Biggest Culprit of Monday's Loss- Some Venting with Facts...

exactly, the Dolphins defense were Detroit bad on monday. One of the worst defensive performances I have seen.

Did you also know that our defense was above average at sacking Manning that game? He was sacked 14 times last year.....less than once a game. And we did it in about half the time other teams have had to make a sack.

Sometimes stats aren't the whole story...

Manning and Clark eating us alive wasn't that big of shock to me.......it didn't point out anything new. We knew that our Safeties and LB's are liabilities in coverage. We knew it would be hard to keep them out of the end zone and we deff knew that Manning is just the guy to exploit ANY weakness we might have......I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Our staff had to approach this game knowing we needed to put some points on the board to have a chance......not just control the clock.

I think Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is far less amazing than us ending up with 23 points in 45 minutes.

Not making excuses for the defense, but until we upgrade certain positions, it is what it is...and you take that into account when you game plan.

DISNARDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent!! :up: THANK YOU i actually learned something this week which is a miracle with all the sky is falling threads. Lets be realistic people, what do we need to do to shore this up? Do the rookies need more time to get the NFL game, or is it something else. Like the Safties, MLB, what? help me im lost and my heart bleeds for these guys! CHEERS ALL

"jetssuck wrote:

Did you also know that our defense was above average at sacking Manning that game? He was sacked 14 times last year.....less than once a game. And we did it in about half the time other teams have had to make a sack.

Sometimes stats aren't the whole story...

Manning and Clark eating us alive wasn't that big of shock to me.......it didn't point out anything new. We knew that our Safeties and LB's are liabilities in coverage. We knew it would be hard to keep them out of the end zone and we deff knew that Manning is just the guy to exploit ANY weakness we might have......I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Our staff had to approach this game knowing we needed to put some points on the board to have a chance......not just control the clock.

I think Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is far less amazing than us ending up with 23 points in 45 minutes.

Not making excuses for the defense, but until we upgrade certain positions, it is what it is...and you take that into account when you game plan.

...So we got one sack Monday night... where Peyton basically just gave Porter the sack by dropping to the ground.

"GridIronKing34 wrote:

...So we got one sack Monday night... where Peyton basically just gave Porter the sack by dropping to the ground.

comon dude.....he gets that sack regardless of peyton dropping to the ground or not......you make it seem it was like when favre dropped for strahan to get the sack record

We have below avg MLB's and Safeties that can't cover very well. Plus one of our safeties can't tackle. So pretty much from 5 yds past the line of schrimage and the majority of the middle of the field we have a huge coverage problem. I didn't understand the majority of our draft, and as the season goes on I will continue to question it.

"jetssuck wrote:

Did you also know that our defense was above average at sacking Manning that game? He was sacked 14 times last year.....less than once a game. And we did it in about half the time other teams have had to make a sack.

Sometimes stats aren't the whole story...

Manning and Clark eating us alive wasn't that big of shock to me.......it didn't point out anything new. We knew that our Safeties and LB's are liabilities in coverage. We knew it would be hard to keep them out of the end zone and we deff knew that Manning is just the guy to exploit ANY weakness we might have......I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Our staff had to approach this game knowing we needed to put some points on the board to have a chance......not just control the clock.

I think Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is far less amazing than us ending up with 23 points in 45 minutes.

Not making excuses for the defense, but until we upgrade certain positions, it is what it is...and you take that into account when you game plan.

While eatin up the clock and keeping Manning off the feild were important remember! That was a huge part of the offense strategy which dictated the play calling!

While getting 23 pts in 45 minutes isnt aweful or great, what is disgusting is giving up 27 pts in 14.57 minutes JMO

"jetssuck wrote:

Did you also know that our defense was above average at sacking Manning that game? He was sacked 14 times last year.....less than once a game. And we did it in about half the time other teams have had to make a sack.

Sometimes stats aren't the whole story...

Manning and Clark eating us alive wasn't that big of shock to me.......it didn't point out anything new. We knew that our Safeties and LB's are liabilities in coverage. We knew it would be hard to keep them out of the end zone and we deff knew that Manning is just the guy to exploit ANY weakness we might have......I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Our staff had to approach this game knowing we needed to put some points on the board to have a chance......not just control the clock.

I think Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is far less amazing than us ending up with 23 points in 45 minutes.

Not making excuses for the defense, but until we upgrade certain positions, it is what it is...and you take that into account when you game plan.

I have no idea how you can think that.

Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is a surprised. It is like him scoring 54 points in 30 minutes, which he doesn't do very often.

