Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -6/26- Colts Camp Needs Physicality; Luck Still Isn't Overpayed

Episode Date: June 26, 2017

Before going on a bit of a vacation, Matt rants on a couple of news stories that have been popping up lately. Mainly the story of how the #Colts are expecting to be more physical in camp this season, and people still question whether Andrew Luck is over payed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Talkspace.com slash BOOM. B-O-O-M. 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. Thank you guys for coming right back here on a Monday.

Have a couple things to go through today. Nothing real news related. You know, this is kind of the boring dead period in the off season and such. But I do have a bit of an announcement. And then we'll go through a couple things that I wanted to address that I think have been popping back up in the media a couple times over the past several days. And kind of wanted to address those real quick. First and foremost, I'll be taking the rest of the week off. I've been pretty much nailing it to the grindstone between writing and doing the podcast for a year solid straight. So I need a little decompression time. So I'm going to take that for the rest of the week and I'll be back

here, you know, after that to kind of hit it full force as we get close to training camp and then through the season and back for another year. It's been almost a full season doing this podcast, and you guys have really done an awesome job making this what it is, helping me with the ratings and reviews. They've been great. Just your listens, your feedback, the constant back and forth on Twitter or the email or just whatever you guys have started to use the call online a little bit more. And you can load those up if you guys want. That way next week, I'll be able to have several to go through. I've got one in waiting right now or a couple in waiting right now that we'll go through next week for sure.

But that's 574-516-2881. Call in, leave your message, and we'll go through that. So a couple things that I wanted to go through. And first of all, this is just kind of something that I've seen spoken about over the past several days is Lux money on the cap. Okay. Now, I think we've touched on this in the past. But when we look at Andrew Lux total contract, you know, big contract seems to be, you know, a big, a big selling point. A lot of people still think that, that that's too much, uh, for, for

a quarterback after the Derek Carr contract, you know, people were still talking how that's too much and stuff like that. And I haven't looked at Derek Carr's, uh, yearly cap percentage and all that stuff, but I have in the past looked at Lux pretty extensively. And I wanted to go through an article that I wrote a while ago back when FanRag Sports still had today's pigskin was their NFL side, but now it's just FanRag NFL. But I wanted to go through this for you guys real quick. Lux current cap hit, which was last season, was 18.4, and it was 12.22% of the Colts' cap. Now, a lot of the bulk money, 18.4, sounds like a lot of money. Think about it, 12.2% of the cap.

That's not a ton. I mean, there's a bunch of teams that actually had starting quarterbacks with higher percentage caps last year. The Giants, Falcons, Ravens, Lions, Panthers, Redskins, Cardinals, Seahawks, and Packers. I mean, if you think about it, the 49ers, Saints, and Chiefs all had quarterbacks with percentage of cap situations within 1% or below, 1% below Lux at 12.2. So they all had, I mean, these terrible teams, the Niners, I mean, the Saints weren't terrible, obviously, and you got Drew Brees. That's not, nothing to shake your hand at. And the Chiefs, which is Alex Smith, give me a break. They all had quarterbacks that were making at least 11.22% of the cap. And we

got Andrew Luck, which we consider a top five quarterback, top 10 quarterback, depending on who you ask, at 12.2%. Too much? I don't think so. When you also go into the success of these, okay, Luck considerably carried this roster for his first three seasons without any shake of that. I mean, you can't deny that at all, you know, and keep this in mind as well. The Panthers, Cardinals, Ravens, Seahawks, Packers, and Chiefs have made it to at least the divisional round of the playoffs in the past two seasons. Remember, this was written last season. So two seasons ago, three seasons ago, those teams all at least made the divisional round. So understand that Lux cap percentage isn't that big a deal. Now, what I did on this article was I averaged over the

change of cap over the past several years, the annual percentage and change was 6.12%. Okay. So that means from 2015 to 2016, or it was like 2005 all the way up to 2016, the average difference from year to year in cap was an increase of 6.1%. So here is Luck's upcoming percentage numbers when you look at it. Now this year, he has 19.4 million, and that's 11.7% of the cap. And then 18 is 24 million, that's 13, almost 14% of the cap. It's starting to get higher. I understand that's still 14% of the cap and that's the way it is with the 2019 and 2020. And then when you get all the way to 2021, you know, which is a while away and that, you know, could be even less or could be a little bit more, but he is 21 million that year is only

