Agreed. The way our secondary reacted to opportunities was the biggest difference in our first game this year compared with last year. I'm hopeful that we have replaced our secondary with guys more adept at breaking on/reacting to passes and actually capitalizing on those opportunities.
Breaking news: Brandon Wheedon is not as good as Andrew Luck. Thus, I am very worried about how our defense will hold up against the Colts. If I remember last year's matchup correctly, we had Luck pressured a lot but he consistently escaped and came up with solid plays. So it can't just be Wake blowing by guys while getting held. The interior of the line will have to keep Luck in the pocket.
Our entire defense is better at defending the pass this year then we year last year though. Our front 7 is better at pressure and our secondary is better at TOs and coverage. Now, even our offensive passing is better.
secondary depth concerns me right now...remember patterson has a groin issue, although he said he will play, this with a questionable ankle to begin the day with, carroll left the game briefly, we need both rookies on the field this week Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk
100%. I certainly hope we'll see more of the playbook because 13 points going into the 4th quarter ain't gonna cut it vs Luck, Ryan and Brees.
I'll be keeping a sharp eye on TY Hilton, looking forward to seeing Coby Fleener as well. I really enjoyed wathcing Jordan Cameron play yesterday btw, big strong TE with plenty of athleticism and speed to go along with the physical play. Chalk another one up for former basketball players playing TE. Speaking of which, I would have liked to see Les Brown get another shot.
"One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the others. By the time I finish my song?"
2-0 going into our home opener with swagger! Crowd will be pumped. Man do I hope Vontae is covering Wallace... LOL! That would be great! Even if we run with success I have a feeling that Sherman is gonna open a can on their D. Not to mention our D! Dolphins 34 Colts 24
Beating them would open some eyes, something beating the Browns does not do. By the way...apparently Chargers vs. Eagles is more appealing to CBS, as that is the #1 game. Dolphins/Colts is in 2nd most markets. Even though pretty much nobody is excited by the Chargers and the Eagles won 4 games last year.
It's a Chip Kelly bringing his "Faster than a speeding Bullet" offense to Philly with Michael Vick at the helm kinda thing.... Vick was made for Kelly and Kelly for Vick.
This will be a good test for the secondary. The D was sick on Sunday, I think they will continue. Phins need to play better on offense and use the WR better. Sucks that Keller is out but it is what it is. I have very little confidence in this running game. Maybe we can draft a beast RB next draft. I feel we can win this game in Indy with this D.
I actually want this dude DL Easley from Florida, but yeah we could use help at both guard and tackle. Too early to talk about that. Bottom line, the running game is atrocious.
The OL is what has me worried the most on this team. How much do Freeney and Mathis have left in the tank?
I think Freeney's still scary...particularly considering our line. Rollouts are gonna be just what the doctor ordered in some spots. Good running game would sure be helpful.
Freeney is in San Diego now. Oakland gave them trouble. Terell ****ing Pryor gave them trouble. Tanny will light'em up again.
It'd be great if we could put up a lot of rushing against them, but with how we ran yesterday I'm skeptical. Perhaps we can get the passing yards. If we can score a few and let the defense loose with their ears pinned back we should be good to go, I think.
We were a half a step slow on defense all game long last year. I honestly think we made up that half step. They may still beat us, but I don't think it will be a hair-pulling affair
1. Attack the arm. 2. Any free body that can get in his passing lane do it. 3. Hands up, again disrupt passing lanes even when going down get infront of him. DONT let him get that ball off, he's a sniper.
Both our DT's are money hungry SOB's hell bent on proving their worth a big contract. kinda sucks long term but for this season, it means we're getting the very best out of them. If Dion jordan can get some early snaps in this one and Wake continues being wake, BRING IT ON!
Hi, as my username says I'm a fan of the Colts. Not here to talk smack or anything like that. Just wanted to offer a few thoughts. First, I think you guys are underestimating our OL. Don't get me wrong, it's not great by any means, or even good at this point, but it's better than last year...which admittedly isn't saying much at all. lol Two of our starting five are new to the team (RT-Cherilus and LG-Thomas). Another of the starting 5 (RG-McGlynn) is simply a place-holder until the coaches feel our 3rd round pick Hugh Thornton is ready to start. He missed a good part of training camp and the first two preseason games, but played much better than expected in the final 2 preseason games. So again, don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Dolphin front 4, Wake especially, will cause a lot of problems but our OL isn't quite as bad as it was last year and they should continue to improve (we hope ) Secondly, I definitely think you're underestimating the defense. Yes we gave up more passing yards than I ever expected we would and Pryor rushed for over 100 yards. However both of these come down to Pryor's sandbox ability to just make things up on the fly. I do think our entire team underestimated Pryor's speed and elusiveness. However the passing yardage came mostly from Pryor running around in the backfield long enough for a receiver to get open and the rushing yardage came from busted passing plays where he escaped the pocket and scrambled for big yards. McFadden, on the other hand, was held to 48 yards on 17 carries for a 2.7 ypc average. I honestly wouldn't expect the Dolphins to be able to do much better, especially if Josh Chapman sees more playing time at NT than Aubrayo Franklin. Our NT situation is very similar to the RG situation where right now, the coaches are still starting the more experienced Franklin over the stronger and more physically gifted Josh Chapman. One thing that's still a wildcard right now is our ILB position due to injuries. Kelvin Sheppard is still struggling, hopefully just due to still being unfamiliar with the scheme. If Angerer and/or Conner are healthy then that will help tremendously. One other thing to keep in mind, our starting defense didn't give up a single TD in the preseason. Yes I know, it's just preseason, but still...even in the Bills' game, which resulted in a twitter hissy fit by our owner, they didn't score until the final 2 min of the first half when they were still playing all of, or at least most of, their starters and all of our starters on D were on the bench. Overall I figure this to be a very good, close game that could go either way. Of course I think the Colts will pull out the win. However, if the Dolphins do get the win then they better keep up the winning and unseat the freaking Patriots!!! lol
Welcome. I also think this game could go either way. I do think our defense will slow your offense down some, so to me it all depends on how Tannehill and the running game do. Which is going to be a common theme for us all season long. I hope Tannehill shows the media that he belongs in the same class as Andrew Luck. Good luck and let's hope for an injury free game.
