Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS - 9/28 - Colts/Jaguars Crossover With Locked on Jaguars Host Ryan O'Halloran

Episode Date: September 28, 2016

Matt of Locked On #Colts and Ryan of Locked on #Jaguars dissect each team's season thus far, the looming Week 4 matchup as well as hand out their predictions for Sunday's game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our Colts and Locked On Jaguars. My name is Matt Dainley. I'm your host of Locked On Colts, and we're here with Ryan O'Halloran, the host of Locked On Jaguars. Ryan, how you doing? Good, Matt. Good to hear from you. And ready to talk AFC South cutthroat football. This is. This could have been a very dangerous week for the Colts had the Colts not beat the Chargers this past Sunday.

And I would imagine that there's some interesting thoughts we're going to bring up about what's coming into this game in London and what could come out of it in the end. So without any further ado, I wanted to ask you about Bortles. I've been kind of a starch defender of him in the past. Of course, I love quarterback play in the NFL, and my thought process is that the more and the better quarterback play league-wide, the better the league is in general. Of course, I want the Colts to win, but I always want to see good quarterback play because that just leads to better football. Bortles is at his,

currently he has the best completion percentage of his career. Granted, we're only three weeks into the season. However, he's currently on pace to be like somewhere around the mid-20s in interceptions, and he's just up and down and a little erratic this far. What are you – what are kind of your takes on him so far this season? Well, this is the first slump of his non-rookie year. I mean, that rookie year two years ago was all about survival.

He got sacked a lot. He threw a lot of interceptions. Big time surprise that this offense led by him hasn't been better through the first three games. I think right now this Jaguar offense is broken. Yeah. I think Blake Bortles now is maybe has a crisis of confidence maybe he's pressing a little bit a couple plays against baltimore and a game they

gave away three interceptions took a couple sacks he shouldn't have missed a couple open receivers so i think you're i think they're coming down to a critical juncture in terms of, okay, how can they recover with this quarterback before things slide out of control and an 0-4 record going into the bye. I mean, there's 100% belief in him within the team, but he's fighting a little bit, and he's got to turn around in a hurry. Is he the lead within the offense, or is it possibly coming from somewhere else? Well, he's not getting a lot. I mean, the run game is pathetic.

So ideally what this offense wants to do, they want to be able to run it well enough to do play action and take shots down the field. Their longest play against Baltimore was 20 yards. For this offense, the way it's supposed to be built, that is pathetic. Blake may be forcing some things. He had three new starters in new places on the offensive line against Baltimore. You have Kevin Beach and Beckett left tackle.

Defenses are playing a lot more cover too. They take away Allen Robinson, playing safety over the top. He's having to work harder. Julius Thomas, you know, the thing about a big tight end is the conditions need to be optimum for him to make plays. He's not a tight end screen guy. You've got to hit him in stride. You've got to hit him right in the hands. So this is an offense.

Right now, I'm not surprised they're 0-3. What's stunning is that they have not got on track on offense. I mean, is there any attribution of this to the offensive coordinator in any way? Or is this strictly an execution issue, you think? I think it goes both ways. I mean, I tend to go toward the execution they're not blocking i mean they're losing one-on-one battles uh their tight ends aren't blocking well when they ask the receivers to run block they're not blocking well but this is the first time also that offensive coordinator greg olson has sort of come under criticism

i thought he mishandled some of the situations Sunday against Baltimore, most likely because Gus Bradley wanted to sit on a one-point lead. They ran on first down a couple times and put them in bad situations. And they had three takeaways in the fourth quarter against the Ravens. They scored three points off those and then lost by two. So I think the run game needs to get a little bit more diverse because what they're doing isn't working. Try to maybe get out the edge a little bit. Try to spread it out formation wise. This is three games right now. Chris Ivory's been back for one game.

His debut, he went for a grand total of 14 yards on 12 carries. A lot of work for this team to do this week offensively. That's a lot of work for this team to do this week offensively. Yeah, that's a bit of a struggle. The Colts have given up 25 defensive points to opposing teams, so let's hope if they do turn the ball over, well at least I'll hope that if they do turn the ball over that Jacksonville is not going to take it to the house. Maybe if they're only getting three points off of that many turnovers that might benefit the Colts in that regard. Tell me a little bit about the Miles Jack issue. I know that they're not playing him, well, let me put it this way. I think that they're not

