Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS 3/27/20: Xavier Rhodes, Sheldon Day deep dives with Locked On Vikings and Locked On 49ers

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

The Colts are definitely trying to build a monster defense with their latest moves. Not only is DeForest Buckner aboard, but so are former All-Pro CB Xavier Rhodes and rotational piece Sheldon Day.First up, we break down the Xavier Rhodes move with Locked On Vikings' Luke Braun. He helps explain that a lot of Rhodes' issues were mental last season. If Rhodes bounces back, Indy has a CB1 in the fold. We also go over Rhodes' fit in the Colts' defense plus other traits that matter to this current regime.Locked On 49ers' Brian Peacock closes the show with a discussion on Sheldon Day. With Indy attacking the 49ers model once more, is that the blueprint Ballard desires? Also, Day's local ties plus nonstop motor make him a very versatile fit along the defensive line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back into your latest episode of Locked On Colts, probably Locked On Podcast Network. Today's audience is your host, Evan Seder, and my very special guest on today's show, Luke Braun of Locked On Vikings. He's here to help recap the Xavier Rhodes signing from yesterday. One year, around $5 million. We don't need the exact terms just yet, but slightly less than what Pierre Desiris had to make this year.

The Colts cut and he landed with the Jets. They replaced Desir here with Xavier Rhodes. We have Luke Braun the Jets. They replaced Desiris here with Xavier Rhodes. We have Luke Braun here of Lockdown Vikings to help us talk with Xavier Rhodes. Luke, how are you doing today? Doing pretty well, man. How are you? Doing great. Thanks for coming on on the short notice. Appreciate that. I want to get your thoughts on Xavier Rhodes here

because a really rocky career so far for Xavier Rhodes. A very hot start for him, and he definitely, I believe he's an All-Pro in 2017, if I'm not mistaken, and a multi-time Pro Bowler. But the last two years, and especially in 2019, the wheels sort of fell off a little bit from what I saw on tape and from what I imagine from what you've seen, Luke. But from the Colts' side of things, we were talking about this off the air, the Vikings play a lot of man scheme,

and the Colts, however, play a lot of zone scheme. So I wonder how Rhodes fits into this. Yeah, so the Vikings play a very diverse scheme. They have a lot of man, a lot of zone, a lot of different zones, two high shells, three high shells, all kinds of weird stuff. So it's not like he's completely inexperienced as his own corner. He's fine as his own corner. It's more that his skill set lends itself to, he's better when he's playing like press man getting up in

somebody's face uh and so if you take that away from him you're kind of wasting a talent that he has but to the first point the kind of the story of of Xavier Rhodes is you know he was an elite corner especially in 2017 he was very good in 2016 and kind of before that too he he was yeah he was an elite corner, especially in 2017. He was very good in 2016. And kind of before that, too. He was Yeah, he was like one of the better corners in the league for a long time. And in 2018, he was hurt a lot. And in 2019, there was I would call it a coaching error that kind of got in his head, and he wasn't really able to like work with that. So what had happened was you might remember a couple years ago, there was a Thursday night football game between the Vikings and Rams, where the Rams like totally boat raced the Vikings.

It was like this barn burner of a game. It was a great game from a neutral perspective, but it was Zimmer's defense getting like totally shredded by Sean McVay. And so Zimmer got really worried about deep routes. And he had a week and a half after that game because it was a Thursday night. And so he kind of went back to the drawing board and said, okay, start capping routes. You know, if you, if you aren't sure if it's going to be a hitch or a double move, play the double move. If you get beat underneath for a hitch, I'm okay with that, but start capping the routes. And that doesn't jive very well with Rhodes's game, which is very

cerebral. What makes him good, kind of similar to, to like the way that Richard Sherman wins, although not as good as Sherman, obviously. But you know, he's very good at like recognizing through tape study and just through like general tendencies and stuff, just recognizing what routes about to happen. And so he can run the route for you because if you line up in this way and he would even like read your body language and if you look more excited, you know, now I know it's post corner and you're getting the ball and he would be able to kind of run the route for you. But when you add the extra layer of, okay, I know it's this or that. And getting the ball and he would be able to kind of run the route for you. But when you add the extra layer of, okay,

I know it's this or that. And I also now have to worry about capping the route. It got kind of in his head. And I think Washington was the first team to actually figure this out hilariously enough with Bill Callahan as, as the coach. And if you watch the Thursday night game between the Vikings and Skins from 2019, you'll see Terry McLaurin getting Xavier Rhodes on a bajillion hitch routes.

