Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -5/24- Digging Through Initial Days Of Colts OTA's W/@gmbremer

Episode Date: May 24, 2017

Our friend George Bremer comes back after a couple weeks off the show to lend us what he has seen in the first couple sessions of OTA's #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'm your host, Matt Dainley, and thank you guys for joining me on this Wednesday. We've brought back the big man, George Bremer, for George's Corner again today. We're talking to him, seeing what he's learned, if anything, from OTAs so far.

And, George, thanks for joining us tonight again, man. Yeah, no problem, anytime. You know, for me right now, I think I'm just so excited because just to see something that approaches football again, it's really fun. I know it was the same, same thought process for me as we get into just everything, like looking at stuff. And then you hear like, you know, the, the opening statements and stuff from Pagano and then just players talking about like just Butler earlier talking about how you know I'm a safety until I'm told otherwise and stuff it just makes you feel like football's

coming back so it's kind of you got to kind of put blinders on because you know there's a big dead period coming real shortly and that's never any fun no no and that's one of those times of the year where the only news is bad news so you hope it remained a dead period because anything you hear uh usually in the middle from the middle of june until the end of july is not good right it's absolutely dead and you know but we do get a little bit we get some tidbits on here you know a little bit i mean we learned a lot about the uh injury well not a lot but you know we learned a little bit about Clayton Gethers' injury issue about, you know, when he had surgery and stuff and he had a bulging disc. I mean, that just does not sound good.

That's worrisome for me as far as for his future. I mean, we kind of did this with Bob Sanders, not so much a bulging disc, but, you know, just his injury history and stuff for a big physical safety guy that's going to be able to do what Gethers does within this defense. And it almost makes just – it's kind of a letdown right now because you just – I mean, it's almost like you can see it coming, you know. Absolutely. I can't get Delano Howell out of my head right now.

Yeah, yeah. The way things went, you know, a similar situation in that there was an injury. We didn't know a lot about it. You start to find out it's a neck injury, that worries you, and then he kind of waited that year all through training camp, and at the end of the camp he got cut with an injury designation, and that was kind of it for Delano Howell. It was a kid who really had some promising moments.

I think that was a guy they were excited about. They were excited to see what would happen, and he shook up the safety position. The thing with Gathers, first of all, it's just really sad. You know, to hear him talk about trying to put off that surgery as long as he possibly could really was his last resort, and he knew, you know, if he had to do it, it was going to shut him down for a period of time. They kept hoping that the disc would kind of shrink on its own, and it never happened. So eventually in March he has to go ahead and go under the knife,

and now it's a waiting game. It's pretty simple as that. When the doctors say he's ready to go, he's ready to go. But like you said, you're going to throw back in there with some issues with your neck, and the way he plays the game, it does concern you quite a bit. And it's also concerning from a team standpoint in the sense that much like we talked about when Dante Moncrief went down last year, there's no other safety on this roster right now gives you the skill set that Clayton Gathers has.

And so I think they're going to try TJ Green in that spot. That's the way it looked today. But it's not a replacement, not a true replacement. Nobody else is as physical as Gathers is. Right. I think that if you could somehow mix Darius Butler and TJ Green skill sets together, you might have a Clayton Gathers as far as skill set-wise, but you still don't have the physicality of Gethers in that safety role

because you've got a lot of the coverage ability, at least from the safety standpoint. Not so much at corner anymore, but with Butler, you've got that at safety. And you've got Green, who is physical. I mean, he's really physical in the box. He does pretty well. After watching some of his film and stuff like that, I wasn't nearly as aware of how good he does blitzing the quarterback from the box safety position. But it's just disheartening because

he's a great guy. He's one of those draft picks that, you know, you thought maybe he'll turn into something, look promising in his rookie year, look good last year while he was healthy. And then now, like you said, you know, Delano Howell, man, that's crazy too, that you bring that up because that was, there was a lot of promise there and there's a lot of promise there with gathers. And you just hope that, uh, you know, that gathers can, you know, get completely healthy. And then that's not something that's a recurring injury for him. I mean, just such a terrible spot to have it too. Yeah. It's a horrible situation all around, especially when you look at the way he plays the game and, and the position that he puts himself in, uh, you just fear this kind of thing being a recurring thing, but of course maybe it goes the other way. You know, maybe this movie has a different ending,

and I think that's what everybody's hoping for, and we'll see how it plays out. Yeah, I'm really hoping for it too. He's turned into one of my favorite players, not just one of the most important players on the defense, you know, because he really is. Quincy Wilson was also in a boot today. He said that he was sore and that he was swollen or whatever.

But do you know what the cause of that was from? Get stepped on by another cleat or something? No, there's really no information beyond that at all. And I hate it about this time of the year because, honestly, a guy could be in a boot in May for anything from a hangnail to a broken bone and everything in between. So right now, I know they were going to do some MRIs and take a deeper look at it.