playing him because of Telvin Smith, which I'm a huge fan of Telvin Smith, but shouldn't they be getting Miles Jack on the field? I mean, shouldn't it be getting Miles Jack on the field? I mean, shouldn't it be get the talent on the field and then figure out how you're going to play with them on the field? Well, it's probably the only area where I'm going to defend this staff. He learned the middle linebacker spot at camp. Now he's learning the weak side right now. I'm sure they thought inside the building that by the third

or fourth game they would have no choice but to put jack on the field turns out talvin smith has so far had a great start to the year paul plus lesney is playing great he calls the signals on the field gets everybody lined up you know dan scuda is the strong side linebacker when he got banged up last week arthur brown went in. Well, people were calling for Miles Jack. He doesn't play a strong side linebacker. So they're sort of treating Miles right now like a second-round pick as a luxury, saying, okay, he's going to be their future Mike or their future Will. I think he's probably going to be in the middle.

But the situation just hasn't arisen for him to get on the field. I keep asking around, okay, can they come up with a package or two to get him involved? They're very committed. When they go sub, they still want four down linemen. So right now there isn't a spot for Miles Jack, but I think at some point during the season he'll definitely be playing a role. That kind of surprised me. That was going to be my next question is I'm surprised that they're not trying to find a spot for him in sub packages somehow.

We kind of alluded to this right off the jump here. And Gus Bradley is probably within, I mean, I think it's safe to say that London's bad juju for coaches who go over there and get smoked. It's happened in the past. It's happened actually pretty recently in the past. How susceptible do you think Gus Bradley's future is to be dismissed with a really poor showing this Sunday?

Well, I think the only way it's on the table is if Indianapolis wins by three touchdowns. I don't think that's going to happen. They just need a more even match than that. You know, if that happens, then if your ownership, you take the bye week and say, okay, have they stopped listening to the head coach? I don't think that's the case. Are there other problems on the staff? Where's the disconnect if that happens? Any other result? Obviously, a Jaguar win on Sunday.

I think he's safe. A close loss, I think he's safe, at least through the next couple weeks once they get back from the bye. But I thought the Baltimore game was the most critical of his tenure. They lost that game. Well, now I'm changing it. The Colts game is the most critical of his tenure he said on Monday usually he is um you know a glass is overflowing full optimist but he said point blank yes they're winning games now um that was a pretty big turn for him at

least publicly saying that so I think his sense of urgency urgency has been ratcheted up this week and it should be yeah Yeah, I agree. That seems like a very touch-and-go situation. It kind of seems like that could be dangerous for him, not only this week, but I think that could play out throughout the rest of the first half of the season as well. Kind of wanted to touch on some of the stats here. The Jaguars have such a talented roster. It's almost mind-boggling to me that they still like you said their rushing is awful right now they're 31st on offense in the league in yards total rushing yards and but they're 20th on defense and rushing yards

allowed now that surprises me because I thought their defense was going to stand pretty tall this year. Now, I know that Ramsey has had a good start to the season, but where is this defense? I guess, why isn't this defense gelling yet? I know it's a young unit, but this defense seems just so packed with talent that with Malik Jackson there and just so many other guys that have not only the ability, but there are plenty of guys with experience on this defense. Why aren't they molding together and kind of standing tall and leading this team with the offense struggling? I think you saw the start of that against Baltimore.

I mean, they played okay against Green Bay. They held Aaron Rodgers under two yards passing. But they didn't create a turnover. San Diego just got blown out. They didn't show up. They held Aaron Rodgers under two years passing. But they didn't create a turnover. San Diego just got blown out. They didn't show up. They missed some tackles. So Baltimore game where they created some turnovers, they were able to stop Baltimore on third down.

So I think it started to look how it should look against the Ravens. A couple things. I wouldn't have said this a month ago, but they really do miss Prince of Mucamara at corner. He's the number three guy, but in sub with 70% of those in sub package, he played outside, played very well against

Green Bay. He's been out on a hamstring. And also, you look at they're relying on two rookie pass rushers with Fowler and Ngakwe. They're coming along that first game. I think the moment got to them, And they're relying on two rookie pass rushers with Fowler and Ngakwe. They're coming along that first game. I think the moment got to them, sort of the welcome to the NFL day where they didn't realize how fast the game moved, but you've seen them take steps.

I think the next thing for this defense is to score a touchdown or two, help that offense even more. I mean, they basically handed the game to their offense on Sunday, and the offense said no thanks. So I think on defense, there are signs of life. This right now is a team that doesn't pressure with more than four guys. They're about 14%, which is surprising to me under new coordinator Todd Walsh. So I don't think they're going to throw more than a four-man rush at Andrew Luck.