And so if like after that, then they had to go back to the drawing board again. But by then the kind of like meant the instinct and the like mental processing was all kind of screwed up. And so to reclaim Xavier Rhodes, I think you have to reclaim him mentally. I still don't think there's much of a physical issue, although he has been dealing with quite a few injuries. And so you got to keep him healthy, but provided he's healthy, I think it's all a mental thing. If it is only a mental thing, Luke, and Rhodes can regain his form that we saw maybe in 2017, maybe like 80, 75% of that form. How good of a corner is Xavier Rhodes, and what's your cool team to expect out of him? Oh, if you can get his mental thing back, which is a tall order.

I don't know what the likelihood of that is, but best case rainbows and sunshine scenario, he could absolutely go back to being a top 10 corner. I think physically he has that. Now, putting him in a zone scheme, and if you aren't trusting him the way that Zimmer did earlier in his career, where Zimmer would say, okay, you have DeAndre Hopkins, you're shutting him down all game, and we're going to focus the rest of the game planning on the other 10 players, and Rhodes would basically have to be his own

coach. And that's what Zimmer trusted him to do. And if you're not doing that and you're just kind of asking him to like read it on your terms, and I don't know enough about the way that Ebert Flusen and the Colts like run that defense to know, then you might run into some more problems. What you don't want is for Rhodes to just be guessing and you don't necessarily want to give him like a flow chart. He's really good at reading offenses. And I think you'd want to take advantage of that. But I think even in like a more like reasonable scenario

where he, you know, reclaims like 50% or is he like as good as he was in 2018, which wasn't great, but still was like acceptable. I think that for $5 million is a good deal. Yeah, I definitely agree there. I think Rhodes at $5 million, a worthy gamble. And from what you saw last year, Luke, what do you think were some highlights and maybe lowlights you can point out to some

listeners out there? Because I know it was a roller coaster, like you mentioned last year in 2019 for them. Yeah, so it got worse as the season wore on because I think, you know, they kept trying to tweak and fix things and it's like they kept picking out a scab kind of. So I think if you want the good Rhodes performance, week one is probably your best bet. He went up against Julio Jones. He played great in that game. And I think for the worst, definitely watch the Washington game.

I think that one's fascinating just because he kept getting beat by the exact same route. And I think the very rock bottom for Rhodes was probably Seattle on Monday Night Football. I want to say that was week 13, maybe it was week like 11 or 12. He actually started like blowing coverages and making like rookie mistakes. And there was one where somebody got by him for like a 60 something yard touchdown. It was like this horrible disaster. And you know, he's like yelling at Harrison Smith on the sideline.

And you can tell he was just on like full tilt by that point and kind of beyond reclamation from the Vikings. What do you think of Xavier Rhodes from a mentorship standpoint, Luke, as far as being a leader in the locker room? Because he's now entering a very young secondary room. He's going to be the veteran leader in that room with guys like Kenny Moore, Rakusen, Marvell Tell. I imagine they draft her another corner or two, either day two or day three of this draft. And that's going to mean Xavier Rhodes is going to have a big task on his hand as far as guiding that group forward, helping him take a leap forward. What's your overall opinion of Xavier Rhodes? I know he's been a captain before, I believe, at the Vikings.

