Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -4/29- Colts Day 2 Draft Analysis & Quick Hitter W/@gmbremer

Episode Date: April 29, 2017

The #Colts have impressed with their first three draft selections thus far, and have improved the defense as they head into Day 3. Matt analyzes how Chris Ballard is shaping this roster nicely, and George Bremer stops in to share his thoughts as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 day two of the 2017 NFL Draft has made us very happy again. At least it has made this guy very happy again. And you know what, guys?

We are landing some really sweet talent defensively. This is something that everybody's talked about all offseason. We've talked about it through all the free agency signings. We've talked about it leading up to the draft, and now we're here. The Colts go and get Malik Hooker in the first round at 15, a guy who's a top eight, top seven talent in the draft. Colts come back in day two and land Quincy Wilson, one of the best, as far as I'm concerned, press man corners in this draft. And then in the third round, we land Terrell Basham, one of my personal favorites coming into this draft process as far

as for a mid-round guy. He was starting to shoot up boards and stuff. I wasn't real sure if he was going to actually end up being a mid-round guy. I thought he might even go higher. But the Colts get three needs, you know, corner and edge rusher, bigger needs than safety. However, you don't pass up that kind of talent. And this also proves that Ballard has stuck to his guns, maintaining that best player available on the board mentality. If you guys watched his press conference, you guys saw that he was excited about these guys. He's talked about unique skill sets with these guys. All these guys have unique skill sets, okay?

You get a guy like Hooker. I mean, there's just not too many guys who can play center field at safety like that. You can leave him over the top, especially if this Colts run defense has improved, which I completely expect it to probably significantly as well. And you've got another guy who you're basically drafting Quincy Wilson as the heir apparent to Vontae Davis. But right now you get to have him opposite him and you get to have both corners in man coverage and press man coverage at that. If

you've noticed in the past, a lot of what people talk about with the Colts is they run a lot of man scheme. We do. However, often Vontae is in press man and then whoever has been opposite him in the past has been in off man a lot. This allows the Colts to go both press, single high possibly with Hooker, if not throwing somebody in there with the nickelbacker, whether it's Gethers playing it, you know what I'm saying, in a two-receiver set or something like that. Or if the Colts want to get a little interesting and maybe put Butler on the field there as a third coverage guy

with a three-receiver set, four-receiver set, something like that. Very interesting. Very good. Uh, I, I just, I'm very excited about this draft. Like I said, we've filled three needs, two bigger than the other. However, we've gotten three fantastic players. And as far as I'm concerned, Quincy Wilson was borderline first round talent to begin with. And you look at Terrell Basham, this dude can bowl people over and just plow through just as easily as he can kick the edge. And Ballard, if you guys, like I said, if you listen to his press conference, you heard about how impressed he was with Basham's getoff, with his burst. And he's got a lot of it. He gets

off the line quick. He goes headhunting for the quarterback. He's solid in run defense. He's not great in run defense, but he's solid. Ballard definitely thinks that he's a three-down player. I also think he's a three-down player. I was a little unsure of how exactly it was going to fall in the third round. I saw that Tim Williams hadn't been picked yet, kind of thought the Colts might go that route, was kind of wondering if there was another thought process in mind, maybe even with a third-round pick.

And when I heard Terrell Basham, I was ecstatic. I mean, guys, this guy has all the effort in the world. You don't see – you look at all his film, and you don't see him ever take a playoff. I did not. I looked at some film through draft breakdown, obviously, even looking at just – I mean, you can look at highlight tapes. Obviously, you don't expect to see a guy taking a break on a highlight tapes, but if you look at some all 22 film that I've got access to as well, then I'm watching that. And I'm telling you what the dude just doesn't

take any time off. He doesn't take a playoff. He's always going after it. He runs down the line of scrimmage. Well, he's good in pursuit, always trying to be in on the tackle, and he's a hitter. I mean, he is going to flatten some quarterbacks, and he's got good form and good tackling technique. It's an exciting day because the Colts now have a legit number two corner on the edge. The Colts have a legit pass rusher who is going to be part of an interesting rotation, I think. I'm really excited to see how that really kind of twerks itself out. Twerks, I use twerk, my bad. Anyways, then we also have a guy, like I said, who's going to have the ability to play single high when the Colts are in a two high safety look. You know, that's going to be something that's

interesting to see as well. That's going to be very intriguing to find out kind of how they roll those safeties into coverage who they use where what they do with Clayton Gathers what they do if anything with TJ Green as far as playing time specifically he may end up being more of a special teams guy he definitely has a long way to go to where he can be a guy that the Colts can rely upon deep in that secondary. But Malik Hooker, on the other hand, as long as he checks out medically and he can get himself healthy, he's a guy who's going to help tremendously. He's very good.

