Colts-Jags super quick thoughts
 

1. My voice is strained because I yelled so fucking loud at my TV. I have not been this pissed off by a game in some time. Maybe ever.

2. I put the loss mostly on Frank Reich. He had no answers all day. None. His playcalling in gotta-have-it situations was atrocious. You draft Quenton Nelson sixth overall and are terrified to run it with your RB. Gotcha. These bullshit Pascal or Ebron sweeps or that 4th down play designed to go to Hewittt (who was covered anyway) were just terrible playcalls.

3. This game highlighted the huge need this team has at WR. Inman is fine catching gimme passes, but if he can't sit down in a zone, he's not giving you anything. Need someone who can win 50-50 balls.

4. The insistence on using Joe Haeg in this game was baffling. Once or twice would be OK. Reich apparently thinks Haeg is Walter Jones as a blocking option. He is not.

5. The final drive was badly mismanaged, but the Colts still got screwed by that call. People want to make it either/or. No. You can have bad clock management and still get screwed.

6. Sick of watching Marlon Mack leave yards on the field because his vision is absolutely shit. He is the worst runner on this team.

7. ...but it's compounded when the Colts put in Haeg and run to the strong side in tight sets. That's not the Colts' strength. Run out of the freaking shotgun. Jesus.

8. Eric Ebron was the most physical player on offense today, which says everything.

9. This team sorely missed Jack Doyle and Ryan Kelly today. Replacing Doyle with Haeg is dumb and ineffective. Boehm is clearly a backup.

10. Denico Autry had himself a game today, which was good to see.

11. Thought Darius Leonard was totally invisible today.

12. Colts really needed defensive points today, so seeing those instances where they played 15 yard off umbrella coverage on 3rd-and-15 was really frustrating. The ball was there to be turned over, to be honest.

13. I love what I see from Tyquan Lewis. At the very worst, he's going to be a pocket-crusher at DE. Would still like to see more of him at 3-tech. I think he's living up to his hype, though. He's making QBs step up consistently. Fed Autry some of that pressure today.

14. This loss sucks but Jacksonville's defense is really good. This isn't an anomaly. Their QB just blows. I hate Jalen Ramsey as much as the rest of you, but dude is a baller. It's tough when this team is rolling so unexpectedly, to hit such a speed bump like this. But long-term, I still really like a lot of what's in place. This team needs some talent infusion at skill positions (even RB1, folks), but they're not far off.

15. Reich needs to get better with timeout usage. Faked going for it on 4th down to punt in first half, wasted a timeout instead of just taking a 5 yard penalty and punting (dumb). Has had a few of those situations this year.

Hot take: this team isn't good and has played average to bad teams all year and just happened to come out on top several games in a row. Fool's gold to cover up what most saw as a 6-7 win team from the start. Sure there are some players, but not enough of them.

Good point on being scared to run.

Luck had 52 pass attempts today....what happened to sticking with the run?

Mack: 8 carries
Hines: 4 carries

We weren't down by 20+ points....

Nice to score zero points and not have it a blowout. Good game if we learn from it. I gotta believe people were real happy with themselves for winning and all the deservingly good press they’ve gotten lately. Human nature. Hopefully they hate how this feels and start to learn how to stay focused over a long season. That and we gotta get some more high caliber skill guys. Lousy way to spend an afternoon

good post gbb.

only thing i slightly disagree with is that Lewis didn't impress me all that much. yes he got pressure but it was Ereck flowers. how can a good player not consistently beat him like a drum?

i could be too hard on the guy

i have some thoughts as well

1) terrible coaching. zero answers to the jags defense. all game long. credit to the jags for being disciplined and never relenting. it actually reminded me of the times manning came back with the broncos and the colts d was just dialed the fuck in every snap.

2) the first game, there were two broken coverages by Barry Church that gave ebron tds. he was benched this game. when watching earlier this week i had a feeling if we couldn't capitalize on mistakes, this might be a tough game. the jags simply didn't make hardly any mistakes on defense.