Right now, that's another situation that bears monitoring, at least for the rest of this week. We'll see where he's at next week. Last year, you had the situation where Gathers broke his foot over the summer, showed up to training camp and and that was kind of sudden news and you hope this isn't something similar to that hopefully it's more of a bruise or or something along those lines but uh right now not a whole lot of info but again it's hard to say the boot itself doesn't really mean much

in may they're going to err completely on the side of caution, especially with a kid as important to the plans potentially as Quincy Wilson is. But it was disappointing today because I think a lot of us were looking forward to see how he might do out there today, even though there's no pads. You know, you can see some coverage, his ability. You can see some things in that first practice that was open to the media with the veterans out there. You know, it was one of the disappointing things when we got there and realized Quincy Wilson wasn't going to be able to go. Right. And that, you know, you do want to

see him get there within, you know, in a short amount of time, if at all possible. But again, you know, if he's in a walking boot, that's not just a, you know, we're going to let him sit out today and he's going to come in tomorrow type deal typically. So, I mean, but you, like you said, there is a wide variety of reasons for them to be in a walking boot. It seems like anytime there is any sort of a foot ankle or lower leg injury that they are constantly in a walking boot. They want that thing as stabilized as possible for sure. Yeah. And it, you know,

at this point you hate to hazard a guess because we have so little information it does sound to me like maybe it's still a step on and then even in that situation you just don't know what what happened to it as a result you hope for the best and i'm sure the team's hoping for the best and hopefully by the time we get back out there next week we'll have a better picture of what's going on with clinty and where he's at right now. Yeah. You know, one of the things that Pagano kind of surprised me of what he said, you know, he was going through some of the guys and mainly the guys that are new to the team, like Sheard and Hankins and Woods and so on and so forth. And he was talking about the film that he had on him and stuff. And basically he was saying, you know, we don't have a whole lot of

film on some guys, but then he said he feels good about, you know, Simon and Sheard and, uh, some of those guys, obviously Hankins and stuff. But then he said he knows what Mingo is and he knows what Marcus Hunt is. Now, I don't know about you, but there's not a lot of film on either one of those guys. No, uh, I think it's going to be really interesting to see Mingo. To me, he's one of the more intriguing guys in the preseason just because you know where that guy's feeling is. We haven't seen it in the NFL yet, but if he can figure out a way to put it together,

he's a guy who could be a difference maker for this team. Now, obviously, we've got three years of NFL work right now that says that's not the case. So it's long shot. But I think that's what the summer and the spring is all about, right? Watching those guys and seeing who actually cashes in. So from my standpoint, I think Mingo is one of the more interesting guys to watch, especially as the preseason gets started. See if he takes advantage of an opportunity to remake himself and remake his career.

And, you know, quite possibly he won't. We've seen that happen plenty of times. But we've also seen situations where a guy gets into a new environment for whatever reason it clicks. So I think that's going to be fun to watch. Hunt, I really feel like right now at least, a big part of what he's going to bring is going to be on special teams. He's a guy who's blocked an awful lot of kicks.

Going back to his days at SMU, I think that's one thing that they feel like is a reason to keep him on the 53-man roster. And then if he can also contribute as a defensive end, so much the better. I really think that's kind of the situation with them right now. Yeah. I just felt it was interesting. And maybe they do have a lot of tape,

but it's a lot of it for both of those guys specifically, special team stuff. And Mingo's another guy that they're really high on. I've heard that from several people now that special teams-wise, they really feel like he's a guy that's going to come out and help in that area. And that was a focus for Chris Ballard. I think it's one of the underrated parts of the offseason. The special teams have kind of started to decay the last couple of years. You saw it in the inability to

down punts inside the five last year. You saw it sometimes in tackling and coverage. Pat McAfee covered for a whole lot of sins for those special teams units, especially last season. I think Ballard made a real effort to add some guys that he thinks are going to make differences in that area. It'll be fun to see how that plays out as well. One thing that kind of confused me when going through the press conferences and stuff like that was when he started to talk about Malik Hooker. And, you know, he was kind of talking about how his physicality will come and that he's a better tackler than people think he is as far as just being able to wrap up and whatnot. But he made a comment.

He said the ball breaks and he's 185 pounds. And what does he mean by that? He's not 185 pounds. I'm not really sure. I think he means speed-wise as far as how he moves. He looks like a much slimmer guy once the ball, you know, once he breaks on the ball. Gotcha.

He does have some incredible closing ability. Yeah, for sure. Which is going to be something, you know, that'll be something that'll be fun to watch. One thing about his tackling, I had a chance to talk with Coach Venturi today, and it's not so much that he's a bad tackler. He is at times.

But it's not so much that he's a bad tackler. He is at times, but it's not so much that he's a bad tackler as that he's an inconsistent tackler, and I think that's what they need to work on. You've seen flashes of it from him, but you need to see it on a consistent basis. Yeah, maybe it was just the way that the transcript was written, but I was like, man, that's something. Pagano just starts talking, and you never know what the heck he's talking about.

I didn't know if firsthand in your ears from his voice maybe have made more sense to you when he actually said it. But, you know, when we get into the linebacker position, there were some other things that interested in me. And, you know, I know that a lot of people, including me, I'm excited because of the inside linebacker grouping. I'm excited for the depth there that's there now. Bostic is a super physical dude, you know, but he and Spence both have injury issues in the past and stuff. I was really surprised that he was talking about so highly, I guess, of Edwin Jackson and Antonio Morrison.

Has that been something that you've been hearing pretty consistently, I mean, over the past few weeks, several weeks, or anything like that, like a renewed trust in those guys? You know, it seems like that spot's just wide open. And I'm not sure how much of that today was Pagano being Pagano in the sense that, you know, he has a tendency to everybody's a Hall of Famer, everybody's an All-Pro a lot of times. And I'm not sure.

