Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -9/29 - Updated Colts PFF Grades Through Week 3, Robert Mathis Is Working On Borrowed Time & Bonus Content Announcement

Episode Date: September 29, 2016

Matt runs through the #Colts top #PFF grades through Week 3, reveals some bonus content for this week and asks how much longer Robert #Mathis will remain in Indy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome back to Locked On Colts for Thursday, September 29th. I'm your host, Matt Dainley, and thank you again for joining me. I truly appreciate you guys continually coming back for more. The numbers have been great. I want to say thank you again off the top. Another thing is I appreciate those of you that are reaching out and telling me how much you enjoy the show. It really means a lot, and I really appreciate you guys

and the kind words that you've been passing forward. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for listening, And we'll keep plugging away at this thing and trying to make it better as we go on every day. I hope you guys enjoyed the crossover yesterday with Ryan O'Halloran. He's covered the Jaguars for quite a while there for the Florida Times Union. He's also the host of Locked On Jaguars. And he's really a good source because he's a guy who's always been very up front about his team. He's not going to blow smoke, in other words. So he's really good to talk to.

I hope you guys enjoyed that. It felt like it was a pretty good back and forth there between myself and him. And I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed doing it. It was a good time. back and forth there between myself and him. And I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed doing it. It was a good time. Also have some news on the front of, I was promising a big interview here for Locked On Colts for this week. And if you've checked out Twitter, then you already know who it was. It was Gary Myers, who is a football columnist for the New York Daily News. He's also

the author of The Catch and Coaching Confidential. And he wrote the book, Brady versus Manning. He allowed me to get some access into his brain about that book, to get a little bit of a backstory and to kind of dive into some of the things that maybe he didn't mention in the book, some of the things that he did as well, and kind of trying to twist a little bit of information out of him. He was really good. I wanted to thank him if he's listening to this, which I doubt he is, but I wanted to thank him for allowing me to interview him. I really had a good time.

It was really interesting to catch his knowledge, and I will be putting those up. I'm thinking of doing them in a two-part bit as extra podcasts for this week. We'll kind of see how that goes. I'm going to add those down, and I'm going to give those to you guys, I think, as just extra episodes as opposed to making those the daily episodes, so to speak. So a little bit of extra content for you guys this week, maybe at the end of this week, at the beginning of next or something like that. We'll see. But either way, they'll come to you in consecutive days.

And I doubt I'm going to put it all in one episode. It was quite a lot of information and I really tried to make it comfortable for him, just like a conversation as opposed to an actual interview on a podcast, so to speak. So you guys have that to look forward to, and it really is good stuff. Please tune in for that. You are going to love what he has to say. Now let's kind of jump into the injury report for the Colts heading into this week in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars for week four. Darius Butler, Denzel Good, Jonathan Harrison, T.Y. Hilton, and Joe Reitz all did not practice. Naturally, Dante Moncrief didn't practice yet. He's going to be out for a while, so I'm not going to mention him every

single week, but just want to let you guys know. DeQuell Jackson, Frank Gore, and Robert Mathis were all also no-goes for Wednesday, but those were all rest-related. None of them were injury-related or anything like that. Hilton apparently has tweaked his knee or something like that. I don't think that's a major thing or anything. I think that's just actually a rest day for him too, but it looks like Denzel Good could be torn up a little bit. We've got both he and Wrights with back issues, and that's not good for the offensive line. But as we've spoken before, putting the grades aside for certain positions, especially offensive line and kind of the results of the opposing defenses getting some pressures or a QB hit or a sack or something of the sort.

Putting those things aside, the offensive line has played pretty well and are giving us, we've got a lot of young talent on there if you think about it. I mean, Costanzo's nowhere near a first or second year player. I wouldn't try to make that case, but Muhor is just now in his third year. Ryan Kelly is a rookie. Depending on Joe Haig, obviously he's a rookie. Denzel Good, a second year player. There's a ton of youth on that line. And not only that, but the youth is a little better than most think people are giving them credit for. And we've gone through that quite a bit. But let's remember that when we're hearing all these negative things about how bad the offensive line is.