But I know there's been some issues with Mike Zimmer in the past, like you mentioned last year, like how it got worse this season, went on with his mental issue there. But what can he bring off the field to this team, you think? I would be really excited about that. I actually had a chance to talk to some of the undrafted free agents a couple of training camps ago. And I was doing something on like the young guys

and who they all look up to. And every time I asked a defensive back, they said Harrison Smith and or Xavier Rhodes were like taking time out of their practice day to like work with young kids who were never going to make the team. I mean, he really, really took it upon himself to try to bring people up. And I think a lot of that is just a culture that Zimmer and to a lesser degree, like Jerry Gray, like kind of instilled in that locker room because you saw similar things in the other

position groups, and I would be pretty excited about having that come into your locker room. Xavier Rose is a great influence on young players, and especially if you look at, like, Holton Hill. He and Holton Hill were absolutely inseparable, and it wasn't until the offseason when they weren't hanging out as much that Holton Hill got in trouble again. And Holton Hill has improved quite a bit. So I actually think that that's like a really significant part of his value. That's awesome to hear. And I think off the field, like you mentioned, for guys like that, I think he's gonna be a huge asset if that indeed is the case for guy Xavier Rhodes. And the Colts really value character in the locker room. The guys at DeForest Buckner, Phillip Rivers, they're going all in on leadership with a win-now mentality and I

think from what you're describing here Luke Xavier Rhodes definitely fits that billing before I let you go though I want to hear your thoughts on this Colts defense overall as a whole what they're doing just overhauling it over the past year to add in a lot of draft picks 2018 now going into 2019-2020 with guys like Deforest buckner xavier roads now your cornerback one you have kenny moore darius linder in the fold still you have kimoko ture coming up a little bit what's your overall opinion of this cold steven so we get back a a good version of xavier roads and deforest buckner keeps wrecking havoc with darius linder running free what do you think the upside is for a Colts defense now with adding a guy like Xavier Rhodes to that mix?

I feel like you just named like six of my draft crushes. I loved Trey coming out. I loved Yassin coming out. I really loved Malik Hooker coming out. He was kind of the guy. The Vikings traded away their first-round pick for Sam Bradford that year, and Malik Hooker is always the guy I consider to be the one they would have taken because he fell past that pick.

So there's quite a bit on that Colts defense that I personally was a huge fan of before they even became Colts. I love what Chris Ballard has done with that roster. He really took over a mess and cleaned it up in a hurry. And I think I like what Trey offers. I love what Darius Leonard offers, obviously. The secondary is interesting, though, because is Rhodes going to come in

and be expected to be CB1, or is that Rakia Sin? I think the expectation, I imagine, is Xavier Rhodes will be CB1, but I think cutting Pierre Desir, I think they must internally believe that Rakia Sin is about to take a leap here in year two. Yeah, I was a huge Desir fan, too, so I was really surprised to see that and to replace him with Rhodes, which I would say is a pretty significant downgrade, although you said it was cheaper too, right? Yeah, about $2 million cheaper, actually.

Desir is about $6 million, and Rhodes is around $5 million. Yeah, I would say that that's probably a downgrade just because of where Rhodes is at at this point in his career. You know, do that two years ago, and it's a huge upgrade, but I also was just a big Desir fan. But, you know, I also have have I'm admiring from afar too because of course our teams don't interact that much yeah actually the Colts and the Vikings do play this year so before I let you go Luke I just outsider's opinion here of the Vikings so far heading into 2020 it's been a very interesting office in one where you

re-sign Kirk Cousins, you trade Stephon Dix for a first-round pick. You have a lot of ammo now to address those needs, especially Xavier Rhodes out the door and Trey Waynes as well. I imagine the Vikings addressed those two needs early in the draft. Yeah, I've been pretty low on the Vikings offseason. I think they've made a number of pretty large mistakes. They cut their right guard, Josh Klein, seemingly out of nowhere, and I think that is a stark mis-e mistakes. They cut their right guard Josh Klein seemingly out of nowhere, and I think that is a stark mis-evaluation. They've let quite a few cheap opportunities at cornerback walk by. They let Mackenzie Alexander out the door for a price that I thought was reasonable when he went to Cincinnati. I thought they could have gone in on like Mikel