lol..he does..he's secretly Nightcrawler, so no matter how many guys you surround him with in the pocket, he can simply teleport out of it. lol and thanks to Rocky Raccoon for the welcome. I too hope for a good, injury free game.
One of the things he and the skill guys definitely need to improve on is recognizing the blitz and knowing how to adjust on the fly. Until that happens he is going to continue taking a beating.
The TD to Allen was amazing and the play where Luck dusted Kevin Burnett off and ran for the first was unreal. Plays like that are why I'm worried about taking L vs you guys. Luck turns water into wine out there and he does it consistently.
I don't know if we can reasonably expect our run game to be better against you guys since we were just so horrid against Cleveland. Now I do believe that Cleveland's front 7 is much better than the Colt's so i have some hope, but it's just hope at this point rather than some realistic expectation. As for your OL I do think it's a really bad pass pro unit. If you had almost anybody but Luck back there your pass game would be toast. I am looking forward to watching Tannehill against you guys. He played really well against you guys last season and IMO he's considerably better now. You guys got the win in spite of how well Tannehill played due to Luck being as great as he is and our secondary not being able to catch a cold. Our secondary seems much better this year at actually capitalizing on TO opportunities as well as being even better at pass rushing. (Wake is still Wake, Vernon seems improved as a pass rusher, O'Drick got moved back inside where he belongs, we added a couple of excellent blitzing LBs and of course we also added #3 pick Jordan). My guess is that Miami will pull this out, but I agree that it will be close either way.
A second straight road game against a team coming off a playoff season with a great QB who already has something like 7 or 8 4th quarter comebacks in his career. It's your typical statement game that would give fans some solid expectations for the rest of the year and the team some attention. These are games we seem to almost always lose, so we'll find out just how different (or not) this team is.
I do think Luck will take a beating regardless. I think the question is whether he'll still complete incredible passes or run for big yardage despite getting hit. I see some of that Lebron James air about Luck where it doesn't really matter if you hit him or not he's just so big, strong and fast that he still makes a ton of plays and he just seems impervious to injury.
Luck-ily our D is faster than last year, and minus the always out of position Sean Smith. Luck is great in tight windows and making plays, but I think this D is much better than last year with Ellerbe, Wheeler, Jordan and Grimes. Not to mention OV at RE, and Odrick rotating with the 3-man wrecking crew in the middle. Alot more speed on the offense as well, with Wallace, and Gibson.
They're hating on Tannehill over on the Colts forums. One guy said "Get to Tannehill. If we can get to Tannehill the game could be over in first half."
I've been a member of the colts forum for several years and I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are a lot of morons over there. lol There was a thread calling for Pep Hamilton to be fired before the end of the Raiders game. People are already calling Bjoern Werner a bust. Fleener too. I was skeptical of Tannehill coming out of A&M only in so much as I didn't think he would be successful starting from day 1. I thought he needed a year or 2 as a backup to learn the pro game. He's definitely exceeded my expectations, but to be fair, I'm not sure that would have still been the case if he had a different OC other than Sherman. That was a great move by the Dolphins reuniting college QB and HC. Personally, I think Tannehill/Luck could be the next Manning/Brady with the possibility that Dalton could get in on the action too. Bengals, Dolphins and Colts are 3 young but very talented teams that should keep things exciting for the next several years. ***edit...good grief I just saw who made that post. PLEASE don't judge all colts fans by that guy. He's gotten more facepalms for threads he's started and posts he's made than probably anyone else on the colts forum. lol
I would disagree with the bolded. I definitely don't think the browns' front 7 is much better, I'm not even sure if I'd say they're at all better. I think if you break it down further than just the front 7, I like the Colts DL better but the Browns' staring ILB's better. I think the OLB's could be a wash. Kruger is a very good OLB, one that a lot of people on the Colts board call "way overrated". I wouldn't say that, but it is kind of telling that Pagano felt better spending moderate money (in terms of typical 3-4 SAMLB starting salary) for Walden rather than top money for Kruger. In terms of run D I would give the browns' OLBs the edge but I'd give the Colts' OLB's the edge in terms of pass rush. So overall I think both teams have a very good front 7, both of which need more time to play together and gel as a unit. I definitely think the Colts D is going to catch some teams by surprise...just like Pryor caught our D by surprise week 1 lol