Colts hanging tough
 

To me the most impressive thing about the SF victory is the way this team didn't fold. We may not be able to make the playoffs with the hole we have dug for ourselves, but if we do we can make some waves if healthy. Add Hilton to this receiving corps, watching the way the offensive line is coming around (I know a lot of you don't like Fischer but I do. He is a freaking beast in the run game. Pass protection may not be up to what he wants for a year or so do to his injury-we can help him out once we are stable) and when Smith gets back we will have the best depth we have had in years. How deep we can go, and if we even get to the playoffs, depends on whether a pass rush develops in the next few months. I'm not overly optimistic but have been wrong many times so hope this is one more time. Enough positives for me to be excited about what could happen. Glad we have 17 games with the freaking hole we have dug.

I'm looking forward to see what Dayo brings to the pass rush once he is eligible to play.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

They had a highlight last night where fisher and Nelson double teamed a guy and it was pretty impressive. I like how we are looking for better ways to take advantage of our run game.

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It's no coincidence that the running game picked once Fisher started playing.

Reed has been a pleasant surprise, a few of Taylor’s long runs I watched him at RG just smashing ppl

I think he supplants Glo in the future

SF game snap count %:

G Chris Reed, 65%
G Mark Glowinski, 35%

G Quenton Nelson, 100%
G Danny Pinter, 6%

Thats 206%

Two guard spots with both occupied 100% gets you 200%. Other 6% is probably jumbo short yardage stuff

o


2 common opponents for the Colts and the Titans .......



THE JETS: ) The Colts beat the Jets handily, going up by as much as 32 points before coasting to a 45-30 win.

THE JETS: ll The Titans lost to the Jets in overtime, 27-24.



THE RAMS: ) The Colts barely lost to the Rams by a score of 27-24 ...... the Colts' defense made a big stop and forced a punt late in the 4th quarter, but their )))) THE JETS: ) starting QB (Carson Wentz) was injured on the previous series. 2nd-string QB Jacob Eason immediately threw an INT, snuffing out the Colts' ))))))lll)))))))))) chances for a win.

THE JETS: ll The Titans, without their star running back Derrick Henry (injury), beat the Rams going away by a score of 28-16.



CONCLUSION: )) I have absolutely no idea, other than my rat's ass of an opinion that the Colts are better than their 4-5 record would suggest.

o

If we were better we would have a better record. We are what we are BUT if we can find a way into the playoffs, be healthy and finds some freaking pass rush it could be fun. In other words we can get a lot better with the physical talent on this team. Right now we are mediocre but so is everyone on some days. I hold on to the tiniest bit of hope

Looking at a playoff predictor page and we are currently listed as the 12 seed.

I'm running some scenarios for next week:

Assuming we win, the Bengals have a bye and we gain on them to the 11th seed.
I'm also assuming
Ravens beat Dolphins
Bills beat Jets
Pats beat Browns
Steelers beat Lions
Chargers beat Vikings
Broncos beat Eagles
Titans beat Saints

I think those are all likely outcomes.
The one game harder to call is Chiefs vs Raiders
If the Chiefs win, we remain the 11th seed. If the Raiders win, we are the 10th seed. I'm not sure if the Raiders can keep winning, but who knows. The Chiefs are starting to put things together, but who knows. I'll pick the Chiefs as a worst case scenario.

But the week after we travel to Buffalo. They aren't as good as expected but this will be no easy feat to go in there and win.
I'll make the following picks:
Jets beat Dolphins (this one doesn't matter)
Titans beat Texans
Chargers beat Steelers (this is good for us, hope it happens)
Pats beat Falcons
Ravens over bears
Browns over Lions
Jags lose to 49ers
Chiefs vs Cowboys?? I can't predict what either team will do, but I'll pick a Chiefs win as a worst case scenario again.
Another hard one is Bengals at Raiders. I'll pick the Bengals.

Given those picks, and we lose to the Bills, we'll be at the 12 seed.
If we win, we are the 10 seed. I'll pick the win.

In week 12, these are my picks
Steelers over Bengals
Titans over Pats
Jets over Texans
Chargers beat Broncos (maybe?)
Ravens over Browns
Saints beat Bills at home
Jags beat Falcons
Panthers beat Dolphins
and again hard to pick but worst case scenarios Raiders win at Dallas.

