The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Derek Schultz Gives Matt Thomas The Indy Perspective of Colts v Texans

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

Derek Schultz of WNDE Indianapolis joins Matt to share Indy's view of the upcoming Thursday Night matchup with the Texans

Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson here, your town, your teams, your voice all day. This is Sports Talk 790. You're home for Houston Sports. Oh, how perfect is it that we welcome you back here to the Matt Thomas show that Kelvin Sampson liner plays before our next guest because every time I bring up my man Kelvin Sampson, the folks in Indianapolis, a little grumpy about him. Hi, Derek Shultz, WNDDE Radio. How are things?

Oh, God. voice. His voice, even after all these years, Matt, that voice. I love that, man. I don't want to hear that. You know what? What he did is completely and totally legal now. Yes.

The quote-unquote rules he violated, it's completely and total legally now. So, look, here, and all kidding aside, Indiana fans are never going to forgive him for what happened. But really, he was just a bad fit and a guy that probably shouldn't have been fired. probably shouldn't have been here in the first place. I don't think anybody's ever questioned that he's a terrific basketball coach. So good for him for doing good things down there. 30 seconds more on non-cult stuff before we get to it.

We obviously are engulfed in this Astros investigation. You're not in a major league city. You've got baseball, but you've got close teams around. Is it a type of conversation on your show at all? I'm just curious. Not really. Baseball just doesn't really register here. This is very much a football and basketball market,

with a little sprinkle of racing when it's relevant. But, yeah, it has been big enough for at the very least we've touched on it on the show, but not enough to, like, spend four hours on it or have it be an A-topic or anything like that. Okay. Now to the Colts, which is definitely a topic. And music to your ears, T.Y. Hilton's a full participant. He's going to come to Houston, and he's probably going to do what he's done in years past,

and that has terrorized folks at Energy Stadium. Was that accurate? Yeah, I don't think that anyone is surprised that he was going to be, out there on Thursday because there's just no way that he wasn't going to be out there on Thursday. The guy is kind of like Wolverine when it comes to his healing powers anyway, but this was a very serious calf injury. In fact, he said earlier this week when meeting with the media that when it happened, it was kind of a weird fluky play a couple of weeks ago. When it happened, he thought that his career might be over. That's how much pain he was in, and that's how serious

it was. But he wasn't going to miss this Houston game, especially in Houston. everybody knows the track record. I'm not going to repeat it to your audience, Matt. You guys have probably been spending time on it all week. Even if this is a 75 to 80 percent, a diminished T.Y. Hilton, just to have him out there as a decoy is a really big deal for this Colts offense because they're so banged up at wide receiver. And they're at the point now where the last couple of weeks,

they've been putting guys out there like Zach Paskill and Chester Rogers and Ashton Doolin and these guys that you've never heard of. In fact, people in Indianapolis have barely heard of. So to have Hilton back in any sort of capacity is a really, really big deal. Well, then the storyline for the game, clearly, Derek Schultz, WNDDE Radio, Indianapolis, where this should be receivers you've never heard of against Texans' cornerbacks you've never heard of, because that is a beat-up group. So with that being said, could you envision this game being a 35-31 game,

or do you think the Colts just from an offensive standpoint will use the ground game, despite the fact that Marlon Mack is out to their advantage? Yeah, they want to run, and that's not going to change even without Mack with the broken hand. And I'll be honest, Matt, I know what Houston fans are used to seeing from the Colts, kind of like the other teams in the divisions, like a prolific offense, a top-end quarterback. That's not this Colts team. This Colts team has a very, very limited, and I'd go as far as to say, mediocre offense. Jacoby Reset had one of his best games of the year throwing the ball against Houston,

and that win in Indianapolis. He also had a really big first half against Atlanta. But outside of that, if you go back and you look at Jacoby Resett's lines over the course of this season, over the 10 games, I mean, he's throwing for like a buck 50, a buck 60. That's essentially what this offense is passing-wise. And part of that is because of the receiver injuries, so I'm not going to hang that all on Berset just being a more limited quarterback than Manning or luck. I mean, that's obvious.

But I don't think 35 or anything like that is a number that the Colts are going to try to reach, and I'm not sure unless things really broke the right way, that they could get up into that range anyway. I think they want to do some of the same things that we've seen teams try to do against the Colts, and that's run the ball, be physical up front, control the clock, don't make mistakes, cash in the red zone opportunities. And if there is one good thing I could say about this offense, besides the fact that they can run and the offensive line has played pretty well, it's they've been one of the better

red zone teams in the entire league when they have gotten in there for the most part they've catch those in. Derek Schultz, WNDDE Radio with us on the Matt Thomas show. Derek Berset comes back last week against Jacksonville. It's the ground game, as we just alluded to. Let me ask you this. If I was to, and forget about the fans, if I was to sneak into the front office into the locker room of the Colts, are they satisfied that Jacoby Berset is a long-term

answer quarterback for Indianapolis? No, I still think that the jury is very much out. And that's part of the reason, Matt, that they gave him that two-year extension, which tacked on an extra year to his existing deal. I think they wanted to give themselves more than just a season. They didn't want to put themselves in a Blake Bortle sort of situation, for lack of a better example, where, oh, suddenly Bressett is pretty good. He's not great, but we got to throw him a wheelbarrow full of money

because that's what you have to do to keep him. They wanted to give themselves as much time as possible to kind of sort this out and see exactly who they have. I think they're still optimistic that he could potentially be, The answer, and Bressett is a beloved player in the locker room. He immediately became a leader. He was a leader as a backup quarterback, which is unheard of, I think, in most NFL locker rooms. So he has a lot of positive attributes.