There is trust in them, there's no doubt. I think they were thrown into a really tough spot last year, especially Axel DeKuel got suspended. And, you know, they kind of had to trial by fire. They came out of it, you would think, for the better. They've got more experience in the system than anybody else at that position. That's going to always give them an edge. But everything that we've heard, every sense that we've gotten,

is that that position is as wide open as any spot on the roster. And there really wasn't much that happened today in practice that changed that opinion. wide open as any spot on the roster. And there really wasn't much that happened today in practice that, that changed that opinion. The very first snaps went to Sean Spence and Antonio Morrison, but they were working Bostic and Jackson together with the second team. And then they were working Bostic, Bostic and Jackson together with the first team.

There was a lot of rotation at that inside linebacker spot. And there was a lot of rotation at the nose linebacker spot and there was a lot of rotation at the nose tackle spot david perry got to start there which kind of opened my eyes i didn't know if i expected that 100 they use hankins at three tech then and hankins was at both three and five the first snaps with the first team were hankins five and Anderson at three but they were swapping Anderson and Hankins quite liberally and those two were going back and forth a lot uh Terry got probably the the bulk of the first team snaps and those tackle but we saw Al Woods in there we saw T.Y. McGill in there with the first team I think that's

another position that come training camp's going to be interesting and that's another spot that one of the toughest things about today and trying to draw a lot of conclusions were the number of guys that were out and so you have to wonder where Kendall Langford fits into this and what the defensive line might have looked at like on day one, you know, for us on day one, if Lankford had been part of it. He's still rehabbing. He didn't practice at all. So we take him out of the mix. You know, it makes you wonder, will Hankins end up more in the middle?

But he definitely played all over the line today. I didn't see him in the middle of the ones today, but he was at five and three. Anderson was at five and three. And was at five and three and i just think there's going to be a lot of rotation in those spots and i i think that that's what they're looking for you know part of that competition inside linebacker also was complicated by the fact that anthony walker's still finishing up at northwestern so he wasn't part of the mix today either and luke rhodes who's a name that you know last year you were out there training camp when

Chester Rogers all of a sudden just kept getting mentioned by everybody and your ears kind of picked up every press conference somebody mentioned Chester Rogers that's been happening this year with Luke Rhodes a little bit Ted Monachino brought him up out of the blue Pagano's mentioned him a couple times without being prompted and he he did get a few first-team snaps today in Nichols' situation. So just another thing to watch and see how it plays out. It certainly sounds like they're moving guys around a lot, especially up front. Now, real quick before I go on to that,

what were they doing with Ridgway? Was he available? He was available. I think he was rotating in a little bit at the three spot. I don't remember seeing him at five. Okay. Man, I like that. I mean, that they're moving those guys.

I mean, I want Hankins to be the primary nose, but, man, he was really good at three tech last year with the Giants. I enjoyed watching his film of that. But, man, the one thing about Perry, though, is he doesn't really have any of that versatility along the line. He has to kind of play that role, or he really doesn't have a role. Yeah, he knows or nowhere else. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But, you know, Langford's one of those guys, too, that, like you mentioned, he's worrisome because he was so durable all the way up until last year. And then, you know, you know how old he is. You know how there was all the rumors, you know, over the past couple, three months or whatever, that he could be a camp cut or, you know, even a cut, an offseason cut at some point just because of his age or whatever. I didn't necessarily think he would be, but it was floated around. It was just probably Twitter talk more than anything, just people assuming one way or the other. But, you know, that was just the way that it was,

and he was mentioned in that breath. So it's interesting that he's still rehabbing and that I love that they're moving Anderson in and out as well. I like that they're moving Anderson in and out as well I like that they're moving Hankins in and out I just like the fact that they're going to have a really cool rotation I think up on the defensive line this year it may not be you know one of the top five in the in the league by any means but they are going to have a ton of versatility I'm really I am way more excited than I probably should be about that front four because

I think that they can do a lot of cool things with that. I really like Ridgway as well. If Perry can improve, then I think that he's an asset to the team, but he desperately needs to improve as far as I'm concerned. And at least there's guys to push him now. I mean, I think, yeah, he got most of the snaps today, but that's just day two of OTAs. And day one that we were able to watch, you know, for all we know, Monday it was somebody else.

And tomorrow it will be somebody else. So, you know, I think that's one of those things that training camp really starts to to shore that up but i'm not even 100 sure i'll tell you grover stewart was really impressive in the rookie camp now it's a rookie camp they had no pads on you got to put all those caveats on there but as a pass rusher in shorts he was a really impressive guy during rookie camp and i think it'll be interesting to see if and where he fits he's another guy that could play the nose could play a little bit at three and for a guy his size to even be considered at three is kind of incredible but uh i think that's going to be something to watch and honestly i talked earlier about mingo henry anderson is as fascinating as

anybody on the roster for me this year for sure just because we saw what he could do when he's healthy as a rookie and if he's healthy again a return to form by henry anderson could be huge for this defense i forget i wish that i had the graphic up in front of me and i can't remember exactly who was on the list and what it was but i I believe it was with Aaron Donald and some of the other defensive tackles from Pro Football Focus. And they were talking about how impressive he was his rookie season and how much he showed. Basically, they were comparing the top PFF grades at that position for maybe like the past seven or eight years, something like that. And he was within he was in like the past seven or eight years, something like that. And he was within, he was in like the top five or six, Henry Anderson was. And that's something that

desperately needs to happen this year because he is a guy who, I mean, not only the versatility, but the dude just is that good when he's healthy and when he's on, he's on. And he's a huge part of this defensive line. Elaborate a little bit on Grover Stewart and what was so impressive about him. Was it his speed? Was it his hand movement? And, you know, were his hands fast and whatnot?