We know that to be less of an issue than they're making it out to be. The Colts do have the long travel to London. They are playing a team in Jacksonville who are a little more used to the surroundings over there. They've played over there, I think, at least the last two, but I think either the last three or three out of four years over in London. And yeah, I mean, I don't see it as much of a home field advantage, especially when I think Jacksonville, aside from a couple positions defensively, are almost, I mean, just awful to watch right now. You know, last year, Jacksonville was really dynamic on offense,

which made them fun to watch, even though they weren't winning many games, at least. But they're just awful this year. I don't really, they're not going downfield. Blake Bortles is having another turnover-filled start to the season, only three games in. Their defense is far underachieving on their expectations along the line. Their running game is nonexistent. It's not a fun team to watch. The Colts, however, are getting healthy and are hitting kind of their strong point of the season,

getting these guys back. Now, you remember a few, maybe two weeks ago, I started to tell you this. Let's worry about it when the guys come back and see how they're playing. If they're still bad, then we might have something to worry about. But a lot of these guys are coming back. We saw a defensive improvement last week. We saw a lot of good things come out of this Colts team last week. So the guys are coming back. Let's see how they play this week. I think the Colts are going to win. And I gave them a 10-point win last night when I was going back and forth with Ryan.

But I'm almost, you know, aside from it just being a bit of an excessive spread, more than 10, I'm starting to think that Colts may win that one going away. Now, there is a certain side to this that I'm starting to get a little worried about, I think. The fact that, naturally, Robert Mathis is taking his rest day off at the beginning of the week, but I think the real issue for me, he's not taking very many snaps during the games. In the first three weeks, Mathis has taken 125 total snaps between the first three games. In week one, he took 68% of the snaps. Week two, he took 66% of the snaps. And it's continued to drop.

Week three, 56% of the snaps. Now, I know he's seen himself on the injury report a little bit himself, but I don't think that there's any doubt, folks, that we are seeing Robert Mathis' last season in Indianapolis. I think that's fair. I think it's accurate. And I think that it should be, to be quite honest with you. We know that he's old, for a football old, of course. So when I say that, don't think I'm older than he is. So he's become ineffective. He's got a total. Now this is for all three weeks. He has a total of three tackles in 125 defensive snaps. He has no sacks. He has one assist. He's come close on a couple things, but I think that's that half step to a full step that he's completely lost. And he just doesn't, you know, he's not fooling anybody anymore.

And not only that, but if you kind of look at the past seasons for him, not only was he out the entire 2014 season, but he's missed multiple games in multiple seasons. You know, this isn't anything necessarily even new for Mathis, any of his full seasons, he's done pretty decent, but anything other than that, he's slacked off, and it's, it's, it's a significant drop this year, I, I think, in his productivity. So I just think that he's done after this season.

I wouldn't – obviously, you hate to think about injury, but you almost just feel like he's – it's just a constant soreness or something at this moment at his age. He's 35 years old. That's definitely not young for football. Collision sport, 35 is not. I don't know what I would be able to do at 35 doing that. So the guy, kudos to him for his career. But I'm just bringing it to you, I think, as realistic as I can do it.

And I'd put my bet on Mathis and this being his last year. I don't think that they're going to renew a contract with him or anything like that. I think this is the last time we see Robert Mathis in a Colts uniform this year. And the Colts also need a pass rush, and we haven't got one. So I would look for a heavy investment in that in the 2017 draft. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we start seeing some of that kind of trickle in between then and now as far as contributors coming in to help out. Now, let's take a look at the pro football focus grades for the team and see kind of where they're at now through three weeks. I think it's been publicized that Andrew Luck has stayed atop the PFF grades, not atop, but among the top,

and he's number two in quarterback, and naturally number one is the guy that everybody else is talking about, who is Carson Wentz. Luck has an 87.3. Number three is Bradford, four Prescott, five Stafford. So Luck is still staying high up there, even though his team is not helping him out a great deal. Now, as we get to the running backs, obviously we know that the Colts don't have a solid running attack or anything like that. And Josh Ferguson and his minimal amount of snaps is not really something you can take into consideration. He's been there in a lot of passing situations. His running game is pretty bad.