Colman, but they don't seem to be willing to spend on those corners because they have, I don't know what they're planning on doing too. So there's going to be some big something that changes my opinion on this. But yeah, in the draft, it sounds like they're going for offensive line and cornerback with those two first round picks. If, of course, if the board falls that way, Rick Spielman has not been too much of a commit to one position unless it's something really bad like interior offensive line last year, wide receiver in 2016. And those picks tend to be his worst ones so the ones where he has a lot of options to pick from like it's super likely that the best player available at 22 and 25 also happens to address a need because the team's fallen apart and everything is in need so it'll be an interesting

couple of months here let me ask you real quick, because we're on this draft discussion for a second with the Vikings, and I've seen a lot of discussion here with the Colts and quarterbacks in this draft class, and I keep coming back, circling around, especially now that the Vikings have two first-round picks. Say Jordan Love is on the board at 22. Do you think that's an interesting call if the Colts say they offer 34 in a 20-21 second-round pick? Do the Vikings buy at that? Because I imagine there's been rumors that the Colts say they offer 34 in a 2021 second round pick, do the, do the Vikings buy it that Jordan?

Cause I imagine that there's been rumors that the culture like Jordan love and there's, he might be slipping on the boards a little bit, so that can make sense. Wait, sorry. It would be for what? So Spielman loves to trade down and trade around heat.

So he's always going to be fielding those phone calls. But what did you say? It'd be a second rounder in 2021 to, to move up from 34 to 22. Yeah. Like something like that. I don't know, like exact concept. I think he'd probably have to come up, but I would have to look at the charts and the trade histories. But I think teams usually have to do better than that to come up, what's that, 12 spots in the top 50? Yeah.

I don't actually know what the compensation would have to be, but if Jordan Love is on the board at 22, Spielman's phone is always on. Appreciate the time, Luke. You guys can follow him on Twitter at Luke Braun NFL. You can also read and subscribe over to the Locked on Vikings podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at Locked on Vikings. Luke, appreciate the time. Help us diagnose Xavier Rhodes signing for us.

Yeah, good luck this season, except for one game. All right, you guys, welcome back into part two of today's podcast. We had Luke Braun of Locked On Vikings on to talk about Xavier Rhodes in part one. Part two now with Brian Peacock of Locked On 49ers. You guys heard from earlier this past week, talking to Forrest Buckner, once again the Colts signed another former 49er defensive line, Sheldon Day, a former Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Warren Central Indiana product. So a local kid coming back home to the Colts. Brian, how did you do that? Hey, Evan, I'm doing great. I actually

didn't know about the local angle for Sheldon Day, so now it makes even a little bit more sense. But yeah, 49ers, I think, or the Colts, I think, doing a nice job of plucking former 49ers away. And it's interesting because Day was actually the guy who started next to DeForest Buckner in the Super Bowl. So he was out there on snap number one. He wasn't a regular starter for the 49ers. But, you know, he was an important enough rotational piece that in the biggest game of the year, he was on the field on the first snap. What were some moments that stood out to you about Sheldon Day when his tenure at the 49ers? Because I believe he was claimed off waivers by San Francisco.

Yeah, he was claimed, which was pretty surprising. This is a fourth-round pick in Jacksonville and not a player you would expect to become available. And 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Sala was with Jacksonville in 2016 when they drafted him, so I think there was an obvious connection there, and he was probably surprised that he was available too. So the 49ers claimed him off of waivers, not being a good team in 2017. And he's been a solid rotational guy ever since.