Or was it just, did he look like he was a little more refined than you would expect from a D2 guy? He's still raw. And I think that's going to be the thing. Because I think right now technique is going to be the thing because i think right now technique is going to be the biggest question with them but again without the pads you know i don't get too deep into that kind of a discussion but his speed and just his burst off the ball you know his reaction time he's a guy that first of all he didn't look physically the way we expected him to look uh when you look at

i think what six four and then 350 something around those lines where where he's listed at you know i expected him to be a little bit sloppy and he looked more like the white freemium the way he carried the weight than he did somebody like tony saragusa which immediately was surprising and his first step his instincts there's flashes there that make you wonder what could be now obviously he's not a finished product and i think things will change a lot once the pads come on and you know things get serious but it was one of those things that, again, you know, everybody was talking about it. His name came up a lot during that rookie camp because he was just abusing the interior of the line. Again, they were rookie offensive linemen who

were learning their roles as well, but it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the preseason. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that because I was not happy with that draft pick for the most part, at least from the film that I watched. Granted, there was a limited amount of tape to really get a hold of, but the stuff that I watched just wasn't great. I mean, I'm not going to base my opinion on solely athletic ability. If you don't have the technique, then you've got a long way to go. But I love hearing that. That's good as far as I'm concerned because the guy's stature and his physical ability is

what ultimately you want to work at that position, let alone the defensive line. You want a guy that can both stop the run and get to the passer. And if he's a guy that's abusing rookie offensive linemen, granted, a lot of those guys were big school guys. I mean, whether they were studs as big school guys or not, you know, whatever. But they were – a lot of them were big school guys. I mean, so that's nice to see that – or at least Division I guys at that. So, you know, it's nice to hear that he was doing that. And some of them were tryout guys and and some of them are undrafted guys. So it's tough.

I don't know if anybody he beat in those two days that we saw will be in the NFL. But still, it's encouraging. It's a first step. It's something that you mark down. That being said, we've seen a lot of guys over the years in a lot of different positions that look good in shorts, and then the lights come on and the pads go on, and it's a different guy.

So you still kind of hold out judgment, but it was a good start. And I think if you were to pick an MVP of the rookie camp, he would have been on the defensive side of the ball. He would have probably been the guy. Yeah, that's cool, though. I'm happy about that. I mean, at least it gives you something to look forward to at a minimum. Was there anything that you guys could take from the offensive line work today?

Again, it's a tough spot because Jack Mehor wasn't working. He apparently did work Monday, but he was getting a rest day today, and we know he's coming back from several things, so it makes sense that he's going to take a few days off at this time of year. The notable thing to me is that they moved Joe Haig to the left side to replace him, and they had Denzel Good at right guard. And the reason that was notable to me is that Raven Clark was at right tackle the whole day.

And you just start to think, you know, maybe that's his spot. There's been a lot of talk that they see Haig as a guard and they see Clarkig as a guard and they see Clark as a tackle and it was just another brick in that wall I guess to make me think you know right now in that horse

race with Raven Clark's in the lead I would assume and it's only an assumption that Haig would have been a right guard had Jack Muhor been working today at left guard. But we'll see that, you know, hopefully as the OTAs go on. Yeah. And like you said, there's a lot of guys, not a lot of guys,

but there are a handful of guys who aren't there. A lot of this is just basically getting people back in the groove of things, more or less. But it is kind of interesting to see kind of who they see as that backup right guard there with Denzel Good. I'm curious to see where he ends up throughout the course of camp, all the offseason stuff and stuff like that. It would only be his second year at guard, too. So that's something that we need to remember as well.

I don't know too many people who come in and change positions and then ultimately go right at it outside of some of those fantastic talents along the offensive line. So time will tell with him as well, kind of what he can grow into. But it'd be, man, we've talked about this several times with the offensive line. So time will tell with him as well, kind of what he can grow into, but it'd be, man, that, that we've talked about this several times with the offensive line. And I feel like I've kind of battered it over the past several weeks and just kind of hitting on it because I wanted, I'm trying to reassure Colts fans that it's not near as bad as some of the national guys portray it. And, you know, even Josh Wilson put a thing on Stampede Blue, I think it was today or yesterday, where he kind of questioned Peter King's analysis of the offensive line, not to mention he had the wrong grouping. But it was kind of, it was interesting to see, no matter who the national guy is, whether they're Peter King or anybody in between,

they just don't have the ability to follow all 32 teams that closely and write intelligently about them. Absolutely. And you see the misinformation a lot that either Newport's the right tackle or, as King had it,hort's the right tackle or as King had it Hague's the right tackle and I just you know it was another indicator today of where they wind up that Joe Hague is a guard in the eyes of this of this group I know it's interesting one of the guys Conrad Brunner said today he thought one of the biggest differences with this offensive line

as opposed to the year past years past is that they have a ceiling now there is there is the ability to look at them and see potential and see you know maybe they can rise up a little bit and that honestly that's a big difference from years past yes so you know that's a young group too i think people forget that they had three rookies that played pretty extensively last year. If you can call Clark extensively, by the end of the year he did. Three rookies that by the end of the year were starting. And beyond that, Jack Newhart's what, a third-year guy? So it wasn't the most experienced line, even as it was put together.