But Frank Gore is at 43 overall at a 55.6, which is not good either. But he definitely had a good game this past week. And so he got some hard-fought yards. It was nice to see Frank Gore fall forward quite a bit again, kind of squeak and throw through those little holes and getting the extra two and three yards a time after a six- or a seven-yard gain. It was nice to see.

Hilton brought himself up in the rankings as well. Now he is number seven among wide receivers with an 83.1. Moncrief still, even after not playing in week three and only paying a small bit of week two, is still 30th among wide receivers. Dorsett has, I think he's moved up a touch. He's now number 49 with a 69.8. And he's got some interesting company around him. I mean, if you can compare the people he's around, Jameson Crowder, Jordan Matthews, Muhammad Sanu, there's some guys around, you know, Chris Hogan's slightly ahead of him as well. Will Fuller. So we've got a good group of wide receivers in the NFL right now. So, I mean,

you're talking about minimal differences between Philip Dorsett at 49 at 69.8. And, I mean, even going all the way up to where Moncrief's at at 30 is a 74. So, I mean, you're talking about just a five-point difference and a significant increase in rank, so to speak. So, I think that we've got a lot to be excited about about Dorsett, to be quite honest with you. Now, Doyle and the Colts' tight ends have dropped a little bit on their overall standings as well. I think Doyle last week was in the top 10 or very close to it, and he's now at 21st with a 70.5 overall rating. And Dwayne Allen is down to 40th with a 51.8.

Now that's a little scary for me. We're not seeing much out of Dwayne Allen this year. So let's hope that his game improves substantially. Anthony Costanzo among tackles is now 16th overall with an 80.2. Joe Reitz has naturally fallen to 43.5. He's kind of in a no-win situation there. He's playing better competition, it seems like, every week. He's getting beat up a little bit. He's partly injured, so that's not going to help him, but I think they're going to have that right tackle solidified here shortly.

Looking at the guards, Jack Muhor is 16th at 79.6 after three weeks. Joe Haag and Jonathan Harrison, naturally they haven't had a whole lot of snaps at that guard, but I think they're counting all of Haag's snaps at guard. They're grading him on that, so to speak. So they're at 49 and 48.3. And then Denzel Goods just below them at 47.9. I think those guys need to get healthy and that'll shore up the offensive line there for the Colts quite a bit. Now Ryan Kelly dropped. I think he was 11th last week overall, or at least in the top half. He's dropped to 23rd at 69.1 collectively through week three. He's still doing his thing though in pass protection with a score of 79.7, and that puts him in the top 10 again, so I think that may have actually moved him up one. The Colts do not have a cornerback in the top 40 though in the league, Antonio Cromartie is at 43.

Rashawn Melvin is the next guy in line, and he's at 54. And now, I mean, it's just natural. We'll see what happens next week after Vontae has gotten a little more time in there. He looked really good last week. I would like to see his overall grade after this week for matchup in London. We have Clayton Gethers coming in at 13th for the Colts. Obviously, he's had some sparing time also. He's only had 73 total snaps. A lot of the guys that are above him and just in his neighborhood

have had well over double that. So that's kind of a small sample size for him. But Mike Adams, on the other hand, he's had almost 200 snaps, and he's at an 81.2. So we've got a nice little safety combination there. Hope that that improves even and can stay consistent, if nothing else, where they're at. And that should lead to good things for the Colts. Now the linebackers, on the other hand, you know, I almost feel like we shouldn't even look at these because it's just not going to be pretty. DeQuell Jackson is the highest ranked overall Colts linebacker, and he's at a 65.4 at 48th. So we were barely breaking the top

50 in the league in linebackers. Antonio Morrison, 61.3. He is an absolute liability in pass coverage with a 44.3. He's solid in the run. In fact, almost not solid. He's pretty good. He's got a 77 in run or against the run. But he is just terrible in pass coverage, and that's just par for the course for this Colts

linebacking crew they're you know Ted Monachino was a former linebackers coach and he has got his hands full with this linebacking core and he's got to do something with it I mean you know we've got two guys in Pagano and Monachino that basically are supposed to be covering the back seven of this defense, yet the Colts are one of the worst teams in the league in pass coverage. That's kind of unacceptable, isn't it? It just doesn't feel right. It doesn't roll off the tongue very well. Kind of interesting enough, it looks like the top-rated Indy interior defender is Dill T.Y. McGill at 43.2.