You listen to some of the guys that played with him, some that coached him. They all say he has fantastic play recognition skills. And you can see it on tape. Quarterbacks, although in the NFL, are a little adept and a little better at using their eyes to roll safeties to one side to get them out of a play. This is something I think that he personally needs to work on. He needs to make sure that he is not tipping his hand, and you can see him do that a little bit, but typically in the college game, you don't see quarterbacks being able to use eye discipline as well as they do in the NFL, that's for sure.

And they have a little struggle being able to move safeties around in order to find themselves a hole for the receiver. But this is know, this is three great picks, guys. I don't think that, you know, when we come into this, we're all looking for defense, defense, defense, right? But we all felt, I think, in the back of our heads, in the pit of our stomach even, that there was going to be an offensive lineman and a running back in the first three rounds.

I mean, not that that would have necessarily been a bad thing either. I mean, it's just not what we felt like we needed. We feel like vindication is here because the Colts actually went defense and actually got some fantastic players. I mean, these are great prospects. I don't think that you'll find too many boards where these three guys have hardly any negatives written about them at all. I mean, I know you can say that Hooker's not a big hitter. That's not his role. He's a free safety.

I mean, there aren't typically, you know, air quotes, free safeties in this scheme. That doesn't matter at all. His skill set is how they're going to use him. And when they use him to his skill set, that is going to benefit the Colts. That's going to benefit Hooker. And I mean, the guy had seven interceptions last year and 70-some tackles. You look at a guy like Wilson, where he had three interceptions last year, I think six or seven passes defended against, but he only had around 35 to 40 tackles total. He's not a big tackler. I just don't think that may be something within Florida's scheme as

well. I mean, where he didn't really have to either. I have yet to kind of really check that out and kind of look deeper into that, but that seems a little light on the tackles, but that's good because you don't want your corners tackling. That tells me that Jared Davis was a really good linebacker there. They had a good front line, and that's what stopped a lot of the running attempts on the outside as well. Some of their outside contain as well. So I think that this is a great start to the draft. The Colts have a lot of talent still left on the board even. I mean, some of it's coming off. You know, there's a lot more corners are starting to come off, but we're also seeing some wide receivers, running backs, you know,

starting to hit their peak here. Some of the tight ends are starting to come off late in the third round. This is an exciting thing for us because there's still even some more edge rushers, for that matter, on the board. There's more corners on the board. There's several good corners actually still on the board, all with these unique skill sets or unique traits that Chris Ballard is talking about. Chris Ballard wants to see length. He wants to see speed. He wants to see burst, athleticism.

He wants to see what do they do, what burst, athleticism. He wants to see what do they do, what makes them special. If there's something special about them, what is it? And if they are special, then those are the guys that he wants on his board. This draft is allowing him to find those special players, and this is really the direction that we were hoping to see the Colts go. Now, when we look at the division and how they've been drafting so far, well, let me look at this first real quick. Baltimore, the Ravens, I hate the Ravens now. I just do. You know, I didn't before this draft, but now I'm just starting to hate them. I mean, if you guys have listened to me at all, if you've ever written or read my work that I write at FanRag or Stampede Blue,

you know that Marlon Humphrey, Tyus Bowser, Chris Wormley, and Tim Williams were all people that I write at FanRag or Stampede Blue, you know that Marlon Humphrey, Tyus Bowser, Chris Wormley, and Tim Williams were all people that I'm, as far as skill sets and so on, very high on. Tim Williams, his off-the-field issues and stuff like that are something that really caused concern for me. But even if you take Tim Williams out of that, Humphrey, Bowser, and Wormley, three guys I really wanted for the Colts, and the Ravens, of course, drafted all of them. So that ticked me off a little bit, but that's really neither here nor there. We're not going to play them all that often. But look at the Texans right now. The Texans obviously are in good shape defensively. Now they've got a

quarterback, Deshaun Watson. They added an inside linebacker in Zach Cunningham. Inside-outside, I think he's got a little versatility as well. They also added a big bruising running back, Dante Foreman from Texas. So, you know, they're having a good draft. They've done well for themselves so far. And the Colts really here, you know, they can only worry about themselves. This isn't something that the Colts can really worry about with what the other teams in the division are doing. Now, as of right now, the Tennessee Titans haven't made their second, third round pick quite yet, but they've got Corey Davis, wide receiver, corner Odori Jackson, who's got a lot