10% of the cap. This is not an issue for the Colts. That's not been an issue for the Colts building the roster. It's just an issue when people look at the bulk amount of money and then say that's too much for one position. It is the most important position on the field. The Indianapolis Colts are absolutely garbage without Andrew Luck over the past several seasons. Make no mistake about it. It doesn't matter who you liked. If you liked a couple guys on the roster, the rest of the roster in bulk is absolute

garbage if you don't have Andrew Luck. Those first 33 and 15 seasons don't happen without Andrew Luck. He won so many games and came back in the fourth quarter so many times that early in his career. All the money that you want to give him is going to be worth it because when we finally get an offensive line all structured together with great chemistry and everything, now that sounds a little exceedingly optimistic, but if the Colts get an offensive line that plays like that consistently, especially over a couple seasons or three, then what do we got? We got a top five quarterback

with great protection who's going to make everything better around him. And if this defense continues to get built the right way, the Colts are a scary team, not just AFC South scary either. AFC, better record in the NFC against the NFC opponents, I guess, this coming season and the following seasons if all that comes together. Like I said, exceedingly optimistic, but you know what? You've got to think that these are the plans. This is what is in motion. This is what they're trying to do. So that's something that I wanted to make sure I got to talk to you guys about.

If you disagree, that's fine. But look at the percentage of cap because that's really what matters. This is what they're giving him of the cap, and that's what they have left to spend on the rest of the team. Now, you're telling me that 88% of the cap isn't enough to spend on the rest of the people on that roster, and they've got some pretty high dollar guys on the roster too. So, I mean, you know, you can't have it all, but you need a quarterback and they've got it. You know, it doesn't, the argument doesn't make sense to me. So just wanted to touch on that real quick. Now let's go in another direction

and touch on something that's been popping up lately is the Colts and how physical they're going to be in training camp. There's been articles written on this. This has been twisted in several different ways. The question was posed more or less that, can you see the Colt, you guys being more physical this year than in years past? The answer was basically roundabout yes. We'd like to be more physical. We'll have to see, blah, blah, blah. But we'd like to. We're scared of injuries. Look, the Colts haven't been physical in the past, in the offseason, and they've been just railroaded with injuries over the past several seasons. They have to be more physical. They have

to find out who the playmakers are on this defense. They've got to find out if these young guys can step up to the plate. This is competition. You need physicality for competition or you find nothing. You might as well be doing OTAs or mini camps all through the training camp sessions if that's what you really want to find. Guys are going to step wrong on simple pass routes with no contact and sprain an ankle. They are going to step wrong on simple pass routes with no contact and sprain an ankle. They are going to tear an Achilles when they're trying to break on a ball. They are going to break a finger going up for a pass trying to defend it or trying to catch it. Crap happens, okay, all the time. And a lot of it doesn't have anything to do with physicality.

I don't care what kind of injuries they have. They have to have more physicality all the time. Because first of all, I'll be honest, and I'm one of these guys, Pagano's taken as a joke. He isn't anything. He has to earn his way back onto this team next year as being the leader of this team. These position coaches, they need guys to step up. Whether a top dog or a second or third guy on the depth chart gets hurt.

It doesn't matter. These guys have to have guys ready to step in and be physical and be better. Sanjay Leal has been adamant about having the wide receivers more physical and blocking downfield. That's necessary. It may get T.Y. Hilton hurt a little bit, but you know what? If everybody's doing it, then everybody's going to be more successful. Obviously, we don't want T.Y. Hilton hurt, but you understand my point. Not only that, then you get to the defense. We've got to find out who this front seven is going to be. A lot of new faces, a lot of new faces in the

secondary. It doesn't matter. These guys are going to get hurt regardless. Okay? If they're going to get hurt, you might as well find out what they've got and actually try to do as close to a real practice, I guess you should say, as you're going to get. Look, when I was in high school, I don't know about you guys, but when I was in high school, we were physical in practice. A lot of guys got hurt. A lot of guys got concussions, dinged up, so on and so forth. It happens. It's football. This is not a reason to sit back on your lays and not attack and not try to see who is the real dog on this, and you can't find that by doing the ole in practice. You've got to find out who can take a hit because some of these wide receivers get into the game and they get lit up one time and they're done.