3) is there anything we can do to get a tough offense? all the talk about this oline being tough guys but they get bullied a lot. especially in the run game. we cant run when we want. we have moments but we really are one dimensional. this oline isn't fixed until that is fixed. i am so tired of always being bullied up front.

4) i don't pay attention enough i guess but do all teams load the box to run? what happened to spreading teams out and running?

5) our running game was nowhere to be found and nobody could get open as a wr, can we please use our rb's more in the pass game?

6) fuck ryan grant. seriously. fuck that guy. get him off the field. bring up the other rookie and see what he has at this point. play pascal. but stop playing this idiot because ballard was dumb enough to sign him.

7) stop playing haeg at te and play swoope. going heavy on oline isn't working

8) that call by the ref at the end? dude should be fired. that is just inexcusable. seriously. he should be fired. this is not an overreaction or a joke.

9) the colts seem to always find a way to lose to shit bag qb's like cody kessler. this seems to be a culture thing. we make backup qb's look great or we at least let them hang in there. this has been going on since manning was here.

10.) autry finally showed up. 2nd time this year he had a good game. good to see. still the dude gets too much playing time.

11) not sure how you can judge the secondary much. they were hardly threatened.

12) 3rd and 13 dump off goes for a first down in the 4th quarter. are you fucking kidding me?

13) simply couldn't protect luck to work down the field and when we did, the wr's couldnt get open. who has worse wr's than the colts?

14) i thought hunt brought his A game today. many times he blew up the double team.

15) where is turay?

16) end of game clock management was just atrocious. Luck has to be better than that. seconds just clicking away for no reason. that might have been the worst part of the game for me.

17) colts were punched in the mouth. they responded by going to to the ropes and just covering up. fits with their history.

This was a Frank Reich Andrew Luck loss. Mostly a Frank Reich loss, and he has to own it.

He wasn't playing the Chiefs...it's the fucking Jags, 9 pt. wins this game and 6 sends it to OT. Take the fucking points Frank!

Luck just missed some throws that he needed to make and on the int had a wide open Inman for 7 or 8 yds.

I like coaches being agrressive. I also understand it will nite is at times and I am ok with that. My thing is that if you are going to be aggressive, have a damn good plan

So, who supports drafting a WR in the first round?

Not me

I do as well. But Reich had to know that points would be at a premium and that it wasn't going to take that may points to beat the Jags.

I have no qualms with Reich going for the win against the Texicans because it shows the team we only care about wins. In this case, I believe he sacrificed the win in order to try to score TD's.

Big difference IMO.

I was probably more worried about this game as most people but even I thought we could put at least 20 on them. It was early and I am sure he thought there would be more points. I am also pretty sure he thought the jags would t score much

Not where they'll be picking. Bottom of the first, like Wayne? Sure. Not mid 1st.

IMO, anyone criticizing the decision to go for it on 4th and goal at the 2 or whatever, in the 1Q, is shamelessly hindsighting it. I would spot you the next 4th down attempt, but against Kessler, you go for it every time there because you force a punt and essentially are in position to take 3 all over again.

Nope. Take the points. Let's say you only get 3 until the last drive? Then you only need 3 to tie...and AV hits that every time.

The tone of the game and the tone of the 2nd half of the 1st Jags game, should've shown Reich that we weren't going to move the ball much against the Jags. So when you have the opportunity to put points on the board do it.

A lot of WR's in this upcoming drafts and it is kind of a minefield. I don't know if there is a lot of separation between 1st round and 3rd round receivers. There will be some busts also.

Grab one of the top defensive linemen if you can. They don't last long and it is a deep draft for them. Harder to find than a good wide out.


As for the game; they were due a loss. They played like crap last week and pulled it out. Jags were determined to win it and balled out. Too bad they don't play like that every week. But then again, they are the jags.

Big lesson for Reich. Manning learned to to take what the jags gave him when their defense was good. Hopefully the guys learned that again today.

