Giants got physically beat down plus Shannahan with a great call for a playaction pass when killing the clock. Most teams would of played it safe and just kept it on the ground.
Penalties kill. Also, the game changed on a dime when Locklear went out injured. Eli just didn't have the same pocket when Deihl came in. Thanks David, but your time is up. You just don't have the speed and strength anymore. Good game.
In reading this thread it seems that many people here think that the Colts have the running game they had in Edgerrin's early days. The Colts offensive line sucks folks. It's doing ok as a run unit, but it might be the worst unit in the NFL and there are some very bad offensive lines these days. Luck is running for his life on many plays and still getting the job done. In fact, I feel that many think that this is the same Colts team that Manning had and that they just plugged in Luck. There are some good players on this team...guys like Reggie Wayne, Mathis, and Freeney have helped a ton. Redding has been a great addition. The greatest addition, however, and it's not even close is Luck. But Luck is getting his young guys up to speed quick. The kid is an animal on the football field...totally a different person. Wayne was taken out of the game by the Lions last week and the guys doing the touchdown catching and running were either rookies (Fleener catch, Brazill catch, Ballard run) or journeymen (Avery, two catches including the game winner). Dwayne Allen, another rookie had some key catches. Consider that the roster was gutted (40 some players are new, out of a 53 man roster) and this is a young team with a winning record and it is pretty unbelievable. The schedule has been soft......but they were only supposed to win 2-3 games according to the pundits and most fans I know.
I realize that was the common perception, but I thought this was a 6-7 win team if [generic] (Chad Henne? Gross Rexman?) were the QB. With Luck, I figured them for 7-9 wins (admittedly partly as a consequence of the schedule.) Their roster has a bunch of no-name guys I have expected would have a future; and after 50 years of watching I seem to be ahead of the pundits, anyway.
Excellent post. The running game isn't putting any fear into defenses. Any play action play the Colts run isn't effective as it would be with a solid ground game. The offensive line has always been bad since the Manning days. What were their best olinemen? Jeff Saturday? Tarik Glenn? Luck is being forced to pass 50+ times every game due to a lack of a running game. Let's not forget the Colts d switched over to the 3-4, which is a difficult transition to make in your first year.
Because footballs aren't round, scores aren't one point each, and injuries are only predictable in the aggregate, not the instance. Not a big fan of betting overall. Its the game that interests me, not the conflict.
I figured 4 or 5. Admittedly, the team has also rallied around Pagano's illness. But in this business, riding that kind of emotion is temporary. After they got pasted by the Pats, they came back and took care of business against Buffalo, when they could have tanked that game. That is a sign of a good mature team and those type of wins I did not expect. Redding and Luck in particular led the charge against the Lions. Those two just did not give up when all was conceivably lost. I didn't expect Colts fans have gotten so far.
Yours aren't too shabby as well. I like how you have broken down RGIII's game. That guy is awesome as well. The pistol offense might get figured out, but in the long run RGIII has all the tools to be a top flight QB. My only worry with him is his build and the fact that he already has a concussion. He can throw short, deep (beautiful throws there) can run, and I believe that he can read defenses. The total package. I can see how Redskins fans, though, are excited. I like the Colts guy better though for the long run.
Fair enough. I remember first watching Luck in his first year at Stanford vs USC on a random Saturday night and coming away impressed. I told some friends that he'd be special and then the media started hyping him... At the end of last season, I was hoping that Luck would manage to fall. I really wanted the Colts to beat the Jags so the Rams would get the #1 pick. I knew the Skins would deal with the Rams and that would have led to us getting Luck. I don't think you could go wrong with either QB. I thought Luck was more of a sure thing coming out and there was some risk involved with RGIII considering he came out of a spread style offense, etc. In the end, it looks like the Skins may have finally found a franchise QB and I was right about Luck -- he'll be a top 5 QB in a few years.