of big playability. And they also added Taewon Taylor out of Western Kentucky, another wide receiver. So I'd be interested to see what they do with their last third round pick or their next third round pick. And there it is. It just pops up. John U. Smith, tight end, Florida International. So they're adding some weapons for Marcus Mariota. And, you know, this is, again, a team who's playing pretty well defensively, needed some offensive weapons, and it looks like some of our rivals here are getting the weapons that they've been looking for. And this is going to leave the Colts, you Colts in a situation where this defense has to be really good. And if it isn't really good, then they're going to have some issues. Now,

let's look at the guys who did the most in free agency here, well, at least compared to the rest of the league in the Jacksonville Jaguars. Round one, Leonard Fournette Cam Robinson really good offensive tackle out of Alabama in round two and then in third round they added Dwayne Smoot from Illinois who's a defensive end Ed Rush kind of guy I am kind of I don't know I don't know what to think about Smoot he's a guy that had a pretty good 2015 season 2016 he looked kind bad. I don't really know what to think. He's got a ton of upside, but I just don't know what's up with that dude. But you look at them. They've got all those guys that they added in free agency, and now they've got a running game. Now they've got another piece to their offensive line that's going to help them,

especially in the running game. Cam Robinson's not great in protection. He has the ability to get better. He's athletic enough to still give people problems, but he's really good in the running game. That's going to present issues for our front seven. This reworking of our roster here in Indianapolis is something that is a real deal. It's something that really needs to happen. And, you know, this may, the way that things are going, you know, is this something that Ballard is going to do, take care of, you know, in the near future, as far as, is he going to look towards another defensive lineman? I mean, we got Hankins, we got, you know, Sheard, who can kind of be a down lineman and also an edge rusher on the outside linebacker and off the

ball kind of guy at points as well. So, you know, we don't really know, but we know that this run defense has got to improve. Do they go inside linebacker after this now? I don't know. Running back inside linebacker seem to be kind of tertiary needs, but at the same time, they do need them. And the good thing, at least as far as running back, is there's a ton of depth here. I'm starting to think that the Colts are not worried about adding a tight end. I think that maybe they were looking at the board previous to that, which is why they signed the basketball player out of VCU, thinking that maybe he has a little more upside than what happened. I mean, he had three or four or five offers to be signed as well. So that makes you kind of think at the same time

that it's really hard to kind of, you know, put all that together and kind of figure that out. But there's another part of this. I mean, with all this, we understand that these other teams are getting better. Jacksonville's not going to do anything until they get a better quarterback or their quarterback starts playing significantly better. Tennessee and Houston, they're both possibly on the rise quite a bit here. Got some weapons in Tennessee now, and Houston actually has a quarterback now, at least in theory. Does he turn out to be what O'Brien actually thinks he is down there?

We'll have to see about that. We don't know, but I think it's relative to what the Colts want. He's an athletic guy. He's accurate. He's a big game kind of guy. That's something the Colts need to be kind of worried about, even if he's just an average game manager for the first couple years. The Colts have to have this offense maintained,

which makes you think we need a running back at some time. Guys, there's a ton of running backs, though. I'm excited to see which running back we take. Some of the guys that have been hyped as mid-round guys have been taken. Kareem Hunt was taken, a few others. But my guy, as far as the guy that I've been kind of attached my trailer to as far as how much I like him is Jamal Williams. Really like him. Even if they wait until later, guys. I mean, if you guys watch that YouTube video that I put up about Elijah McGuire, that dude is so quick and so fast at changing directions and making people miss. Is he a big back? No, he's not a big back, but he's got enough size to run between the tackles.

He's shifty enough to catch out of the backfield in space and make people miss and get some big yardage after the catch. And he's very good when the offensive line blocks well. The Colts were really good in run blocking last year, and that's something that we need to also consider going forward. Gore didn't really do much with what the offensive line gave him. That's something we have not had or heard in a long time. You know, everybody made excuses for Trent Richardson. Offensive line's not blocking well enough. He can't, you know, he's getting hit in the backfield before he ever gets a chance.

And a lot of that was true. But even when he had chances, you know, his vision was terrible. And we see that. Gore, on the other hand, is a guy who can get small, really, you know, and create some yards on his own. But this offensive line is improving, especially in the run game. They'll improve this year in pass protection. And this is exciting. They need a back who can hit a home run. McCaffrey, that's why McCaffrey was mocked to the Colts so often, because he's that guy. He's that guy who can catch a five-yard ball in the flats or just whatever and turn it upfield and make two people miss and be gone.