It's just when you're in a city that's used to seeing Andrew Luck for seven or eight seasons, then, of course, Peyton Manning for 15, the bar is much higher than normal. If I were to place him in the NFL as far as ranking the 32 quarterbacks, even in an injury-plagued year like this one, I'd probably put him firmly in the middle, somewhere in the 12 to 15 range, which is good. It's been enough to keep the Colts hanging around.

Is it good enough to bring a Lombardi trophy here? Probably not, unless you got into like a Joe Flacco fluke situation, because we have seen that before. Do you think when you guys talk about your team, who's one of the AMC South, when you just flat out to ask yourselves that question? question. Who's winning it? The Colts feel really confident, especially given their history

against Houston and the fact that generally this has been a match-up, but, you know, the last three games clearly that has gone in their favor. I know they ended up losing the overtime game in Indy, but they won the other two in Houston. And it's weird, Matt, because what happened in like 2005 or 2009 has absolutely nothing to do what happened with 2019, but there's still a mentality here Indianapolis where I don't feel like the fans take the other division team seriously, as they should, because this, you know, let's be honest, this team dominated this division for a long time, but it's been a long time since they were the dominant force in this division, and people are still, oh, it's just Houston, oh, it's just Jacksonville.

Tennessee doesn't count because the Colts absolutely own Tennessee, and that's a free role every time they play them. But the other division teams, I think they still kind of scoff at an overlook, and we've tried to say on the show, hey, look, Now you're facing Houston, you don't have the quarterback advantage anymore. This is a talented roster, Jacksonville, with some of the young talent that they have. And it's kind of hard to get the fans to kind of get out of that manning and luck mode when they were used to rolling out of bed and winning the division every year.

But I still think that there's specifically to this year, Matt, it's your question. I do think that there's a lot of confidence that if they win this game, especially, that they're going to be in that spot. And, I mean, I don't think it's going on that far of a limb. I know we've still got a month and a have to go to say that the winner, of this game ends up winning the division. I'd be surprised if it went the other way. And I think actually

Indianapolis' schedules a scotch easier the rest of the way too. Last question because I always feel like that we take care of our own coaches, either crush them or love them more than outsiders do. We happen to believe that Frank Reich is the best coach in this division. I don't know if that's

a super big prize or not, but how do you, when you watch the Colts week after week, evaluate the head coach in his overall performance. Yeah, he's done a great job. And part of the reason that he's done a great job is that he has the right mindset and he doesn't play scared. He's very aggressive. And you guys saw that last year with that fourth and five decision in the overtime where he could have punted it and taken the tie and he said, no, we're just going to go for it. And he caught a lot of grief for that.

But more often than not, being more aggressive and playing to win instead of playing not to lose is what you want to do. And I, I tell you. take it and you see him week to week. What I've always gathered from Bill O'Brien is that he's a little bit more in the Chuck Bagano camp where, oh, hey, it's fourth and two. Yeah, I know we're on their side of the field, but we better punt this away and trust our defense. And I just don't think that that's the mentality that wins in today's NFL.

And Reich has also shown a ton of confidence in his players. They love him. And it's been backed up by his actions. And I think that's important. I think there's a difference between a coach who players like because he, doesn't throw them under the bus or he speaks glowingly about him, kind of like what we had in Chuck Pagano, and a guy that actually backs that up with his actions,

and Frank Wright kind of hits that from both ends. So I think he's done a great job. This has been a very banged-up team, and this is still a rebuild. They're not calling it that, but that's what this is. They had to overhaul this roster over the last two years, and so they're still in the infancy of what they're trying to build towards, and they've been very competitive. They had a great season and a great second half last year,

and they're right in the mix in the division this year, despite obviously a very strange quarterback situation that they had to deal with back in August. Great materials. Always my friend, I'll talk to you and you're showing a couple of hours. Thanks for the time. Yeah, I just hope there are no trash cans on the sidelines that, you know, the players can bang and things like that because I just want to make sure that this game is above board that there's no shenanigans going on coming up tomorrow night. That's all, Matt. Too soon, Derek. Too soon. Did he hang up on me?

Yeah, I'm going to right now. Bye. Derek Shultz, WNDE Radio. We're going to have to catch this crap for a long time. From freaking Indianapolis of all cities. Ewe.