I base it off of a team does not go from 10-6 and a division winner in 2010 to the worst team in football in one season. The failure to not have a true backup QB cost the Colts (or 'rewarded' them) the worst team last season. Teams do not make such a dramatic change from one year to the next.
But that is irrelevant when this years Colts and last years (or 2010s) Colts share the following players (starters in bold): RB Donald Brown (108 carries, 417 yards) & Delone Carter (29 carries, 121 yards) WR Reggie Wayne (88 receptions, 1156 yards) OL Anthony Castonzo, Jeff Linkenbach, Seth Olsen, Joe Reitz DL Antonio Johnson, Ricardo Mathews LB Kavell Connor, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Pat Angerer DB Antoine Bethea, Joe Lefeged + Punter Pay McAfee and kicker Adam Vinatieri ...and that's it. Along with Luck, 35 of the other 50 players (not including McAfee/Vinatieri) are new to this Colts team this year. On offense, only two starters were with the Colts before this season (three if you include D Brown, though rookie Vick Ballard has more carries, catches, and both rushing and receiving yards than him); star receiver Reggie Wayne and up-and-coming LT Anthony Castonzo. On defense, the first two that will jump out are of course Freeney & Mathis, but they haven't converted to the 3-4 as well as some would have hoped, it seems - especially Freeney, who has 6 tackles and 2 sacks all season. Mathis is doing a bit better with 24 tackles and 7 sacks. Bethea is quite good, but none of the other guys are really 'star' players. Lefeged also was a UDFA rookie last year, so I am guessing he was on the practice squad throughout the entire 2011 season and thus might as well be 'new'. In fact, most of the new guys they have picked up are cast-offs, undrafted free agents, and practice squad guys from other teams. It's not like the Colts went out and picked up big name free agents or stockpiled on early round draft picks. My opinion is they were just looking to gut the roster this year and operate on as cheap a budget as possible to help build in the coming seasons as expectations would be so low after last year, in order to put themselves in a brilliant cap position moving forward (e.g. to be able to build the exact team around Luck that they wanted). I mean they let THIRTY SIX players walk after all, that is an astounding number! I think someone said that they were operating on a level just above expansion team earlier, and they would be right. What is more is, I would imagine that Freeney and possibly Bethea along with some of the current backup guys will be following them out the door this offseason, and the all rest quite possibly the year after (sans Castonzo/Wayne). His numbers aren't the prettiest granted, but what Luck has done under those circumstances is extremely impressive.
BillyIreland breaks it down above. Peyton Manning covered a ton of holes. That whole team was built around him. One of the most interesting stats I would like to see is Manning's ability to keep the offense on the field and extend drives. He kept many a bad to mediocre Indy defenses (especially run defenses) off the field. This did not happen in 2011, for obvious reasons. Your response still doesn't address the base of players you were talking about. This roster was completely made over.
Agreed. I believe I said as much in my initial post. Manning made them much better over many years. Off topic for a sec, watching Manning convert 3rd down after 3rd down Thursday night was amazing/frustrating. It was so easy. Made me wonder how/why he should even be in 3rd down situations. I am only comparing '10 with '11. Most coaches are going to come in and change players. It is expected. Heck, in the current NFL, you are likely to change over 15-20% of your starters in a given season. It was mentioned above, Mathis, Wayne and Freeney is a great start. They are all-star talent. This team had talent. They were not the consecutive 3-13/1-15 teams that the Jets were under Rich Kotite (like the year, they named Chris Burkett, the special teams gunner the team MVP). They had a few all-star caliber players. The Colts had some players, but seemingly the white flag was raised on the year once it was apparent that Manning was out and the early season results.
Actually, I mentioned that Mathis and especially Freeney don't seem to have adjusted too well to the 3-4 that well and thus are not what people may think, going by their names and what they achieved in the cover-2 the last 8-10 years. Mathis had 24 tackles, 7 sacks which is quite good, but Freeney is on 6 tackles, 2 sacks which is... sorely lacking.