So just the fact that they're a year older, they have a year together, there's reason there for optimism. Now they've got to transform that to the field, and that's where it will really matter. And, you know, even at one time they had four guys starting with Blythe in a game or two last year. Yeah. And, you know, I was kind of surprised.

I was kind of surprised that they let him go. I mean, I get it. But, you know, it just kind of seemed like, you know, they either just are really high on Schwenke being able to move in and out between those three interior positions as a solid backup to each or, you know, either that or Blythe just came in soft. You know, I don't know what yeah I'm not sure which because I was a little surprised to have this early I think Blythe was

on the the alert list as far as camp goes just because you knew Gooden and Schwenke were going to battle in that interior and it was hard to kind of figure out where Blythe would fit this year but I was surprised it happened that quickly. But maybe they had determined that Schwenke was going to be able to fill that role and give Blythe a chance to go and have time to get a seat established somewhere else. Yeah, and Schwenke's a little bit more physical and a little bigger than Blythe as well. Plus, he's got more experience. So, I mean, that's probably also a determining factor, at least in part.

So, there was, you know, a lot of praise about Marlon Mack as well. I mean, what are your thoughts about him? I mean, does he look the part even though it's just with a helmet on his head? Yeah, you know, he's fluid and he's natural. He doesn't look like he's choppy at all. It doesn't look like he's struggling to get where he's going. He's what you expect, you know, what you saw on film and what you expect from what you've heard about him

for a guy, again, in this environment. But I think with Mack, the best thing for him right now is Frank Gore is busting his butt down in Miami again, probably working harder than anybody up here in Indianapolis. And it's giving reps to Marlon Mack that maybe he wouldn't otherwise get. That's a really good thing, I think, for a rookie at this time of year. Yeah, and I think Gore knows that, too. I thought it was funny.

I mean, I know that Gore's got other stuff going on there, but I thought it was kind of funny that Pagano said, you know, he took like two days off after the season, but we know he's in good shape. You know, he's going to be good to go. It was that, I mean, that is extremely important for Mac to get some reps. I mean, especially now, you know, when it is just going through the motions, learning the offense, learning the cadence, the everything that comes with it. And, you know, granted it's not with luck right now, but it's still important for him to kind of get in the groove of things, at least to get his track and his line of movement down.

And, you know, he's working with, you know, the offensive line that's going to be out there largely. So it's kind of nice for him to kind of gauge the movements of them as well. I think that it's interesting and great. I'm excited to see what he can do, and I'm also excited to see how the rotation goes between Hegor and Turbin as well in that backfield. Yeah, and today, you know, Turbin was working kind of as the

same role that he had last year and he kind of had Mack working in in Gore's spot so be interesting to see how that works out when Gore actually gets in but again that makes sense there's more for Mack to learn you got to give him more reps in a situation like this than you would Turbin just because it's going to do more for Marlon Mack than it would for Robert Turbin. Even just learning the patterns of a practice, what to do, where to go, those are big things for the rookies right now. Absolutely. Was there anybody else that we haven't talked about yet that stood out to you or that was getting some talk amongst the media or anything? Yeah. I mean, Darius Butler, of course, is a big person of interest,

especially with the gather situation. It's going to be interesting to see what they do there because I know in the past they've talked about interchangeable safeties and whatnot, but it seems this year there's a pretty clear free safety strong safety divide and you know neither butler or hookers really cut out to be that that strong safety so when malik gets back or gets in i guess uh it'll be interesting to see what they do with butler at that point i don't see him at all even though he has changed his body physically a little bit, he looks more like a safety than a corner now. Does he?

I just don't see him being an in-the-box guy. I don't see him being the guy that fills the gatherer's role. But it'll be interesting to see how they use him or how they want to use him if and when everybody's healthy. And that was one of the biggest disappointments today is that three-fourths of what you thought would be the starting secondary wasn't participating. And so now you wonder, you know, if Gathers is healthy,

if Quincy Wilson's out there, where's Butler's spot? It'll be fun to watch that as the preseason goes out. He did have the only interception that I saw today off a tip pass. I think Morris threw it. But it was a tip ball that he was in the right place at the right time and picked it off. The other thing is it's not necessarily a player that was interesting because of what he did on the field.

But it was fun to watch Andrew Luck today just because he was doing a lot of coaching. I don't know if there was a receiver that came back from a rep who didn't get a few seconds with Luck, and when they would switch drills and the quarterbacks would be off on their own for a little while, he's over there showing guys footsteps, showing guys just little things, little details that he's picked up. And you can just see how antsy he is to get back out there and work himself.