They're fragile. They're frail. They're done. You can't have all that. You've got to have guys ready to play football. The Colts haven't been ready to play football. They've been soft in the tackling game. They miss a lot of tackles.

They're not prepared week in and week out. This is completely on Pagano this year. He has to have this team more physical. It's not just for the competition from what Ballard and everybody else has spoken about. This is absolutely football, and these guys have to start learning to play football. And if Pagano doesn't get these guys in that mode in the offseason, heading into training camp, heading into preseason, which will obviously turn into what happens during the season, if that doesn't happen, Pagano's gone next year, maybe late this year, whatever. It doesn't matter. I don't think Pagano is reliant on a specific record for his future with the team.

They could, I mean, it could be a multitude of things. They look like absolute crap, and Bauer thinks that this team has more talent. He's going to be gone if they're, I don't know, eight and three in the first 11 games, but Pagano still can't coach. He's going to be gone. I may be a little bit extravagant here, but I'm just trying to prove the point. It does not absolutely matter on record. He has to prove that he's worthy of his spot, and he hasn't so far. He needs to. These guys that are on the field going through practice and training camp, they've got to prove that they can hold up in a practice situation.

Because I'm sorry, people aren't going to just play nice during the NFL. You're going to get hurt. What good does it do you to get three weeks out of somebody that is soft if they're going to get hurt in training camp? I mean, come on. You can be more physical in training camp and not kill each other. There's a big difference. But when you get to the season, even in the preseason,

man, guys get hurt in preseason all the time. That's why Andrew Luck has no business playing this year in preseason, man, guys get hurt in preseason all the time. That's why Andrew Luck has no business playing this year in preseason, and that's purely because of a preexisting injury. But all these other guys, I mean, a couple of the guys you sit out, that's normal coaching. You don't put T.Y. Hilton out there all four games and run him 70% of the snaps. You know what I'm saying.

So when we look at it holistically, you have to think that they have no choice but to be more physical, whether they dance around it, whether the papers make a big deal about, you know, physicality. Oh no, they're going to get injured. Who cares? They're going to get injured. And this is a year where they have to try to find out what they've got. It doesn't matter. They get injured. They get injured, they get injured. A lot of the guys that Bauer brought in, a lot of those guys were on one-year heavy deals. The rest of it, very little to nothing guaranteed in the second year. Who cares?

Get it over with. You know what I mean? I just don't like the pansy sit back and try to keep everybody healthy style because that is exactly what they've done in the past five years and it still gets guys injured that's about all i got on that so i i just i can't stand listening people talk about it it just drives me nuts when people sit back want the coaching staff to again you know go in soft and sweet and hope everybody stays healthy that's not how football works that's not how it's going to work this year andagano will absolutely be gone if he does it again, because the team still won't be able to

tackle and they can't have that going into this season. It's just, you've got too much building up. Even if it is a rebuilding year, you have to prove that these are the guys that you absolutely can build around. And if they're hurt, they're hurt. So be it. If they're not hurt, that's how you find out what's going on. You find out who can pop people in there. It may be a no name guy. It may be a big name guy. It may be a guy that costs a lot. It may be a guy like Marga's Hunt that costs nothing. You just don't know. And that's why you do it. So that's about all I got for you guys today. It was like I said, short and sweet, keeping it to the point today. But I wanted to make sure that I also got an opportunity to tell you guys that I would not be back the rest of the week,

taking a week off, going to enjoy myself and relax and kind of divvy up some free time for myself and family and stuff like that. But just wanted to thank you guys for everything you guys have done over the past year. It's been phenomenal. Thank you all so much. And keep those ratings and reviews coming on Apple Podcasts, all the other stuff. Keep the voicemails coming as well. Like I said, we'll get into all those next week. We've already got next week's shows lined up.

So we've got some guests. We've got a lot of other good stuff for you guys as well. So thank you guys all very much. Also, you can check me out on Twitter at mdanley__nfl. The show is at Locked on Colts. You can get my work on Stampede Blue, FanRag Sports, and the Colts Wire. So thank you guys all for listening. I'll talk to you next week right here on Locked on Colts.

You are Locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked on Podcastts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.