So that's what they're going to rely on is Fowler and Ngakwe and then some Derek Marks and Lee Jackson to provide that interior pass rush. Yeah, their offense is 26th in the league in points scored, and it just seems like such a far cry. I know that Bortles had some interception issues last year, but it just seems like they were just so ready to break out as an explosive, high-powered offense this year, and it just seems like it has completely fallen in the gutter. It's just – to me it's mind-blowing.

It seemed like that was going to be a real issue for the Colts coming forward, especially at the beginning of the season. I thought, you know, the Jaguars have that offense and the Colts are banged up on defense. This could be a really bad deal in week four. They could drop the first of the two in the series. That's kind of all I've got for you this week. It just, it seems like the, that the overpowering headlines this week would have been had the Colts lost last week, which coach comes back still, you know, still employed. And now I think that it's still whether, like you said, you think that it depends on a three-score loss to actually, you know, possibly get Gus Bradley ousted there. But I think that if they do lose, whether it's bad or not, I think that nationally it's going to be perceived as though Gus Bradley could come back looking for a job. Yeah, and that's why I'm going to pick the Jags to win.

And we'll wrap it up with a job. Yeah, and that's why I'm going to pick the Jags to win. And we'll wrap it up with a prediction. I think they're going to win because you're looking at a coaching staff that their future is uncertain. You're looking at big money free agents who signed guaranteed money contracts for these first two years thinking that this was going to be the staff. Those disappear with a regime change. And you've got draft picks who are working toward their second contracts. thinking that this was going to be the staff, those disappear with a regime change. And you've got draft picks who are working toward their second contracts.

If there's a new regime, they could be looking for another team too. So you combine all those elements. And I really think the Jaguars have an advantage, but this is their fourth trip overseas. I think that will be a little bit edged, especially with the Colts coming in later in the week. So I'll take over here. Let's talk about this Colts football team.

I thought this team would be absolutely atrocious on defense, and yet they've given up very few points in the last two games. How surprised are you that this group has come together? More than anything, I'm surprised that they held up while they were still as injured as they were um it was nice to see vante come back last week and and almost be uh non-existent i mean you didn't see or hear his name much and he really did his job outside locking down uh receivers. And then you hear his name, that he's made a tackle, and it's like, wow, I didn't even know he's out there. He's either not played very many snaps or he's been playing really well.

And, of course, I noticed that he was on the field, so he was obviously playing really well. The Colts, you know, it's really strange, too, because they're getting the majority of their pass rush from Eric Walden, a guy who is absolutely not a pass rush artist by any means. And they've got Mike Adams, who seems to never age since he's been with the Colts. When he came in, they thought he was extremely old already, and now he's 35 going on 36 and he's still coming to play every week the Colts have gathers they came back this week and looked nice and stocky and was by far the Colts most sure tackler on the field and you got T.J. Green who's far and in my for my opinion from what I

saw immediately if the draft has outplayed, where I assumed that he would be. So if I was to say that I was surprised, I'm not. That once these guys started trickling back, especially Henry Anderson, I was a little worried about him coming back, wondering if they maybe had been pulling him back too quickly. But Henry Anderson's a beast, and he and David Perry up front, and Kendall Langford is extremely underrated. And I just – I'm not surprised, I suppose. And I know I've said that already, but I was surprised that previous to these guys coming back

that they were holding up as well as they were. Even though they weren't playing well, they were still keeping themselves in the game. They were in week one and should have won in the first week of the season. They were down six with under two minutes to go in week two against Denver and should have won that as well. So the Colts legitimately could be 3-0 right now. And had they learned how to finish a game before last week, they would be,

but make no mistake about it, their defense has a long way to go, but surprised at the moment with these guys coming back? No, I'm not. I was more surprised before they came back how they were playing. Ted Montechino, first year coordinator for the Colts, what has sort of been his stamp scheme-wise through three games? Well, I know that they're running a ton of their subs, so it's really hard to nail it down. Their sub packages, I believe he's in over 60% of the time right now, which could be in large part due to either the packages they're seeing offensively or the fact that they've had so many different guys running in and out of this defense that they've had no choice,

that they haven't been able to lock down in their base. But as far as a base defense at the moment, we're not going to see it, I don't think, because I think a lot of teams are going to try to spread this Colts defense out because they're terrible right now against the pass. They're actually doing pretty decent against the run. And if you saw last week that they held Gordon to just over 30, I think 36 yards on maybe 14 carries. And they are stepping up in the right way. Monachino is a guy who's constantly teaching. It was something I noticed from him from camp.