Oh, I'm sure he is. How did Stephen Morris look overall? Okay. Tozine got the bulk of the first teamwork, but Morris did get out there a little bit with him. You know, I thought last year even, Morris is one of those guys that seem to really shine in games you know i don't know that he's ever been that impressive of a practice guy

um there's guys like that he wasn't in camp that's for sure yeah you know camping in the preseason i don't know if he ever really stood out the guy that everybody's been talking about really since rookie camp is Phillip Walker, just in the sense that I think he can throw the ball through a brick wall. He's got a really strong arm. And he's a little guy, so he's got some challenges at the NFL level. But people really high on, coaches really high on his potential and what they've seen from him so far. There's another guy, though, that I sound like a broken record, but there's another guy that that's what's happening in shorts.

Let's see what happens when the bullets are live. It's kind of funny when you say that about Luck, too, because you know that he is just watching it, just, you know, kind of shaking his head, knowing that he wants to be in there. We've had a lot of questions, you know, come up about where we think he's going to be. And obviously they're not giving any timelines right now on luck. But I'm really, I don't know. Maybe it's just that I'm kind of low kind of low key comfortable with the moves this year, but I'm kind of in the two year mode or the two year plan kind of mode in my own head, thinking that, you know, this year is a year where you build, you get stronger, you get better, uh, to the core. And then next year,

you really try to put everything together. Whereas I'm not so worried if luck or no not only would I not be worried but I would not uh fault the coaching staff for not putting luck in the first couple regular season games of the year yeah it's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out because nobody has ruled that out as a possibility it seems like the expectation is he'll be ready to go by week one but it's not a really strong conviction if that makes any sense right now and it'll be really interesting to see what happens when training camp rolls out there's clearly no reason to rush the kid right now he's been through enough physically you know until he is a hundred percent there's just no purpose in putting him out there before he's ready uh and when you see the way he prepared

last year as well i mean the limitations that he had missing at least one day of practice every week sometimes more than that to play as well as he did i'm not worried about him getting preseason work either as a result of that. Obviously, he'll be sharper the more reps he gets like anybody else. But he's shown he can play at a high level with limited preparation. So I really just don't see a single reason to rush him back. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, like you said, he's been through enough over his first five years in the league to let him relax. And like I said, it doesn't seem like it would make sense to bring him back for the first two games of the year.

I mean, he makes a big difference. Don't get me wrong. all about and understanding that Andrew Luck is the Indianapolis Colts as long as the rest of the pieces can do something to complement the rest of the guys on their units. But, you know, the first two games of the year, are we really trying to, you know, does that really matter? I mean, the Colts have lost the first two games of the year how many years now? What's the difference?

Yeah. If we're going to do that anyways, who cares? You know, I think it's going to be really interesting to watch how that plays out throughout the preseason because, you know, right now the question amongst everybody out there media-wise is, will he be on PUP to start camp? You know, we just don't know. It's certainly a possibility. If he is, then you start to really wonder about whether or not he'll be ready to go or needs to be ready to go to start the regular season.

If he's kind of ready to go early on in training camp, then we'll wait and see how he's dealt with in the preseason. It would not surprise me one way or the other if we don't see anything from him until maybe week three of the preseason, and that might be all you see from him on the field. But the one thing that makes me wonder as far as his playing time, though, is just the fact that there really was no major move. I mean, people can be as high as they want to on Phillip Walker right now, and that's great

that he's able to come in and make a name for himself early, but you're talking about an undrafted guy from Temple. That's the only addition they made. I feel like if there was some concern that he was going to miss the start of the season or any kind of significant time, it would have been a bigger

move. Even though I agree with you 100%, both in terms of the necessity of him to play and in terms of the overall plan being that, hey, this year, great, get as much as you can, but really this is at least a two-year project and everybody knows that the cake's not going to be finished this season. Even in that regard, there were enough guys out there, be they Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown, guys who could get you through two, three, four weeks as serviceable starters.

I just would have thought the team would have been more active in something like that if the plan was for him to miss some regular season time. Doesn't mean things will go as planned either. Right. But to me, there's just an indicator that, you know, Phillip Walker's the guy they had as opposed to a Ryan Fitzpatrick or a Josh McCown, who both were out there for a long time this preseason.

I think that tells us something. I don't know why, but I think it tells us something. Right. And, you know, for all intents and purposes, I mean, ultimately, like you said with the limitations on Walker's size really for the most part as an NFL quarterback, you know, he's basically a camp body at this point to, you know, to do what he can do and to grow his game, see if he can turn into something, you know.

I mean, that's part of the due process of camp in turn into something, you know, I mean, that's part of the due process of, of camp in itself. But, you know, I, I really liked Stephen Morris. Like you said, he was a gamer last year. He was, he did not stand out at camp to me whatsoever. Um, you know, the only thing that Scott Tolzien stuck out to me at camp was the fact that he was throwing picks on virtually every out route, anything near the sideline, or even up the boundary for that matter. But maybe the Colts think that if it's a game or two that Tolzien can cover it, but I don't think he can cover three or four. No. And they do think that. I've heard that from Chris Ballard's mouth, that if you need him in a week or two, he felt like

Ballard felt like Tolzien showed enough in the Pittsburgh game last year to be that Band-Aid backup, you know, to be the guy that could come in and carry you through one week or two weeks. They definitely feel that way. I think you get into three or four, yeah, you'd be worried. I will say this, he looked better today than he did at any point in camp last year. He threw two really nice passes to T.Y. Hilton. One of them split two defenders.