This is an interesting set of outcomes because if we lose to the Buccaneers that week we are at the 11 seed, but winning gets us to the 7th seed and in the playoffs. However, I won't think we pull that off, Brady will destroy our secondary. So I'm calling the L.

Week 13 the picks are
Chargers beat Bengals
Chiefs over Broncos at home
Steelers edge the Ravens at home (this would be bad for us)
Bills over Pats at home
Dolphins over Giants
Jets and Raiders also win against bad teams at home
Jags lose to rams
We win on the road in Houston

Because of the Raiders win, we drop to 8th seed, but if they lose, we are still the 7th seed.

Next is a bye week for us, but I'll make the following picks:
Ravens over Browns
Chiefs win at home over Raiders
Titans over Jags
Steelers over Viks
Bengals over 49ers
Saints beat Jets
Seahawks beat texans
Broncos over Lions
Chargers over Giants
Bills lose at Buccs

In this scenario, it is mainly the Chiefs winning that keeps us in the 7 seed.
If the Chiefs lose to the Raiders, then Raiders and Chiefs go to the 6th and 7th seed, respectively, and we drop to 8th. But I'll keep the Chiefs as winners here.

Week 15, I'm picking us to win at home against the Pats
Chargers beat Chiefs at home
jets over dolphins (doesn't matter)
jags over texans (doesn't matter)
Broncos at home over bengals (this is a tough call)
Bills win
Ravens win over GB at home (another tough one)
But Raiders at Browns? I'll pick the Browns
Titans at Steelers? I'll pick the Steelers.

After playing with various outcomes, it appears that nothing changes our 7 seed. Even if Chiefs win, Bengals win, Raiders win, we are still the 7 seed.

Week 17 gets rough, as we now travel to Arizona.
The picks are tough, so I'll pick worse case scenarios
Bengals win at home over Ravens
Jets over Jags
Pats win at home over Bills
Chargers over Texans
Chiefs win at home to Steelers
Broncos beat Raiders on the road (?)
Titans over 49ers
Packers beat Browns
Saints over Dolphins

Given these outcomes, and if we lose to Arizona, we drop to the 8th seed.
However, we can also keep the 7 seed and lose to Arizona but only if the Raiders beat the Broncos. If we win, the outcome of the Broncos/Raiders game has no effect, we keep the 7 seed.

I will keep the pick of Broncos over Raiders. I will also call it a W for the Colts this week as I think we can keep Kyler Murray in check.

Week 17 means we have to beat the Raiders at home.
In fact at picking lots of home team wins this week:
Bengals over Chiefs
Pats over Jags
Titans over Dolphins
Chargers over Broncos
Steelers over Browns
Bills over Falcons
Buccs beat Jets
49ers beat Texans
Ravens over Rams

I think these are realistic outcomes and this actually moves us to the 6th seed. Though if the Chiefs win we are the 7 seed. If we lose to the Raiders we are 7 seed, unless if we lose to raiders and the Broncos win, we are the 8 seed.

I am now optimistically moving us into week 18 with the 6th seed, and now picks are tough because we have to consider who might be resting starters.
Here are the playoff seeds per these predictions entering week 18:
1. Titans
2. Ravens
3. Chargers
4. Bills
5. Steelers
6. Colts
7. Chiefs

Only the Titans and Chargers can afford to rest players. The Ravens will have a 1 game lead on the Steelers, and if they lose at home to the Steelers in Week 18, the steelers take the North and a top seed.
But even if Titans rest, I still think they win at Houston, so the picks are:
Titans over Texans
Raiders over Chargers (with chargers resting starters)
Bengals over Browns
Pats over Dolphins
Ravens over Steelers at home
Broncos over Chiefs

Lets consider what shakes out if the Colts actually lose in jacksonville (it happens to often!). So if that happens, it appears that the worst case is we drop to the 7th seed, no matter what happens with Bengals/Browns or Broncos/Chiefs.
But if we win, we can make the 5 seed, and the only game that affects that is if the Steelers beat the Ravens, the Ravens go to 2nd place in the North and take the 5 seed and we are the 6 seed.


So my picks boil down to some lucky outcomes and losing only to the Buccaneers from here out.
By the way, I went back and in the situation where we are the 5 seed, if I change the Arizona game to an L, we are still the 7 seed and in the playoffs.

o


The rematch against the Titans was the 2021 Colts' first "Game of the Year."

They lost.

