quick thoughts on this epic battle between afc super bowl contenders
 

1) i was wrong. i hated the trade for brissett. the dude can play. he is a very good backup and that is needed for this team.

2) mewhort does not get resigned. not unless he takes a very under market contract. he just isn't that good.

3) moncrief should not be paid either. like gbb has said, the dude is invisible between the 20's. we need a more competent 2

4) pagano is by far the worst coach i have ever seen. he is a worse jeff fisher. he will coach to lose every single week and never learn a thing.

5) pagano has zero idea who should play. tj green went from starting cb (for no reason because that shit wasnt earned) to bottom of the roster scrub that doesn't ever see the field. pagano has no idea how to evaluate talent. he literally has no idea who plays good football.

6) announcers said they knew they would be bringing heat. they had no idea what to do about it to start.

7) penalties. constant fucking penalties. another sign of a terribly coached team.

8) multiple offensive coordinators and multiple players. this team constantly throws away 2nd downs. no creativity. been the same for years. i think we all know where the blame goes

9) so we let butler (who has spent his career covering guys) play deep safety and man up hooker on the te? beat for 20 yards. good call guys.

10) our ilbers are fucking terrible.

11) credit ballard for quickly putting a defense together that can do something well. and that is run d. granted i would rather be great against the pass but doing one thing well on d is progress and i will happily take it.

12) brissett throws a pretty ball. he dropped a few dimes out there. i really like the kid. and that spin move for a td was just sweet. i love having a qb that has some running skills.

13) prevent defense and running the clock for a full half is not a great coaching strategy, chuck.

14) getting davis and wilson back to this secondary will do wonders. not to mention kelly and luck. will be a much better team

15) simon was good once again. dude doesn't quit. sheard has been improving but i don't think he has the ability to be much better. would like to see him replaced sooner than later.

16) we should have blown the browns out. easily should have put up 40 points or so. but we got paganoed.

17) my brother made this point but it is good that we got the calls for opi. they were legit but we refs let that slide a lot.

18) pretty much any other team beats us. there is no lead that is safe from pagano. don't mean to harp on it but he is the worst coach in the history of the nfl.

19) good to see ty balling. you can tell he took the criticism to heart because he was looking for extra yards all day. got to love his effort. needs to rub off on moncrief who seems like he is pouting a lot.

20) more to come. all my thoughts right now just keep going back to how terrible pagano is and that makes for a boring thread. we all know it. or most of us do.

Fire. Chuck. Now.

You hit most of 'em, Omaha. Saw largely the same game. Only a few quick thoughts from me.


1. This game soured me on Pagano way more than the LAR game. I'd like to think I'm being fair on Pagano -- I didn't have issues with him in the AZ game, for instance. But the entire second half of this game was a bullshit, terrible NFL gameplan. The world's most predictable Frank Gore runs every first down, zero creative adjustments, the world's lamest prevent defense. Get the fuck out of here with that second half gameplan. They deserved to lose coaching like that. Add in the penalties, and this was just a shitshow of a game begging to be thrown away.

2. But because the Colts played the Browns, who have garbage receivers, they didn't. That was literally the only reason the Colts didn't lose today.

3. I echo Omaha's praise for Brissett. Kid can just play. Pagano coached the second half like Scott Tolzien was his QB. I don't get it. The coaching staff did a discredit to Brissett in winning time today.

4. I really like what this team has at DB overall, especially going forward. But Malik Hooker can't get beat by Seth DeValve. C'mon now. Think he still has to be a more dynamic player for the Colts.

5. This team needs to get Antonio Morrison out of any base defense. He just can't play in space. It's not like Bostic or Jeremiah George are particularly good, but they're nowhere near as slow. Obviously this team needs major ILB upgrades next year, but in the interim, I'd like to see Morrison phased out of anything that's not a heavy front.

6. I have no doubt this team will move on from Pagano, but I'm afraid they'll be stuck with Chud for a while. He's just good enough to not be the dregs of OCs, but just bad enough to be an albatross for your franchise QB.

I know he's had a tall task with Brissett, and I acknowledge that context. But he is still incredibly predictable, runs the least creative receiver stacks/formations in the league, and insists on running into loaded fronts just to arbitrarily establish a run game. You've got to have some modicum of creativity to be a good OC for a team with Andrew Luck. That's not Chud.

That's why I'm hoping an offensive HC replaces Pagano. That's the only way I see Chud going.

Penalties, more penalties, and more penalties. Agree completely on the reflection on how poorly coached they are- been that way since the minute he hit the ground. I was never a giant Dungy guy but at least you didn't sit there and just know your team was going to do stupid shit to beat themselves like you do under Chuck. It's so frustrating!