Nice work Disnardo. It proves what i`ve been saying since monday night. The only reason this game wasnt a blow out was because our offense kept the ball for so long. If we didnt have as many first downs as we did,or if we turned the ball over, Peyton and Company would have put up 40 or 50 points no problem. It was a pathetic defensive effort,to say the least. I never saw so many missed tackles in my life. I watched the Giants/Cowboys game and I must say- The Giants defense impressed the hell out of me. They had no missed tackles that I saw and when they got their hands on the ball carrier,he was down on contact. We dont even come close to that type of defensive play. Our effort was putrid! Maybe this week they`ll redeem themselves-after all they didnt play this past monday so the short week and the trip to S.D. shouldnt be a problem.

"jetssuck wrote:

I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Big surprise? No.
Big problem? Oh yeah!

"jetssuck wrote:

Did you also know that our defense was above average at sacking Manning that game? He was sacked 14 times last year.....less than once a game. And we did it in about half the time other teams have had to make a sack.

Sometimes stats aren't the whole story...

Manning and Clark eating us alive wasn't that big of shock to me.......it didn't point out anything new. We knew that our Safeties and LB's are liabilities in coverage. We knew it would be hard to keep them out of the end zone and we deff knew that Manning is just the guy to exploit ANY weakness we might have......I don't care how much time the Colts had the football. Manning putting up 27 points against this defense, is NOT a big surprise..

Our staff had to approach this game knowing we needed to put some points on the board to have a chance......not just control the clock.

I think Manning putting up 27 points in 15 minutes is far less amazing than us ending up with 23 points in 45 minutes.

Not making excuses for the defense, but until we upgrade certain positions, it is what it is...and you take that into account when you game plan.

Thanks for your opininion, but you need to realize that putting 27 points on any Defense in 14 minutes will put a strain on your Offensive gameplan, none the wiser, it means it will mean that you have to do the same on Offense...

We don't have a high power Offense that I am aware of, and I don't think that is what the make up of our Offense is...

It would have been nice to score a few more TDs if not at least one more with the amount of TOP we had, and I agree with you on that...but...

If we would have played our regular Offense like last year the score would have looked like Miami 31-Colts 50+... Knowing full well that we don't have the pass catching and route running ability that can help produce points...

You also have to account that going to a complete passing attack to keep up with them would have played into their hands, by using their pass rushing talent on any one of our QBs... Turn Overs would have been a common site in the Dolphins backfield, if that would have happened...

Like I stated, the game plan Offensively was executed to a T...

"Disnardo wrote:

Thanks for your opininion, but you need to realize that putting 27 points on any Defense in 14 minutes will put a strain on your Offensive gameplan, none the wiser, it means it will mean that you have to do the same on Offense...

We don't have a high power Offense that I am aware of, and I don't think that is what the make up of our Offense is...

It would have been nice to score a few more TDs if not at least one more with the amount of TOP we had, and I agree with you on that...but...

If we would have played our regular Offense like last year the score would have looked like Miami 31-Colts 50+... Knowing full well that we don't have the pass catching and route running ability that can help produce points...

You also have to account that going to a complete passing attack to keep up with them would have played into their hands, by using their pass rushing talent on any one of our QBs... Turn Overs would have been a common site in the Dolphins backfield, if that would have happened...

Like I stated, the game plan Offensively was executed to a T...

THats why it hurts and the Defense is held accountable, in the end we turn it around i just hope its not to late :up:

Strange part is nobody was running through a breakdown...we had guys chasing on everyplay but counting the sack and 9 incompletions another slide by Manning.... the D had 24 plays in which they needed to make a tackle...7 missed tackles..30% or so missed tackles would have made a highschool coach worry about losing his job...horrendous.

"Zeke0123 wrote:

Strange part is nobody was running through a breakdown...we had guys chasing on everyplay but counting the sack and 9 incompletions another slide by Manning.... the D had 24 plays in which they needed to make a tackle...7 missed tackles..30% or so missed tackles would have made a highschool coach worry about losing his job...horrendous.

Great detail points also Zeke... Thanks for the input...

We all know that Safety and LB's (specifically the inside) are currently our weakest link on this Defense, and probably on the whole team...

The Special Teams showed up nicely on KO and Punt coverages...

Can our rookie Clemmons contribute if he is allowed and step in for Wilson???

Jim "Mad Dog" made a curious statement in todays show from WQAM...

He said that it would be interesting to see if Vontae Davis could make a transition to Safety and replace Wilson since he has the physical ability for the position... he stated that it would be interesting if Sporano would give the rookie the chance...

Like I stated, the game plan Offensively was executed to a T

I'm sorry but scoring 23 points vs Manning, with the guys we have in coverage will result in a loss, far more times than not....15 minutes or not.