But Morris looked better than he did in camp last year too. And some of that, I think, is to be expected given that last year they were both in the first year in the offense and now they've got all the basics under their belt. They should be further ahead than they were a year ago. And as much, I tell you, as much as I love the idea of them just taking their sweet time with luck, making sure he comes back 200% healthy, no issues, no kinks, no nothing. But man, I really don't want to write about Stephen Morris and Scott Tolzien all camp. You know, I mean, that's a pretty good stretch without any luck articles as opposed to just talking about his injury.

I can't do that. I can't do that. Yeah. It's, you know, it's different. It really is. Even just the one practice today, you know, anytime he's not running the team, there's obviously a different feel. So that's always an interesting thing to keep an eye on i really i'm probably as excited for training

camp as i have been in several years just from the standpoint that there are so many new faces and so many new pieces and you know that first pass rush drill in pads it should be a lot of fun you know they could probably sell admission to that if they really wanted to oh yeah it's going to be so interesting to see where these linemen are offensively right now you know like you were talking about the way they they mix and match on the front seven should be a lot of fun to watch it i'm not really sure how much of that we'll see until the regular season. That's part of it. It may be the most basic, bland stuff, but it's going to be a lot of fun to watch.

A lot of guys who can go either way on this roster, and it'll be fun to watch and see how they grow in the next couple of months. Yeah, there's no doubt. Bauer's definitely created what he wanted to with the competition and stuff. And I think one of the low-key excitement camp competitions is going to be for that fourth spot on the depth chart at running back with Ferguson, Crossan, and Radcliffe, I mean, pending all three of them make it to camp. You know, I just think that'll be interesting to see because i know that they used uh ferguson last year a little bit in return and ultimately i think if one of those

other two guys are going to beat him out for it they've got to prove that they can a actually run between the tackles and or uh do some returning of their own so that'll be that'll be a fun one to watch i think another guy that going to be fun to watch, and it's another position that isn't settled at all in the kicker turn game, is JoJo Knatson. He's a tiny guy, but he is super fast. And we've seen that really apparent today when he was out there returning some kickoffs.

Bombre wasn't working. You know, he missed a bunch of time last year, went on IR, what, about midseason, I want to say. They didn't bring Jordan Todman back. So I think that return spot is both on kick and punt returns pretty wide open. JoJo Natson is a undrafted guy, but there's some pure speed there

that it'll be fun to see how that develops once they start to do some live kick returns and see if he can translate that when the bullets are live. Yeah. Now, one more guy I wanted to ask you about just because I've kind of grown to have some sort of uh you know an affinity for is uh jerry ugochway did you guys get to see anything from him today did he get in there at all you know i was trying to keep an eye out for him because

i did a little piece on him after rookie camp i think he's a real real interesting guy uh even just his background his dad was nigerian ambassador to Austria, I believe, for a little while. He's a really interesting guy. He's got the NFL size, prototypical body to be a tackle. And I think there's some people who think, obviously, he's extremely raw. But when he becomes a finished product, if he develops to his full capability, some people would think he's left tackle in this league.

And it'll be interesting to see how he grows. He wasn't working with the first or second team today. Second team tackles almost the whole day, where Zach Banner on the right side and Jeremy Gunovich on the left side. But, you know, I didn't pay enough attention to even know if he's here. I'm not sure what William

and Mary's system is. I know Anthony Walker was still in class. I'm not sure if any of the other rookies are doing that as well. Gotcha. What's one of the biggest takeaways that you took away from just OTAs? I know it's OTAs. It's not training camp. It's nothing that we can necessarily put our finger on and say that that's real. But is there anything that you haven't spoke about or that we can necessarily put our finger on and say that that's real. But is there anything that you haven't spoke about or that we haven't brought up just throughout the course of the conversation that is going to have you thinking for the next couple, several days for the OTAs coming up? It's kind of a silly thing because I think people will say,

well, that's intangible and it's kind of, I don't know if it means anything, but you were out there last year a lot of times. There was a different spirit, a different competitiveness to it. Practice seemed sharper, faster. Guys were engaged. I felt like a lot of times last year during training camp especially, you would go through a whole practice, it would end, and people were kind of looking at each other like, did they do anything?

There was a lot of really dead practices last last summer and today there was real animation now granted today too so maybe that's some of it right but there was real animation out there and and i wonder if that's not a byproduct of the constant competition mentality that's been drilled into this roster right now. Well, it'd be nice to see that everybody's buying in, not just for the fact that they know that they're in competition, but that everybody's kind of spreading that around as if that's what they want to build there. I mean, this team could really definitely use the equivalent to a true number two out of a lot of positions.

And if they can find that through this, if they can somehow build the spirit up of the guys who aren't getting the call every single Sunday to be the number ones, then that's a great thing. Not only that, but you've got guys on this roster like Ake key mayors who are guys that, you know, we liked last year a lot that kind of was really one of the most productive guys, but he's a guy who is going to love this. That's, that's his mentality. That's his kind of play. Uh, you know, Rashawn Melvin, that dude, you know, you and I both like him and we're impressed with him last year. He's a guy that's going to battle his butt off.