Their next "Game of the Year" will be against the Bills on November 21st, for several reasons. The Colts will (at best) have a 5-5 record entering that game. They need to win it for the overall record, for their intra-conference AFC record, and for a potential tie-breaker in the event that they finish the season with the same record as the Bills ...... one final reason why that will be their next "Game of the Year" is that the Bills are a good team. The Colts have not beaten a good team since their overtime victory against the Packers last year. I'm glad that the Colts have been taking care of business against the bad teams that they have played this year, but they are going to need to show their mettle with a signature win against a good team.

After that Bills game, the Colts will have 3 significantly challenging teams left on their schedule ...... the Buccaneers, the Patriots, and the Cardinals. To even think about making the playoffs, the Colts will have to go AT LEAST 2-2 against those teams, and possibly 3-1.

o

Speaking of teams that need to lose, the fucking Steelers and mostly the horrible refs beat the Bears Monday night.

The refs in that game must have had bets on the Steelers because they thoroughly screwed the Bears. Absolutely one of the worst reffed games I have ever seen. Fuck that ref Corrente, what an asshole.

Fisher should do better in the pass pro the further we get from his Achilles tear.

Its been pretty bad all year and that game was among the worst of them all.

His crew is officiating Colts vs Jags this weekend.

:eek:

o


I'd like to see what would happen if he hip-checked Darius Leonard.

o

o


A common opponents for the Colts and the Ravens .......



THE DOLPHINS: ) The Colts beat the Dolphins handily, going up by as many as 17 points before coasting to a 27-17 win.

THE DOLPHINS: ll The Dolphins' defense dominated the Ravens, en route to a 22-10 win. The refs helped the Ravens a lot with several bogus penalties on their THE DOLPHINS: ll only TD drive of the game, late in the 4th quarter.


o

We dominated the Ravens too, until we were down to newly elevated practice squad players all over the secondary.

o


The Colts beat the Jaguars, and the Bills lost to the Jaguars.

The Colts and the Bills play next week.

o

o


So far, the Colts are 1-1 in 2021 ) "Games of the Year."


1) ll. They lost to the Titans.

2) l.. They beat the Bills.

3) ... Against the Patriots, the Colts ........

o

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That same Rams team just went up against the team with the best record in the NFL (the 10-2 Arizona Cardinals), and beat them on their home-field.

o

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...... will win.

o

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(vs. CARDINALS, 12/25)


For the Colts, this was the quintessential "hanging tough" game of the year ...... how Carson Wentz and Jonathan Taylor managed to get through this contest with the offensive line that they had to work with was nothing short of amazing.

o

o


The Raiders scored a knockdown of the Colts with a hard body-shot in the 11th round ...... the light-hitting Jaguars put them down-and-out for the count with a left hook in the 12th and final round.

o

This team was gloating and feeling itself after Christmas and buster douglas came in and finished them off

o


Their late-season collapse notwithstanding, the 2021 Colts actually did hang tough after starting the season at 1-4 ...... if somebody had told us all that the Colts wound wind up going 8-4 over the final 12 games to finish at 9-8 back in early October, I think that many of us would have been relatively impressed with their ability to win that many games after such an awful start to the season.

When Carson Wentz went down late with 2 badly-injured ankles late in the 4th quarter quarter against the Rams, the Colts were trailing by a score of 27-24. The Colts' defense got the stop that they needed, and with a little over 2 minutes to play they had a chance to either tie the game with a field goal to send it into overtime or win it with a touchdown in regulation. Jacob Eason threw an INT on the Colts' second play from scrimmage, effectively ending the game. Had Wentz not been hurt, he may have led the Colts to either a game-tying field goal or a game-winning touchdown.

Wentz' injury essentially sealed the Colts' fate for their next game as well, as many people correctly presumed that there was almost no way that they would beat the Titans with a severely-hobbled Carson Wentz and/or Jacob Eason taking the snaps from center ...... that loss immediately put the Colts in an 0-3 hole after the first 3 games of the season.


So, I believe that the 2021 Colts did indeed hang tough for the most part ...... they just didn't hang tough enough to be a playoff team, as the 1975 Colts, the 2008 Colts, and the 2018 Colts did after disastrous starts to their respective seasons (the 1975 Colts started the season at 1-4, the 2008 Colts started the season at 3-4, and the 2018 Colts started the season at 1-5.)

o