I fully understand that our defensive play was not acceptable and needs to be addressed. But at the same time, you can't just win by keeping Manning off the field in this game.....you have to drive for TD's, not FG's. Because when he does get on the field....against the guys we have in coverage, he's gonna score TD's.

A conservative offensive approach at times, was just as much to blame as anything...well except for maybe Ted Ginn :lol:

It was Sparano who was willing to settle for 3 points and rely on our defense to keep them out of the end zone. That looked very questionable at the time and in hindsight, looks no better.

We have the same thing waiting for us next Sunday.....and we better put some points on the board because you can bet the Chargers will.

"jetssuck wrote:

I'm sorry but scoring 23 points vs Manning, with the guys we have in coverage will result in a loss, far more times than not....15 minutes or not.

So you are saying that we have the worst Defense in the league???:sad:

Because we will be facing a few more similar style Offenses and if we do have the worst Defense in the league, we will definitely not have a very good year...

Can we score more points??? Sure we scored 38 points in a game last year, but that is not our Offensive philosophy, as you know, because we do not have the talent currently on this team to attack the ball on Defense and/or move the ball efficiently through the air on Offense...:angry:

I again agree with you that we need to score more than 23 points per game...

but the chances were there last Monday, and as long as we take those chances every game... we have a shot...:up:

So you are saying that we have the worst Defense in the league???

No but with the current personnel, we do have some serious match up problems with certain teams.

but the chances were there last Monday, and as long as we take those chances every game... we have a shot.

but we didn't, we drove for FG's

Can we score more points??? Sure we scored 38 points in a game last year, but that is not our Offensive philosophy, as you know, because we do not have the talent currently on this team to attack the ball on Defense and/or move the ball efficiently through the air on Offense...

Are you saying we scored a sufficient number of points in the amount of time we maintained possession?

Regardless of offensive philosophy, we had the ball for 45 minutes.....which should be enough time to rack up 4 TD's on dive plays alone...

"jetssuck wrote:

No but with the current personnel, we do have some serious match up problems with certain teams.

but we didn't, we drove for FG's

Are you saying we scored a sufficient number of points in the amount of time we maintained possession?

Regardless of offensive philosophy, we had the ball for 45 minutes.....which should be enough time to rack up 4 TD's on dive plays alone...

Based on what exactly?

Your entire philosophy is based exclusively on your dislike of Pennington.

Many teams have scored less than 23 points in more than 3 quarters. Very few, have scored 27 in less than one quarter. The defense lost this game regardless of Penny, Ginn, Henning, 2 minute offense, etc. etc.

"Disnardo wrote:

Of course this is my opinion based on actual stats and game observation... and I wanted to vent my frustration on something more than observation...

Yesterday I made a Post on one of the threads conserning the "root cause," or the "biggest contributor" of our loss Monday Night... I did some look at the stats from the 2008 Colts in the NFL.COM Website and looked into their Offensive stats for last year...

I wanted to know what Defenses allowed Peyton and their Offense and compared them to ours the other night. What I saw really painted a clearer picture about the loss and put the blame in perspective...

To start with in 2008 they scored a total of 377 points (23.5 Points per Game) in the Regular Season... Their highest scoring year under Manning was 2004 with 522 points (32.6 Points per Game) in the Regular Season...

The next road to my search led to TOP on Manning and the Colts in 2008...

I found out in the same Offense stats site, that the Colts held on to the ball (TOP) an average of over 28 1/2 minutes per game last Season (2008). So looking at the numbers above let's me know that last Season the Colts with Manning scored an average of about 12 points per half a game or 12 points per every 14 minutes of TOP... They had about 34 minutes of TOP against Jax last week and only scored 14 points...now you see where I am going with this...

Even when Manning had his best scoring production with this Colts Offense in 2004 (51 TDs, 67% Completion) his team still averaged a little over 28 1/2 minutes of TOP...

http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?offensiveStatisticCategory=GAME_STATS&archive=false&seasonType=REG&defensiveStatisticCategory=null&d-447263-o=2&conference=null&d-447263-s=TIME_OF_POSS_SECONDS_PER_GAME_AVG&d-447263-n=1&season=2004&qualified=true&Submit=Go&tabSeq=2&role=TM&d-447263-p=1

So our Defense let Peyton of the hook and let him do what ever he wanted to do with them. You can't tell me it was not true, when it was evident from the games first Offensive play... sure it is hard to stop an elite QB when he needs to go to work, but this Defense should have slowed him down a bit...

Though the game was close, how lobside was the victory??? Let's us look at the other numbers that we mostly have not been shown and I am sure Sporano has seen them...