21). Doyle sucked balls this game

2 - Remember when Mewhort seemed to be the best of the starting offensive linemen? Maybe 2 years ago? Goes to show how bad the line was back then.

11 & 14 - These two points will merge into having a formidable defense.

Said that last year and I still think so. An offensive specialist is best to pair with a franchise QB IMO. I think Pagano is hampering Chud but I will not be sorry to see him go.

Not only do we not have good ILBs, we play the worst ones. I knew the TC hype for Morrison couldn't be true. He's just not athletic enough.

I don't think man coverage is Hookers game, not yet anyway. He's an opportunistic deep safety. Let him play to his strengths this year and stretch his skills in year two.

With Davis and Wilson healthy, I like the CB group. Melvin and Hairston have both been surprising and impressive.

The DB group overall has the potential to grow into a real strength for this team. Need guys to get healthy, Geathers included. But I'm not confident he'll recover.

We have some good players, we need a coaching staff to make them a good team.

Scattered thoughts...the first three games have highlighted our deficiencies at our two biggest weaknesses, OL and LB:

1) Mewhort and Castonzo taking a step back is quite concerning, not only for obvious reasons, but also for what it means in terms of needing to (eventually) rebuild the OL. Ballard not doing anything to rebuild the OL this past offseason was an understandable move (I guess), but honestly, who do you trust besides Ryan Kelly? (And let's see Ryan Kelly come back from injury first, but I'll be optimistic and assume he returns to form).

I'm assuming they keep Castonzo. He's under contract through the next two years and while he's probably not worth the $11M cap hit he'll cost the next two years, you could do worse.

Still, can you reasonably expect them to scrap the other three OL positions in one offseason and replace them with actual suitable replacements? Has anyone shown enough to keep their spot for next year (that isn't under a cost prohibitive contract)?

I say all that of that to say, the OL is still such an unfinished project that we'll likely still be seeing some holdovers from this year to next on our OL. Maybe best case scenario we get two new good starters, but then who else are we keeping? IMO, Ballard definitely should've brought in at least one established starter (maybe Zeitler) to play OL that could stick around for a few years.

2) All of that also applies to our LB's. I like John Simon as much as anyone, but he's only one guy, and because of our defensive alignment, we need three other quality LB's (at least).

Sheard has been a bit of a disappointment thus far, so I'd imagine he'll likely be someone that while we're not dying to cut him, I'm not sure Ballard is going to be inclined to keep his $7.5M cap hit next year.

Our ILB's are still a complete and total mess.

So the same thing applies here. Are we REALLY expecting three new LB starters to come in this next offseason?


SIX new starters being needed (at least) is disconcerting. Yes, we basically knew that going in, but I think we were all hoping that someone would step up and prove themselves definitively worthy of being a starter, which certainly hasn't happened. That's not even accounting for guys that will likely depart, such as Moncrief, Vontae Davis, and Frank Gore that will need to be replaced.

No. Mewhort was never the best olineman. Was just something morons said

Pagano chided the team for taking their foot off the gas in the second half. What a loser!

REALLY? REALLY? What a fukn loser! The players were not the ones calling the plays where it was run Gore up the gut of the I-formation, behind Doyle and Bond, time and time again!

Grigson is gone

And we see the same shit. No wonder dam is so quiet. He sees the real issue with this team

Pagano is so good at throwing everyone under the bus, except his own damn self. He's nothing but an asshole.

Good stuff as always Oma.
I hope getting those DBs back helps because I have to tell you, to me, the story of the game other than Brissetts strong play was how appallingly open the
Cleveland receivers were. If their QB was more accurate and if the recievers
didn't drop like 10 balls they would have hung 50 on us easily. Even if we
get those DBs back the fact remains that our linebackers can't cover a sick
mule on the way to the glue factory.
Another point, Moore. He made a stupid st play last week. This week he made
another one on the gunner play and another(roughing) that should have been
called. Why is he here?
I thought Moncrief had a couple of nice catches early. But then when Cleves
d adjusted to Hilton he didn't/couldn't take up the slack. At this point it's
hard to justify giving him another contract. As I said last week, I think we
need a culture change at WR.
Doyel did not have a good game. He had a terrible drop and a fumble and
like Moncrief did not pick up the slack when Hilton was taken out by the
Browns D.
As for the Offensive pass interference penalties they are being called a lot
more this year. I thought the Packers were screwed on that last week against
Atlanta. I was pleased with the officiating this week. At the risk of infuriating
the officiating police on this board, I think the Colts too often come out on the
short end with the refs so I was happy with what transpired today.