That's kind of scary. He was actually a healthy scratch last week with Henry Anderson coming back, Vonday Davis coming back, and such like that. They've got to find a way to get him. I mean, 43.2 is not a great overall score but that's definitely you know hey still the still the top one right there and you got David Perry at 42.8 those those numbers kind of surprised me Ridgeway and Kerr still back to back there and and Kendall Lankford all there together right in the 41 range 41.9 through 41.. So that's definitely an area the Colts, you think, would need to pick it up. And I would assume that it's, you know, kind of what we see on film or what we

see in the game, maybe a little different than the way these guys are grading it. They're looking for, I believe, effective shedding blocks, so on and so forth like that. But these guys are kind of doing their job so far, especially in the run game. I'm just kind of surprised that their scores aren't getting any better. Now, I'm not even going to look at the edge, the overall edge scores, because I think it's a joke. I've just explained to you how Mathis has three tackles on the season, no sacks, no nothing, and he somehow is the Colts best edge rusher which is ridiculous when you consider that Eric Walden has three sacks and has a handful of sacks for

law or tackles for loss and so on Trent Cole he's second on the Colts with a 40 or at 41 with a 71.5 now nobody's trying to say that Eric Walden is a pass rush specialist. It's certainly not me trying to say that, but they've got him at 86 at a 42.3. So you're telling me he's 30 points lower on your grading scale than Trent Cole and Robert Mathis, and he's got three times the sacks that either one of those two do. I'm having a hard time with that. So that's kind of the setup for the Colts after week three with their pro football focus grades. Like I said, I've got the interview to get all prepared for you guys for some extra stuff.

We'll finish out the rest of this week. The Colts will be playing at 9 30 in the morning local so uh on Sunday when you guys wake up you're gonna have to almost set your alarm on a Sunday to get up uh unless you're like me and you've got enough kids that uh it sounds like a small earthquake every morning about seven o'clock anyhow uh get yourselves ready the Colts are getting ready they're on their way over there now, I believe. If they're not, they're on their way over there soon. They've got an interesting week ahead of them.

They have that long trip. They're going to come back and have to play next week too, which is going to lead for a lot of tightness after being in a plane like that for that long, two trips in a short amount of time. But the Colts are going to have to play their tail off this week regardless. We talk about how bad the Jacksonville Jaguars are, but they are talented, and you still have to beat talent with talent and scheme. So the Colts are going to have their hands full. The receiving core is certainly going to have their hands full.

They're going to have to put up with Jalen Ramsey and some other guys there in that secondary for the Jaguars. So it's going to be an exciting game, I think. I think a 9-30 game is going to get everybody off on the right foot. I think the Colts are working on a blowout already. So I'm trying not to get ahead of myself, but it's kind of hard to. They just look like they continually keep slipping in the mud, the Jaguars do, and they don't look to be moving in the right direction whatsoever. So we will wrap it up for today,

and I will talk to you guys tomorrow on Locked on Colts. You are Locked on Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Napa know-how. It takes a lot to get excited about a bag, but most bags can't save you 20% on auto parts. That's 20% off headlamps, 20% off oil filters, 20% off virtually anything you can fit inside the 99-cent Napa reusable bag.

So tell your buddies, there's a bag they just have to check out. Quality parts, helpful people. That's Napa Know How. Napa Know How. At participating Napa auto parts stores, while supplies last. Min Napa Know How. Napa Know How. At participating Napa auto parts stores, while supplies last. Minimum three items. Exclusions apply. Offer ends 10-31-17.