I did not want Leveon Bell before, but now I'm thinking we take a run at him, Mack is not the answer for our RB1.

#7: Swoope would have been a better option as an eligible receiver, because they would have to play the pass in addition to the run.

I agree about Reich. He made lots of mistakes today.

But he is a rookie coach and has to learn. You can't always go for it on 4th down. Kick the FG. Even in the 4th quarter, the next to last drive. YOu have two timeouts and the two minutes warning. Take the 3,cut it to a FG, get the stop.

I still like him as coach and just hopes he is learning like the rest of them

This team is not winning the SB this year, we all knew that. And after a 1-5 start, playoffs would have been nice, but was unlikely. Still like where the team is at 6-6. The playoffs are probably out now after this loss, but we all knew this season was about setting up the future, which is still looking good

AGree about Kelley and Doyle and their blocking.

Also agree about the WRs. Sorely need to upgrade the #2/3 spots. This game shows why. A good secondary like this you need multiple options to get some guys open.

Luck really needed to spike that ball on the next to last play. No idea what they were thinking. Time management was bad the last 30 seconds.

Also that roughing the passer/hit with the helmet call early in the game was crap. What are you supposed to do, run straight up and down into the QB

On the other hand, crap like that late hit on Rogers on the first quarter punt return, you should get tossed from the game for on hit like that. VERY late, could have easily been injured......I would not have minded a few Colts beating that guys ass after that play for what he did. Yes, would have been a penalty, but that was complete bush league crap and very dangerous.

You're saying that with hindsight though.

I guess the way I look at it is: they were 6 inches away from winning the game.

Yes, would MUCH rather have had Swoope in than Haeg.

But I also wonder if Swoope was on a snap count and not anywhere near 100%.

1st half 0-0 I'd go for it there every time.

Hindsight and forsight. Dingy could predict what was needed during a game (Ravens 06 playoffs).

I'm not down on Reich. I just want him to own this.

I would guess that he would. Seems a high character guy, unlike McDouche

A couple of other points:

Luck is rolling right too much, therefor cutting off half the field. It's making it too easy on defenses to defend.

A little less roll right and an occasional roll left would help.

Eberflus was stunting like crazy during pre-season. I may be wrong, but he hasn't been stunting the DL much. I would like to see him mix that in a little more.

First game I've missed all year. Good for me...

I’m warming to it.

One of the shittiest coached games in the history of the NFL and Luck, shit, that's exactly what he was, shit.

I was talking to a friend pre-game and said this game presented this exact risk. We're the cock of the walk going up against a dumpster fire- NO ONE HAD TO PREP HARD FOR THIS ONE, go down to JAX, have fun, pick up a win, come home and be the darlings of ESPN Sunday night...

Very disappointing, very.

I know it's not popular but now I'm all in for Bell.

ugly game yesterday, but I still think the future is bright. With as young of a team as we have, with a rookie coach, and young GM, we're going to be inconsistent and have some growing pains.

We really missed Kelly and Doyle, but we have got to figure out how to plan around that, no team, this late in the season will have an entirely healthy roster, we've actually been pretty fortunate this season other than a few games early on.

Agreed with most of what GBB and Omaha observed, and I fully support Reich's call from the 1 to go for the TD. Reich and Ballard have shown that they will take ownership in mistakes unlike the last regime.

There’s a fine line between being aggressive vs. reckless. Reich crossed it this time.

Lets hope he has learned where that line is.

Agreed. Ugly, sucky, disappointing game. This was just one of those games where Reich's aggressiveness worked against us. The problem is that we came up just shy so many times on 3rd down, leading to three failed 4th-and-1 attempts. If we had been 4th-and-4 in those instances, I'm guessing we would have kicked field goals and ultimately won the game.

Ryan Grant seemed to have a particularly bad day. Not a good sign for a guy on a one year "show me" contract.

Gotta credit JAX, I guess, as much as I don't want to. Their QB didn't beat us, but the defense did.