But this was not changing 15-20% of the starters, but something like 70% of the roster... (I'm not actually arguing both sides here-- my take on it was that they did a very good job of identifying guys on the scrap heap who could actually play, not that the Colts were the same 10-6 team that lost its best player for a year. ) Bill James once said something to the effect that there are many more ways for a team to fall apart than there are for it to come together. The 2011 Colts used most of them at once, and I think the new regime got rid of guys for many different reasons, most of them good...
Hats off to Kirk Cousins, it was a bit gutting to see RGIII have to come off with 45 seconds left and the game on the line, but I'd bet he feels good about it now. Very, very limited action of course but he was more than serviceable - that pass was extremely impressive. Another sack for Aldon Smith just now - with 3 and 3/4 games left, he needs 4 sacks to tie Strahan's record, 4.5 to beat it, and that's two weeks on the bounce now that Luck has led the Colts to big comebacks, and the Rams have pulled it out of the bag in the dying seconds. Same for Nick Foles, literally ending Philly's 8-game losing streak at the buzzer (and barely managing to spike the ball with 2 seconds on the clock to do so). Still think the Eagles should have gone for the 2pt conversion, and taken a kneel down. Just to f'k with Schiano's "attack the victory formation" approach.
This has been horrible thus far, the injuries are just WAY too much (#1, #2 & #3 RBs, #1* & #2 WRs, starting LT & RTs, #2/blocking TE on offense... starting ILB and his backup, starting ROLB & LOLB on defense). It is a minor miracle we are still in this game, to be honest. *Jennings is playing, but is noticeably still injured. That said, Aaron Rodgers is a boss, 17-14!!
Well to be fair (and I am a big fan of Wilson's), he only went 7-for-13, 148 yards, 1TD 1INT. Good YPA, though Matt Flynn (5-9, 68yds) was similar in that dep't. I was watching RedZone so can't really comment fully on the game, but it would appear to be more a case of the Cardinals being a new, special type of awful. Patrick Peterson's two muffed punt returns and Skelton's four (iirc, first half) interceptions says it all for them yesterday. Th Seahawks 284 rushing yards on just 41 attempts (6.9yd average!) was certainly the more important offensive statistic in that department. You are going to kill me for this , but I really think Wilson was more managing things than taking the game over yesterday from what I saw, kind of like Brad Johnson in the Bucs whomping of the Raiders in the SuperBowl 10 years ago. Not that he cannot take over or drive his team to victory in difficult situations - I think last week in Chicago proved that he can, hands down. That said, it was still only one point off tying the biggest victory in NFL history (59-0, apparently it's happened twice), and as an NFC team the Seahawks do scare me in terms of teams I don't want the Packers to face in the playoffs. Also a reason why I am becoming a big bandwagon Redskins and Cowboys fan in the coming weeks - I really don't want to face the Giants in the playoffs, with all the injuries we have. I've liked what the Seahawks have been doing for the last few years, but it's really kicking in fully now that they have the QB in place. If Lynch has 2-3 years of his best left in the tank and they build up the TE/WR core plus a few defensive spots in coming drafts, they are a scary, scary prospect moving forward. Love what Pete Carroll has been doing there. --- Also relieved the Packers pulled away with the win, and got their collective heads out of their asses in the second half. Beat the Bears next week, and we've got one hand on the division title! Again, despite them being very luck and us insanely unlucky with regards to injuries.
You are right about managing the game. With two RB's going for more than 100 yards, he didn't need to do much and was pulled early in the third. I was just wondering if anyone noticed. If the playoffs started right now, according to the NFL website, Seahawks would be traveling to NYG, certainly not the ideal situation. I hope they can overtake the 49'ers (9'ers have Pats in NE and then @ Seattle) and get at least the first game of the playoffs at home. Doesn't matter who they play at Century Link. I wouldn't be scared of anyone traveling to Seattle!