Agree, 4th and 10 you have to blitz. I felt like we blitz more because the Colts like the long throws more than the Browns, especially with Gordon out. Make Luck make the earlier decision or pass on the move which I was surprised he didn't do as well as I thought he would do. Seemed like 50% of the time when we made him move his feet he was off with his throws.
Olivier Vernon was on Coby Fleener for his 40-yard catch and run. It seems like there was some lack of communication between Ellerbe and Jones on his touchdown catch.
Question for those that have actually watched the tape a second time, why were we not getting much pressure with our front four? Was their oline just doing that good of a job? A few times there looked like holding, but you know what they say ... you can call holding on every play. I thought I saw a few times Vernon looked like he was only going half speed (at least when watching in full speed). I have a feeling bc our front 4 was ineffective (for the most part) in getting pressure on Luck, that is why we started blitzing more. I think our coaches realize for our D to have a lot of success, we are going to have to get a lot of pressure on the QB. We all hope we can do it with the dline alone, but I think that is one of the reasons we brought the younger LBs in... so we can blitz when needed.
We got pressure on him, we just didn't sack him as much as we should have. The reason it wasn't a jailbreak is because the Colts did what their drunken owner told them to and were in major heat shield mode.
I thought their OLine stepped it up. They were abysmal last year and week 1, but looked okay against us. They stepped up to the challenge protecting Luck pretty well and establishing a surprisingly good running game. We blitzed a lot because that's our identity, our scheme. That's what Ellerbe, Wheeler, and Jordan were brought here to do - cause confusion and bring extra heat often. Elite units don't shy away from their identity, nor should they. This defense is boss.
Imo, it's because the defense saw what Luck could do against them last year when pressured, so I think they just weren't teeing off..
Shutting luck and the colts down with Nolan Carroll and jimmy Wilson playing your 2nd and 3rd corner positions..impressive.
I think you have to attritube Luck's pocket presence to some of the supposed lack of pressure. That guy slides around in the pocket better than anyone in NFL, buying himself crucial seconds to get passes off. We sacked him 3 times and hit him 6 times and if you tally Jordans mistake we sacked him 4 times. Several other times he shifted around in the pocket or straight took off into an open lane and ran. I don't think the pass rush was all that bad TBH.
It's 'stealing' in the sense that the Dolts are a team we could have beaten, but not a team we should have beaten. Generally across the board, we were dogs with most of the talking heads...
Ok, that's our opinion, but not the general consensus of talking heads in the media....I agree, I thought, based on how we played them last year, that we should beat them...but not too many others felt the same...Thus it was a 'steal'... Just like I don't think we have a shot at beating Hotlanta (although with every mounting injury it gets better for us), but realistically, that is a team we should not beat as well... I hope someone jumps all over this post next week after we beat them, but we'll just have to wait and see... At any rate, it doesn't matter now cause the game is over and we did beat them... Off Topic: Ck, you're right about the crappy snide remarks over at FH...geez, if they don't like what you write, just don't read it... I guess you (or anyone of us) can't please all the people all the time, but there's a couple of wahoos over there that won't let it go...
Good read CK. Liked it. The pics on their site really pop, our new colors look great there. I just don't like navigating BR's site. It's not intuitive.
If we contain Luck we win..that was the sentiment imo..why, cause we were better across the board, and in very similar circumstances we have more variables pointing up this year than the colts.
Why do so many folks complain about hitting an arrow button, works fine for me, and it's not one big long story..I'm good with the format so stop pooping on it Pauly.
I wonder what it was after the half? Would it be too much of a pain in the a$$ to figure that out? Frankly, he killed it in the 1st half blitz or no...
The announcers on the CBS broadcast were also claiming that the Colts were often employing a sixth offensive lineman.
Ya they were in max protect in response to their drunkard owner's directive. Chipping was also in the mix.
well, the slideshow is obviously designed to generate hits to the page, 12 slides... 12 hits.. one reader. that's not a problem with me, everyone has to get paid somehow. What I don't like is reading the page, and then scrolling back up above the picture to click the arrow. the arrow should be down below.
I think a major reason that we had little pressure rushing 4 was that the Colt OL realized really early that this ref crew was pretty much calling nothing all day, and commenced holding....
Interesting, Coyle was talking about this as well, I would bet cam wake was in full contain Andrew Luck mode.