Sporano's gameplan was executed to a "T", you can say that it was almost perfect, the loss being the only thing that negated the perfection... There was No pick 6 INT, NO Special Teams Mix up, NO Turn Overs... but there was still the LOSS...

Indi had a total of 35 Offensive plays, and they had over 10+ yards in almost 33% of them, not average but actual 10+ yards in 1 out of every 3 plays ran...They had a total of 70 Offensive plays last week against Jax in which they had over 10+ yds in almost 16% of them, that is 1 out of every 6 plays ran...

Indi scored and average of 2 Points per minute Monday Night, based on their TOP. Last season (2008) they averaged 0.85 points per minute...Indi only scored 14 points against Jax last week... that is 0.4 points per minute (based on 34 minutes TOP)...

Peyton averaged 21.6 passing yds in per minute (13.2 yds per attempts) Monday Night, based on their TOP. Last season (2008) they averaged around 9 yds per minute (9 yds per attempt)... Last week against Jax they averaged 8.9 yds per minute (8.9 yds per attempt)...

The Colts averaged (as others have stated) 10.2 yds per Offensive play Monday Night. Last Season (2008) they averaged 5.5 yds per Offensive play...Last week against Jax they averaged 5.2 yds per Offensive play...

OK I stopped looking at more stats because I think the point is proven. Our Defense was really a weak point or the only weak point in our team last Monday, and I don't think it excuses tham as to having to give a big play to an elite QB here or there....

I can understand that, but, looking at a whole season of stats (2008) you get the picture that the performance of our Defense last Monday was worst than any Defense that played against Manning and the Colts last year and probably any Defense that has played against Peyton in his career...

at least from the stats noted Peyton and the Colts had better performance against our D, than Peyton's best career year in 2004...

on a side note, if it was not for our Offensive performance, starting with the coaches, the OL, the RBs, TE, and WRs' and yes the QB... we would have been seeing the Colts putting up about 50 points on us... no doubt about it, the stats have shown it....:wink2:

OK lets eliminate all negative thoughts and focus on next weeks game, since we cannot make any coaching or GM decisions...

Great post and great research! :up:

"Finascious D wrote:

Based on what exactly?

Your entire philosophy is based exclusively on your dislike of Pennington.

Many teams have scored less than 23 points in more than 3 quarters. Very few, have scored 27 in less than one quarter. The defense lost this game regardless of Penny, Ginn, Henning, 2 minute offense, etc. etc.

Well then I apologize for being so close minded:rolleyes:

we are 23rd in pass d and I'm not sure that takes in account time of pos.which makes it even worse. Wilsons pop warner coach called him to remind him how to tackle. It doesn't get any easier Sunday.

"jetssuck wrote:

but we didn't, we drove for FG's

I saw Ginn have two chances (2nd quarterand Last 2 minute Offense) at catching a pass in the EZ... Also saw Fasano get a chance a catching one in the EZ...

That is 3 tries in at the EZ in my opinion...

Are you saying we scored a sufficient number of points in the amount of time we maintained possession?

What I am saying is that we had the right Offensive gamplan and executed it to a T...

If Peyton had done what he has normally done against other Defenses through out the years...

45 minutes of TOP and 23 points on Offense should have been enough to pull out a victory... stats have shown that the Colts averaged around 12 points in 14 minutes of their 16 games last year...

Again we did take chances at scoring more TDs, as stated above, they did take their shots at the EZ before the 4th quarter...

Regardless of offensive philosophy, we had the ball for 45 minutes.....which should be enough time to rack up 4 TD's on dive plays alone...

Again we scored 2 TDs, and took a good shot at 3 more during the game...

and took a good shot at 3 more during the of the game..

can't agree with that.....they looked like conservative FG drives to me.

If Peyton had done what he has normally done against other Defenses through out the years...

45 minutes of TOP and 23 points on Offense should have been enough to pull out a victory... stats have shown that the Colts averaged around 12 points in 14 minutes of their 16 games last year...

I think you underestimate just how poorly our defense matches up with Manning and company.....I think when you factor in who he is against who we have, those 27 points seem less remarkable.

Again, not saying the defense shouldn't get blame for their performance, it was scary bad....

But there were other factors as well as to why we could maintain that much of a time advantage and still lose.....I'm sure the staff isn't excited about the fact that we held on to the ball for 3/4 of the game, ran for 240 yds and yet could only put the ball in the end zone twice...

"SICK wrote:

comon dude.....he gets that sack regardless of peyton dropping to the ground or not......you make it seem it was like when favre dropped for strahan to get the sack record

I just don't understand how one sack represents a games worth of pressure... or lack thereof.