There's some other guys like that in this draft. There's some guys who can do it actually off the run. There's some guys who run really good routes still. There's a lot of running backs in this class, and there's a lot of good ones still left on the board. So I'm not too worried about that. I think that they can wait until their second, fourth round pick tomorrow to do that. But I think if I'm looking at their first, fourth round pick, what do they need to do? What do I think they need to do? I think I would double dip either in corner or edge if it was me. If they're going best player available, well, let's just look at that.

Now, whether we're looking at outside linebacker or just a linebacker with a little bit of versatility or whatever, we've got some good ones still on the board here, some capable ones, some guys who can learn. I really do believe that Terrell Basham is a guy who can come in and contribute immediately, but we've got Carl Lawson still on the board. Blair Brown, another guy, versatility a little bit, mostly an inside guy at 238, but still on the board. Josh Carraway, still on the board. I mean, there's some guys that can really play, guys, that are still on the board as far as we're looking at outside linebacker. So, I mean, when we look at the other positions here, who are some of the guys that kind of fit what the Colts want to do? One of the guys that I've

been liking for a long time, Howard Wilson, 6'1", 184 out of Houston, real athletic, good ball skills, like him a lot. Look at a guy like Marquez White, 194, six foot. Jeremy Clark out of Michigan, 6'3", 220. I mean, a lot of these guys fit that size. Brian Allen out of Utah, a lot of people have been talking about him lately. He's another guy who could actually come in and fit the mold, so to speak, but also gets another big body in there for the Colts to somewhat develop. Also, Corn Elder. I mean, there's a good slot guy for you right there. DeMonte Casey, same thing, out of San Diego State. Another good slot corner. So there's a lot of talent left on this board. If the Colts want to double up on either of those positions, there's available people to do it. Right now,

we're going to go to my guy, George Bremer. He's down there at the Colts Complex, and we're going to talk to him real quick about what he's seeing. And our guy, George Bremer, is gracious enough to stop in for a few minutes to talk to us. George, thanks, man. I appreciate your time, buddy. No problem. Anytime. So what we got here, man, a couple of exciting picks tonight.

Quincy Wilson, big, long, physical corner out of Florida. And Terrell Basham, like a bull rusher edge defender here for the Colts. I mean, these are two fantastic picks. These are two guys that I've written about several times. I really enjoyed both of them. Watching them on tape, thought that they were possibly both. I mean, Wilson, I thought was probably a little bit higher pick, like an early second round guy, earlier second round. But Basham kind of fell right there in that third, fourth round range where I thought he would. What did Chris Ballard give you guys in the press conference that kind of piqued your interest the most?

You know, really the word of the draft so far with him is upside. He talked about it on day one with Malik Hooker. He talked about it again today. You know, Wilson in particular is only 20 years old. I mean, can you imagine that? He's even younger than Hooker, and yesterday we thought Hooker was incredibly young. It's really about building something that's going to last

and building a defense that can grow together. That's what he was looking for, and I think he found three guys who really fill that, really high ceilings, with a lot of room to grow and grow together. He's talked about unique skill set each time, and that's something definitely that we see with Hooker. He's got the ability to be a ball hawk in center field, kind of go from sideline to sideline and help out over the top. Of course, Wilson's long, athletic, good press man corner,

young guy too, really physical at the line of scrimmage. And then you've got a guy like Basham, like I said, who's got not only some pass rush moves, but he's also got the strength to just bull through offensive linemen. And these three guys are definitely capable of showing these unique skill sets over and over again. Are there any indications to you on Ballard's direction going forward tomorrow? You know, I think it's the same as it's been, and it's best player available.

And I think what's happened to this team so far is the best player, the strength of this draft, we talked about it beforehand, you know, in our preview, the strength of this draft happened to line up with the needs of this team. So that best player available strategy has really kind of dovetailed nicely with what they've needed, and I think it's going to be the same way again tomorrow. I think a running back is, I'm not going to say it's the highest priority but i think it is a priority they know they need to get somebody in here who can eventually

replace frank gore i would be surprised if one of the three fourth round picks doesn't wind up being a running back uh but you know if the board dictates that that doesn't happen they won't hesitate to go that way to me that's the last box that hasn't been checked. When you look down, you know, when we were talking a couple days ago about what they need to do in this draft, running back, maybe inside linebacker are kind of the last boxes to check there. And, you know, and kind of they've somewhat gone in the direction that we spoke about, you know, cornerback we felt was kind of they've somewhat gone in the direction that we spoke about. Cornerback, we felt, was kind of the largest need because it had been largely left alone so far through the offseason. And then edge rusher, just because the Colts definitely need a pass rush.