I think solid, versatile is exactly what you're getting with Sheldon Day. I don't think he's a player you necessarily want to be starting, and he only started two regular season games while he was a 49er, but he can play a number of spots on, I mean, basically, you know, if you need a,

a one shade nose tackle, or you need a three technique or anything in between there, he can be your interior player and he can give you snaps, but he's not going to be a huge impact guy mostly just because his size limits what he can be he's only 6'1 I don't think he's even 6'1 to be a really squatty player and you know just under 300 pounds so a bowling ball type low to the ground but has some athleticism can shoot gaps a little bit can hold his ground pretty well but he's not a true nose tackle so can give you some solid snaps but he's not going to be an impact player. Yeah, I think a good

rotational piece for sure. And this puts someone like Taekwon Lewis, a former 2018 second round pick on high notice series, really been underperforming and Sheldon Day might be taking a spot here. So about Sheldon Day here, like you mentioned, very versatile. And the one thing I noticed with NFL Game Pass being free now, I the advantage now watching Buckner and Day games and when Sheldon Day plays the one thing I noticed a lot Brian is just effort high effort and a guy who just doesn't quit till the snap is done or he plays really through the whistle almost that's a really a big thing about Chris Bauer is that he loves high effort players he loves high character players I think Sheldon Day checks both those box for sure he definitely does yeah high character guy he will coming. And it's funny because DeForest Buckner, they couldn't be shaped

more different. Like Buckner could wear Day as a backpack, right? Because he's so much shorter than he is and they look so much different on the field. But one thing they do have in common is that effort. They keep coming for you and they can be versatile up front so they can move either one of those guys around and use them in a lot of different ways and so you're covered depth wise with someone like Sheldon Day on your roster and I think the most sacks he ever had in the season was two and he's not a big time pass rusher but he can disrupt a little bit and he can hold his ground pretty well against the run in one-on-one block situations so a nice little rotational guy just don't expect a ton from him and hope that you're not forced into a situation where he's you know your starter for a long period of time and you'll

be in good shape was his playoff run where he was forcing the starting duty due to injury and playing alongside the forest buckner was his playoff run a little surprising to you where he kind of held his own pretty well there in that setting yeah and he played well and he played fine in dj jones was the starting nose tackle and he went on ir to end the year and the 49ers basically didn't have a true backup to him and and some of their reserves were banged up all season long julian taylor another guy the 49ers really like and his flash but he's had trouble staying on the field dating back to his days in college and they actually brought back one of their old players at nose tackle to be a rotational guy,

but they got more playing time than him. So basically he was forced into that role as being someone who played a lot and started some games for the 49ers in the playoffs and he didn't hurt the 49ers, which is key. So, you know, he was forced into that role.

They didn't want him to necessarily necessarily play a starters amount of reps and they still rotated guys in quite a bit but he didn't let him down either and that's the best thing you can say about Sheldon Day is you have a need you can plug him in and you're going to get some quality snaps from him even though he's not going to make a huge impact and go get a bunch of sacks or be you know this guy who's taking on double teams and allowing other people to work yeah one year deal for Shyear deal for Sheldon Day, a guy like you mentioned, Brian. He's going to be versatile and play a one technique, a three technique. He'll definitely be a much needed to your presence to rotate with guys like DeForest Buckner, Janico Autry, Grover Stewart, Tyquan Lewis on the inside.

There's a nice little rotation they have forming on the inside, let alone what they have on the outside now with young guys coming up like Kamoko Touré and Ben Banigou and Justin Houston. But before I let you go here, I just found it interesting that Sheldon Day, another former 49er here, Brian, with DeForest Buckner now on the Colts defensive line, it makes

me think that Chris Bauer must have fallen in love with what he saw at the 49ers in their plan this year. Yeah, I saw that and I was thinking, okay, is he trying to implement some playing style too? Does he really want to do more wide nine and some things that the 49ers were doing up front? Or did he just want to, did he like the way they played? Did he like the attitude?

Did he just want a little bit of that juice? And if, look, last year the 49ers had the best defensive line in football. So if you're going to steal some players and steal some ideas from a certain unit on a certain team, 49ers defensive line is a pretty good place to start. You guys can follow Brian on Twitter at BDP cock. Brian, appreciate time once more, man.

Yeah, absolutely. Evan, anytime. And I look forward to talking with you. Maybe, maybe we'll talk trade when we start up this locked on podcast network mock draft.

Absolutely.