I would imagine he's doing that throughout the season. I'm not seeing a lot of their practices or anything like that throughout the regular season thus far. But he's definitely a guy who sees something and addresses it immediately, smacks them on the butt, tells them to get back and do it again. You know, I mean, it's really, to me, it was a different vibe. And I think there was a lot of coaches for the Colts this year, a lot of new coaches that came in, and Philbin as well. He was another one that it was very noticeable how he was coaching the guys on the offensive line, constantly teaching.

And it was just a really different feel around camp this year, and I can only assume that it's continued to stay that way once the season started Colts are 27th in passing yards per game if you're the Jaguars who do you pick on Sunday uh well I think you're gonna have to go against Camardi only because he is as old as he is he's held up pretty well I well. I've been happy with him thus far, just because my expectations were limited on him. But whether they have Butler or not is probably still a question mark at this point.

But even if they do have Butler, they're going to be able to pick on him as well. His play is slowly starting to decrease a little bit, his effectiveness. But if I'm one of those guys, I go after Camardi and I go after him probably pretty deep with Allen Robinson because Robinson's going to win at the catch point. Robinson's going to be able to beat him downfield depending on where the Colts are at with the single high or they're in some sort of a cover two shell with their safeties.

It kind of depends on how they're going to be able to rotate the coverage to that side. My guess is that if they do send Robinson a lot towards Cromartie's side, that they will do just that, try to get an extra safety up there in coverage to roll that towards his side. Let's move it over to offense a little bit. Andrew Luck was injured for both games against the Jaguars last year. Overtime win for the Colts in Indianapolis early, and then a Jaguar route later in the season.

Do you see him playing at the level that he was playing previous to the injury? Yeah. You know what, even this year, if you take that first half out against Denver, he's had a phenomenal season so far. Um, you know, started slow, I guess this past Sunday, but he's, he's taken, he still has his, his, uh, what, I don't know what you want to call it, but uh-oh moment. It seems like once a game where he, he makes a boneheaded play or tries to stay on his

feet like he did again or do both, you know, but yeah, I, I think he's currently playing at his highest level at the moment, including 20, his 2014 season where he had the 40 touchdowns. He, he looks fresh. He looks sharp. His balls are coming out or his passes are coming out with a lot more zip on them. His footwork's better. It's more defined. It's less, I don't even know how to explain it. Less of, yeah, less tippy-toed almost, you know what I mean? It's very defined and very deliberate where he's going. His eye discipline's better. I see all kinds of

things, and they were really harping on that at the beginning of the season, too, in camp. You could tell that they were definitely working on it, whether it was something that they felt needed necessarily to be improved or whether they just wanted to work on it because they knew that that's the most important position on the field, and he's the guy who's going to probably have to lead this team because of the rosters fails throughout the majority of the offseason. If he can keep those uh-oh moments to once every other game, then he'll be really making his mark this season, as I think that will end up being his best season yet. Everything looks good. His timing looks good, regardless of what the statistics actually say about the offensive line. The offensive line is significantly better this year than it has been, than he's had in the past. They've had a little time. They've had to

work on getting together, but the talent-wise from left tackle to right tackle all the way through is significantly better, in my opinion, and they've got more depth. So he's going to have more time to throw. He's already had a ton more time to throw this year. And if they can continue that just a little bit, just get him to two and a half to three seconds to where Luck doesn't have to hang on to the ball or he doesn't start to second guess himself

because that's when he got in a lot of trouble last year, even before he got injured, was he would continue to hang on to the ball for so long and wait for something to come open downfield. They've really worked, I think, on trying to find that happy medium of get him started in some sort of a groove, but let's not go 25 yards downfield every play either. Let's bring it down somewhere in the middle. And they've really done a nice job at opening with several different levels with their wide receiver, with their routes. Their routes are coming together much nicer.

You're not seeing a lot of overlay with their high-low concepts or their crossing routes aren't running into a hitch from the tight end down the middle. So they've done a nice job getting those guys to separate. I think they've worked on that pretty hard. T.Y. Helton, 18 catches for 294. Winnie touched down against San Diego. Then it's a big drop-off to the rest of the receivers. As defenses adjust and pay more attention to T.Y., not that it's going to make a lot of difference,

who else is going to have to start stepping up at the receiver spot starting on Sunday? It really has to be Dorsett. Dorsett has to do what he's doing, and he also has to start getting the targets. Now, with Hilton, if he starts to get bracketed up or covered up, then he will look to Dorsett. But he's also got a brand-new security blanket in Jack Doyle this year. Jack's always been reliable in the past, but O'Doyle is a guy who he knows that he's throwing a Velcro football to a guy with Velcro gloves on, and he's going to catch it every time.