P.S. We need to figure out a way to embarrass Jalen Ramsey next time we play them - the guy is a punk.

I am apparently in the minority, but this was the right call. The refs cant decide if a team wants forward progress or wants to stop the clock, so they always give forward progress.

Imagine a scenario where it's 4th and 3 from the opponents 10 yard line. We run 3.5 yards to the 6.5, then get pushed back and out of bounds at the 9. The ref gives forward progress and we get a first down. If the ref says the runner is out of bounds, then the spot must become the 9 and it's a turnover on downs.

The only time in such a scenario where the ref would not give forward progress is if Ebron went backwards and out of bounds under his own power, in which case the clock would have stopped. Ramsey made his play and ended the game.

There were a sh** ton of opportunities to win this game. This call was not what lost the game for us, nor was it a bad call.

I thought it was a bad call, but it didn't lose the game.

Even if they get one more play, probably not scoring a TD on the next play.

Luck should have downed the ball on the play before, wasted WAY too much time there on a play that did nothing. If he had spiked it and saved 15-20 seconds, could have still worked the middle of the field on the next play, had a chance to spike it and get one shot at the end zone from a reasonable 10-15 yards

Lots of mismanagement by Luck and Reich

#1: There is no WR on our roster that I want back in 2019 with the exception of T.Y. and Cain. That's it; fire the rest, sign a value veteran in free agency and draft two in the draft, one in the top 3 rounds and one in the mid rounds. We need a completely rebuilt WR corps.

#2: Jumbo packages against a tough run front is terrible in the NFL. SO much more effective to go 4 wide and run from the shotgun (with the run from the base/jumbo every now and then). We got WAY too one-dimensional and their defense is too good fro that.

#3: I love how our defense played; even if it was against a poor NFL offense. Yes, it needs more talent and it will get added to in 2019 but we have some really nice, young pieces in Leonard, Walker, Hooker, Wilson, Lewis and Turay. Add another 4 high calibre players in 2019 and this defense starts to turn a corner, I think.

#4: I am undecided on RB. The last five games were good running game; this one killed us. Is it the scheme, the O-Line or the RBs? I am not sold on Bell at all but I hope we at least talk to him in free agency to see where it is at. In the end, I would probably not sign him but at least kick the tires.

#5: Rookie HC got schooled yesterday. I hope he learns from it (and I think he will).

#6: That probably just killed our playoff chances. If we got a loss, we needed it to be non-divisional for Wildcard tiebreakers. The Jags just pretty much killed our playoff hopes.

I am not nearly as upset by the loss as I though I would be. I figured that we would not run a perfect 10-0 in our last ten games but I figured the losses would be to the Texans or Cowboys and not the dumpster fire Jags. Oh well, 8 - 8 here we come! :)

Walk Worthy,

I don't think the Colts will make the playoffs and this pretty much killed it. Will likely need to win out.

However, even though Baltimore is in the second WC spot right now, they are in a tight race with Pitt and could end up taking the divison. They both have two tough games left

Pitt has NE and NO
Balt has KC and LA chargers.

They could both end up losing two, making Pitt 9-6-1 and Balt 9-7. If somehow COlts win the last 4 they could sneak by them.

Then assuming no other teams ends up 10-6 and they win the tiebreakers.

Still possible, but now there is zero room for error and losses.

Sigh. We don’t need Bell and the 15 million per year cap hit he’s gonna demand. We could draft or sign one.

It was a fucking terrible call. He got hit and landed out of bounds. There is simply no other way to look at it. The scenario you named isn’t the same. Even the head ref guy said he didn’t agree

I disagree about the WRs. I think Inman would make a good WR3, but he has to be WR2 with our roster. I think he would win matchups at WR3, but not at WR2.

The rest of your post is about right. Especially where you said you are not as upset about not making the playoffs. We always want to make the playoffs, but a top 15 pick to an almost playoff team that is hungry like ours is will do wonders for the future.