I'm real interested and real excited also to see Nate Hairston. Because ever since what you had told me about him getting, you know, whatever you expect from him, expect more because he's going to get there. You know, that's somebody I really can't wait to see live. Nate Hairston worked almost exclusively in the slot today that's one of the things coach venturi was pointing out he wasn't with the ones but he was almost exclusively in the slot like they're really trying to teach him that spot and drill that into him and i think that's where he's you know that's where he's going to make an

impact the other guy that coach venturi's high on is daryl morris he felt like he did a really good job when he was in the slot last year, and he played a lot of it today, obviously, with Quincy Wilson out. Rashawn Melvin was starting opposite of Bonte Davis in the base defense, and when they went nickel, it was usually Darryl Morris, and that's somebody that Coach Venturi really has his eye on and thinks is developing as well. Yeah, he definitely got his call last year.

They were in need, and he got up, and he was certainly serviceable. There's just no way around it. I really like Rashawn Melvin, though, to make more of an impact this year, even if it's in a reserve role. I just think that he's going to get a ton of snaps this year for what he brought and the experience that he's going to get a ton of snaps this year for what he brought and his, you know, the experience that he brought to the team. He's in his second year in the system, played almost exclusively, got a ton of snaps last year when he probably did not expect to.

And man, he's super competitive too. And I just love that about him. So, he's one of the guys that ended one of the games with a turnover. I mean, you look at, I was going back and looking at that last year, and I think seven of their eight wins included some kind of big turnover at some point, and, you know, he did it against the Bears. Knocked the ball out in a big situation and got the ball back to the offense. That's a big focus this year with this team, a huge focus is takeaways. And Melvin's one of those guys that's showing he can get his hand in there

and make them happen. Yeah, you're right. He's just got to clean up a little bit of the coverage stuff as far as making sure he can be sticky enough to go downfield with those guys. But they definitely had to focus on guys with ball skills in this offseason. And, I mean, I'm interested almost just to see the camp drills for the corners this year because you know a lot of those are going to be specific to ball skills and kind of like trying to get those guys really, really trying to high point the ball this year, really trying to get the ball up in the air and get a finger on it or something. There's going to be a lot of that in camp, and I'm excited to see that too because they've definitely put a hard focus on the ball skills with their corners and basically everybody with the secondary this year.

So that will be fun to watch as well. Yeah, Lee Hightower dropped a pure interception. It hit him in the numbers and immediately dropped down and started doing push-ups today. I think it was just a real, real mentality out there. They're taking it seriously. It'd be nice to see this group turn into a

healthy group of ball hawks, that's for sure. I think it's going to be fun. The secondary, I talk about the energy. B today was was everywhere and he was at one point he was kind of pointing to his number on his jersey he was real active real animated and i think that's important because they need him to lead those young players and he seemed at least today to be up to that challenge yeah and that was something that we kind of, I don't want to say that anybody questioned last year or years previous,

but it just wasn't something that was brought to the forefront as far as him being leadership on the field. It wasn't noticeable, I guess. You know what I mean? I'm sure that there was something there. You know, we don't hear all the conversations. We don't see every little thing that happens. But it was just, you know, is Vontae a vocal leader? We don't

know. Cause it just didn't seem that way, you know, but it was nice to see earlier, you know, a few weeks ago, once the draft was over and the team started arriving and stuff in Indy that, you know, he was one of the first to the podium talking about it. I've got to be the guy that's getting these young bucks in line. And I thought that was awesome because, like I said, it was just something that just wasn't noticeable in years past. And with his injury history and stuff like that, it would be fantastic. It couldn't be any more important for him to fill a full 16-game season this year and be effective.

And he was very active. I mean, we've seen him quite often take practices off altogether or just kind of go through the motions out there. He broke up at least two or three passes, and he was just a real animated, active part of the defense, and I think that could only be good. Yeah, I'm excited for that. I'll tell you what, George, you've got me excited for camp,

and here within the next probably 48 hours to a week, I'm going to be back in the dumps again knowing that we've got that much longer until camp. It's just going to make me sad again. This is good stuff. I know it's OTAs. My listeners know it's OTAs. You know it's OTAs. But man, like you said at the beginning of the show, it is football and it makes you feel good about watching it again. It's nice to be out there and see guys on the field with horseshoes on their helmets trying to play the game. Yeah, it's exciting. I'm real excited for this year. This is probably one of the most exciting years in a long time as far as knowing what could possibly arise, but also being reserved

enough to understand that, you know, don't expect the team to be a Super Bowl or bust mentality exactly. So, but George, thanks again for your time tonight, man. It was fantastic. Great to catch back up with you. I've given you a nice long break from the show for a couple weeks here and allowed you to kind of decompress a little bit. But you're right in the thick of stuff now, man. I appreciate your time. No problem. Anytime.

I love to be a part of it. It's just like you said, it's a fun year. It's a fun team to talk about right now. Absolutely. Thank you guys all for listening. Thanks, George, for dropping by again today. I know you guys love this stuff as much as I do. Make sure you guys are using that call in line. It's 5 7 4 5 1 6 28 81. Hit me up on Twitter at M Dainley underscore NFL. You guys can catch George at GM Bremer.

The show is at locked on Colts, and I will talk to you guys all on Friday, 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.