He's going to run a solid route. He's going to catch the ball, and for some reason, any time he's near the goal line, he's going to find a way to stretch it across. He's the most unathletic tight end, I think probably in on very middle of the road for the league. But the guy gets it done. He works his tail off. I love him. I'm thinking about trying to nab him on my fantasy team, to be quite honest with you, because the guy just flat out does his job and catches passes when he does. The bad thing is that the Colts run through spats where they ignore their tight ends,

and they can't do that. The Colts are far more successful when their tight ends get five to eight targets per half. And if they can do that, that's going to be the key, whereas the guys outside and the guys in the slot are just going to have to do their job. Those tight ends have to be effective and Chudzinski has to be effective in calling the plays to get them involved, the tight ends. I'll wrap it up with this one before you do some predictions. Is there a novelty interest around Indianapolis this week about this team going overseas or are fans just looking at it as an AFC South game at a neutral site?

I would have to say that it's an AFC South game at a neutral site only because it wasn't originally a Colts home game. Had it been a Colts home game, I think that Colts fans would be irate about it, to be quite honest with you. I think it just happens. I think the one thing that they're going to like about it is that it's on at 9.30 in the morning locally. You're going to wake up, that's the first thing you're going to see is Colts blue in London, and it's going to make for a nice long day of football. And you're going to get the Colts game out right off the jump. It's going to be just Colts, just Jaguars, and other now.

I don't really think that Colts fans care too much about it. I know that I'm excited about it being at 930 in the morning because I wake up on Sunday morning and I'm right into football already. So that's a good thing for me, but I don't think that the Colts fans care too much about it either way. We got Sunday and why? I definitely have the Colts doing, doing their work. Now, this is interesting because I would have thought had, I spoke to, we spoke off air a little bit about what I had saw on Twitter and thought maybe second guessed on, wanted to backtrack and kind of see if it had any legs on it, and it didn't, obviously.

But my thought process when I first saw that was that's bad news for the Colts because interim coaches are very successful. It seems like the first game after a coach is fired. Now, I don't think that the Colts are going to have any issues necessarily with the travel or anything like that. The Jaguars do, as you mentioned earlier, have a bit of a leg up in that they've been over there before. They're used it they're they are probably a little more familiar not only with the surroundings but the the stadium and and so on but i really think that the colts are turning are turning things around right now they've they're getting healthy they're getting the the offensive line's going to do a little bit of shifting, but Joe Haag stepped in as a rookie with his first real time. Actually, I think it was his first time all the way through on the offensive line,

and he looked good and even slid out to right tackle and was formidable. So I think the Colts are going to be able to hold down any pass rush that the Jaguars are getting. The biggest issue and the only thing that's going to stop the Colts are going to be able to hold down any pass rush that the Jaguars are getting. The biggest issue and the only thing that's going to stop the Colts, in my opinion, is if they don't find some pass rush now. But now with Henry Anderson back, they're going to get that pass rush up the middle, which is absolutely imperative. And if the Colts can stop the Jaguars, who are already struggling in the run game,

if they can stop their run game again, they prove that that puts a ton more on Bortles' shoulders. And at this point this year, Bortles is proving that he's having a little bit of an issue with having to carry the team. So I'm definitely going with the Colts and I'm going to go by 10. I'm going to give them 27, 17. All right. I'll go, uh, what the hell? I'll go Jaguars, uh, 27, 23, because

at the beginning and the middle and the end of the day, it's all about me and I want my and that's the most important part. I want to be able to, uh able to dash out of town for a couple days. And so that's with Jaguars come back one and three. So that's it for this Crossover podcast, Locked on Colts, Locked on Jaguars. Matt, it was fun. Do it again, week 17. Absolutely, man. I'd love to. Thanks for coming on.

And as always, everybody, make sure that you guys are subscribing to these Locked Ons, Locked On podcasts. Go follow Ryan on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter and both of the shows, I believe. Do you have Locked On Jags

on Twitter? We're getting there. You're getting there. You can follow myself, mdainley underscore NFL. And I'm at ryanohaller on Twitter. You guys have been great in your reviews and so on and so forth on iTunes.

Keep that up. Give us a five-star review for either show, both shows. Ryan, thank you so much, man. This was a great time. I appreciate it. And best of luck to you, and have a safe flight, my man. All right. Thanks, Pat.