've got T.Y. McGill, who I promise you, and we've talked about this. If you've been a listener since the beginning of the last season, you know this too.

T.Y. McGill is a wrecker. I mean, that guy, he doesn't have a ton of tackles. He doesn't get a ton of sacks, but he absolutely just throws people around up front in the interior offensive line and makes a huge difference. His coming back and being as or more effective next year, as well as Henry Anderson, we'll see what David Perry does with, you know, Zach Kerr being up there. Those two kind of fighting for the nose tackle spot. We'll see what David Perry does with Zach Kerr being up there, those two kind of fighting for the nose tackle spot.

It'll be really interesting, but they need another guy there in the middle. And it'll be interesting to see with the pieces that Bauer brings in, what will Chuck Pagano do with that front line? Will he change it to a little more of a, and I don't mean necessarily a base front, but will there be more four-man fronts as opposed to it just being sub-package work? Or will they stick with their typical three, four, this or that? Because ultimately, he's going to have an influx of talent, in my opinion, in this coming year, whether that means with the combination of the free agent pickups, whoever that is. It doesn't look like it's going to be a whole bunch of guys or anything like that. But when you add in the draft and who comes in,

I think that you're going to have a lot of guys, not a lot, but a handful of guys that are going to be out of position, so to speak. They're going to be two or three deep in one where you really need at least two of those guys on the field at the same time. And so each position is going to kind of be a swing position. These guys are going to be having different assignments. They're going to line up in different spots. You're going to have the best three to four run stoppers slash guys who can get in the backfield on that front line and it won't matter what the package is what down it is because they're going to have to win on talent next year you know what i mean uh because either that or chuck pagano is going to have to have his

absolute breakout coaching season because there is going to be some turnover there's going to be some guys that you see on the roster this past year that won't be there this year, and you may wonder why. There's going to be a new influx of guys. They're going to keep some guys last year, I think. I think a lot of the secondary, to be honest with you, will be fighting for that fourth and fifth and sixth cornerback spot, depending on what they were to keep on the roster. A bunch of those guys are going to be fighting. They'll be at camp, and it'll be a good camp, I think, for the secondary because I think they're going to draft a guy who they think can be a shutdown corner. They have Robinson. They have Vontae Davis, who's getting older.

They need a succession plan for Vontae first. Robinson obviously will come later, depending on what they do with Darius Butler. We'll have a big impact on things as well. So it'll be super interesting. This defense is going to get exciting as far as I'm concerned. I'm looking forward to seeing the offensive line progress another year, and I actually am excited to see them progress under Philbin because I think Philbin did a lot of good work with them in the second half of the season. Their sack totals went way, way, way down, but they're still leaky. They were still letting guys in. Luck just happened

to be getting away from the pressure. So it's a little misleading, but it's also encouraging in the same respect. So they know what they've done wrong. They know what they need to fix. They're very, very young, and they're going to get another guy in there somewhere, whether it's through the draft, late round, mid-late round, or free agency, which I would prefer a 26-, 27-year-old guy in free agency who can come in and actually fill in and or start and let this offensive line depth kind of take hold because there's going to be injuries. Whoever you've got backing up somebody, they're going to play, and the Colts would be in a pretty good position in that case

because they can't afford to have one guy go down and then try to put in Dwayne Allen as an offensive lineman. So they're going to have to do this. They've earned a little bit of versatility out of necessity just because of injuries and stuff last year with these new guys, especially the rookies. So I'm very excited for both lines because I know they're going to do work on both and I know that they've got building blocks on both. It's just that they're far from

there yet. So we'll see what one or two pieces on each of them will do for the overall product. But I'm excited. I hope you guys are too. We've got a long off season, but we do have the combine coming up. And like I said last time, we've got free agency coming right after that. And then we've got the draft. That next two months after the draft or so, that's kind of the dead period. That's where we're going to have to really try and dig deep and find a lot of stuff to talk about on here. But I'd like to get your guys' feedback.

I'd love to get your guys' feedback. I'd love to get you guys on the show. If you guys have interest in coming on and talking, please let me know. LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com. Hit me up at LockedOnColts on Twitter, mdanley underscore NFL on Twitter, the Facebook page, anything you guys can, any way you guys can contact me in any of those areas. Thank you guys for listening. I really appreciate it. And I'll talk to you all tomorrow 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.