But Hooker was one of those guys that just jumped off the board. And most of us assume he's a top eight talent in this draft. And you can't pass up a guy like that. So, I mean, I think that took them a little bit out of the way of need. Like you say, Ballard, you know, obviously is a best player available type guy. And he has stuck to that. And I think that's shown today. I'm pretty impressed with him.

What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things. These weren't reaches. You know, they filled needs, yes, but as you said, these were guys who either were right in line with where they were at or maybe actually were taken a little bit lower than you would expect them to go. And I think what happened with Malik Cooker, I don't know about you, but I didn't even really pay attention to him in this draft process

because I thought there is no way this kid's going to come to Indianapolis. So, you know, to see him fall as he did and to take advantage of that, that to me tells me something very important about Chris Pallett. He can adapt on the fly. There's no way they came in Thursday thinking, hey, Malik Hooker might be there. I know 10 days ago, 10 days prior to that, he sat down, he brought him in just in case because you never know what's going to happen on draft day, and that was proven again this year.

But I think general managers around the league i believe get in trouble when you get too too involved in your plan and you can't adapt when something like that happens he was able to immediately say wait a minute there's a guy here who was not in the plans who we really need to take and and fit him in and i think that set up for what they were able to do today and the three picks together set them up really nicely for tomorrow. I totally agree. George, thank you for taking some time out of your busy evening, man. Really appreciate your time.

Have a good time down there. And we'll talk to you soon, brother. No problem. It's been fun. Thanks a lot. So I hope that you guys are excited as I am about the way that this is starting to fall. The Colts have a lot of options left for picks today. Ultimately, if you're listening to this on Saturday, three

fourth round picks and a fifth round pick. So the Colts have some options. They could trade back or whatever. In fact, Ballard said that he had an option to trade back earlier in the day and just said, you know what? Sometimes you just got to take the player and they took the player. They liked the guy and I'm okay with that because I like the players that they've gotten. So I hope you guys do too. I hope you guys are as excited I am for less of the BS on tomorrow's version of the draft starting at noon. We don't have to mess with all the chitter chatter from the people on the stage or anything like that. straight to picks, boom, ding dong, names flashing across the screen, move on. I love that part of it. I think that's why I enjoy day three as much as I

do. It's nice to see these top end guys and hopefully that your team gets one, our team, the Colts, get some of them, which we finally have started to get. But it's also really exciting on day three because you get to see these names just flash across the screen and move on and kind of keep yourself tracked on the NFL tracker and all that stuff like that just to kind of keep pace with what is going on. So like I said, hope you guys are as intrigued and as excited as I am for the future here. The bad part about after tomorrow and after the undrafted guys start getting signed,

we start hearing a bunch about that. That'll be fun to talk about as well. The bad part about after that is we've got a really long wait until any football starts being played. So we'll do our best to keep you guys informed on anything and everything that I'm hearing or talking about or just whatever. We'll continue to have great guests on here. Really need you guys to get over to iTunes if you haven't. I'm starting to see some of those ratings and reviews pick up. Hook me up with a five-star rating and then give a decent review.

Actually, just give me a review on whatever you think. You like it? Great. If you don't, that's fine too. Let me know what you guys think I should do better if you don't like it. Great. If you don't, you know, that's fine too. Uh, let me know what you guys think I should do better. Uh, if you don't like it, uh, you know, constructive criticism felt, uh, everybody I'm good with that. That's cool. So, uh, if you guys would do that, I'd really appreciate it. Starting to see, like I said, an uptick in those and those would be fantastic. iTunes recognizes that more than listens and listens are doing great. You guys

are pumping this bad boy up and it's doing phenomenal. You guys, thank you all for the personal messages. I do want to get back to telling you guys this because it's been a lot lately, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's on email, whether it's a personal message in some way, shape or form. Thank you all for all the kind words. I appreciate it. I love that you guys are listening to me and you enjoy it. I love that you guys are listening in general. I feel like I'm actually talking to you guys as I'm talking, you know, not just sitting here with my microphone at the computer and just babbling and going on and on. So thank you guys. I really appreciate it. We're in this together, like I said, because this bad boy is not stopping. I love doing it. I'm glad you guys love listening to it.

So thank you all for joining me. I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be with Jake Arthur. We'll probably throw at least one podcast up during the day and possibly one after the draft as well. So keep yourselves tuned into that. If you guys have time and you want to listen while you're watching the names flash across the screen, do that.

So at least one tomorrow, possibly two. We'll see how it goes. Thank you, guys, 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.