The OL may actually be worse this year than last year. Still no running game at all, most of the plays lucky to even get back to the line.

I still like the secondary's potential. The open guys and weakness of the team on D is still the LBers. Can't cover the middle or anything underneath.

For the most part the run D was good, but the TD run it was awful.

They are actually being creative with the pass rush.

Second half play calling, awful. I don't care if Chud goes along with Pagano. Playing not to lose second week in a row and almost lost, again, with a big lead.

Even with Luck this is still a mediocre team until the OL and LBers are better.

Ballard has talked about building a Colts defense that has a ball hawking mentality......that's a smart strategy considering you have someone as skilled as luck to give the ball to.....I think we've seen some really good glimpses of what that can be once this rebuild is complete. Today Rashaan Melvin had 2 big picks and almost had a 3. I love that they are going after the ball (well until we go all stupid prevent in q4.........thanks chuck). Random fact.....last colt to have 3 interceptions in 1 game was 1992....Mike Pryor. Perhaps this new defense will match that mark this year?

This team has 11 new starters on defense and is missing its franchise QB as well as its other two best players. Yes, I see the problem. No, it's not what you're saying it is. It's roster turnover and injuries.

My god, will you ever face the facts?

Please just shut up!

Agreed, what this team has done with Brisset is amazing. We're 0-3 with Tolzien easily

Already have. Will you?

Please follow your own advice.

We just barely held off a team that won one game last year. Actually, if our coach wasn't such a worthless putz we might be 2-0 with Brissett. All the more evidence that our coaching sucks and is the peak of a tall stack of problems.

FU Dam, you are worthless...

AMAZING???? The only difference between 0-3 and 1-2 is the Browns!!! Amazing would have finished off the Cardinals

Amazing? Even halfway capable of coaching pee wee for developmentally disabled children would have finished off the Cardinals from that position.

Lol is apballin Dam's dumb persona alternate account?

From the most recent interview between Pagano and Sports Illustrated:

Walk Worthy,l

[QUOTE=GoBigBlue88;29299]You hit most of 'em, Omaha. Saw largely the same game. Only a few quick thoughts from me.


But the entire second half of this game was a bullshit, terrible NFL gameplan. The world's most predictable Frank Gore runs every first down, zero creative adjustments, the world's lamest prevent defense. Get the fuck out of here with that second half gameplan. They deserved to lose coaching like that. Add in the penalties, and this was just a shitshow of a game begging to be thrown away.

They have to keep the TV ratings up, otherwise you would turn the game off. It was bad enough we had to put up with that scrub play by play team. If it hadn't been for my Sunday Ticket, the only people watching this game would have been in Cleveland and Indy.

So are you blaming Ballard now?

Anyone but pagano

Any thoughts about Pierre Desir? It looked to my untrained eye like he filled in well under the circumstances.

Also untrained eye: he looks like OK depth. I wouldn't want him starting, but he might be a fine CB4 or CB5.

Yep, yet he's leaps and bounds better than #42, who wouldn't be on my team if not for Pagano's complete incompetence.

I think we've also been remiss in not mentioning that Ballard has filled the big shoes of Patty Mac with someone that 3 games into the season seems to be performing well and looks to be a viable long term solution. I'm too lazy to look this up but recall hearing that he's 4 in the league in net yards on his punts. Not sure if that includes yesterday's game or not.

What he lacks in some of McAfee's power and panache, he makes up for in accuracy. McAfee was a terrific punter (even if I find him obnoxious now), but he was more leg and athleticism than accuracy. It's kinda cool to have a punter who can dime a ball on the sidelines and prevent a return from ever happening.

Nice kickoffs yesterday, too.

Rick Venturi was on JMV today and gave his analysisand while I hate how much he humble brags I do tend to agree with his analysis......He hit on all of the points others have raised here.....the only thing he mentioned that hasn't been covered here is he would give one of 2 offensive game balls to Chud (the other to Jacoby)......reason being he feels that this was the first game in a few years where we have been able to make teams pay for blitzing on us defensively. In his tape review he said that our offense made 6 huge offensive plays by successfullly dealing with their blitz. My memory is not the best and I'm too lazy to look things up but I do recall some of our ugliest losses have been we can't read and adjust to blitzes (ex last few times we played steelers) so this resonated with me.

I don't give a fuck what they did last year, Big Ben nor Flacco put up the numbers Brissett did vs that defense

And our coach didn't lose the AZ game a BS roughing the passer and Brissetts only bad throw did

The first half play calling was excellent, playing to the strengths. I am willing to accept that the second half is probably on Pagano going full prevent. Not a huge Chud fan, but he did a great job in the first half.

Do you ever actually like watch football - ever?