Quick thoughts - Steelers
 

1. Look, I'm not trying to start off vulgar for the sake of it, or edgy or whatever.

But fuck Rob Chudzinski. Seriously. Fuck that guy. Get him away from this team. I put the vast majority of this loss on his braindead, predictable-as-shit offense that went run-run-pass almost every drive of this game and completely minimized the ability to get the ball in the most dangerous players' hands.

I actually thought they ran the ball to set something up for the second half, thinking Chud would ever call plays with anything but the immediate drive in mind. They were getting the Steelers to crash in on all of these interior runs and completely abandon the edge. This was SCREAMING for a quick screen out wide, or a bootleg, or a sweep with some fake element designed, or even a read-option keeper.

So what happened? Chud just kept going run-run-pass right into the middle of the defense in the second half, too. He took advantage of nothing he set up.

It's simply inexcusable that this team continues to shit its pants in the second half, and I put so much of that on the coaching staff. Remember, Chud is Pagano's dream hire, so Pagano endorses all of this.

It's inexcusable that the two best players in space -- TY Hilton and Marlon Mack -- never get the ball in space.

It's inexcusable that Chudzinski is still an offensive coordinator for this team, really.

Fuck that guy.

2. I don't fault Jacoby Brissett for much today, believe it or not. He got a little shellshocked and started dropping his eyes, and he still needs to learn to put some touch on passes out of the backfield. But c'mon ... that offensive line was ridiculously bad, and Chud's gameplan totally set him up for failure.

Don't look for me to place any of this game on Brissett today.

3. Fascinating to watch how the defensive edge attacks Gore vs Mack. They essentially ignore Gore most of the time and keep going for the QB. They crash Mack instantly.

A smart offensive coordinator would do something with that.

4. Imagine ever playing Kamar Aiken over Chester Rogers. Again, Pagano.

5. Imagine being mad at TY Hilton for calling out this shitty offensive line and convincing yourself Hilton is the problem.

No, this is a shitty offensive line. Kyle Kalis today? Seriously? Jeremy Vujnovich all season?

It's part talent, for sure. But these guys go through 2,000 linemen who jump offsides, hold, can't read a stunt for their lives. So it also leads me to believe it's coaching.

6. If you expect me to put any of this loss on the defense, you're going to be disappointed. I thought the defense played exceptionally well. Pagano just has unrealistic expectations for how this team can/should win games. He coaches the team he wants to have, versus the team he has.

That said, a few individual accolades:

Rashaan Melvin has easily played himself into another contract.

Matthias Farley may not be a playmaker per se, but he does all the little things and stays available to play. In a dream world, yes, I'd like a more dynamic safety. In a world where the Colts have to improve so many other spots, I'm pleased with what Farley offers at the position for next few years.

TL;DR: I'm not concerned with the DBs. There are spots where they can upgrade, but as always, the defensive issues almost all come down to ILBs and pass-rush. And pass-rush is at least somewhat better, although they need better DEs (hurts having Henry Anderson out) if they're going to only rush four most of the game.

7. Chuck Pagano's accountability culture is so much bullshit as long as TJ Green continues to be on the roster and playing. Oh sure, cut Vontae Davis and make an example of him, but put TJ Green back in to commit another awful penalty right after committing the single dumbest penalty a Colt has committed in the last 3 years here.

Also good time to remember that Green was Pagano's guy and Pagano banged the table to draft him.

8. Rigo Sanchez's season will be lost in all of this, which is a shame, because he's made Pat McAfee irrelevant.


In all honesty, this team has way bigger coaching issues than talent issues. I genuinely believe that. So it really comes down to whether or not you have faith in ownership/management to rectify that situation, or to bungle it.

With Jim Irsay, I'm not holding my breath.

I still think Brissett has to learn to play against the blitz. You see it week after week with him. Other teams bring pressure and he is shut down.

No I don't blame him for the loss. But have to be able to score in the 4th quarter. Last 3 weeks, how many have they scored in the 4th quarter? Zero I think? Multiple times with the ball and a chance to retake the lead here and vs Cincy, they fail.

I know the OL is not good and Chud does him no favors, but we have to stop kidding ourselves that Brissett is not part of the problem.

TJ green just has no excuse for being on the team. Stupid play week after week

Rogers should have been playing more for the past month. Great game by him

Still not using Mack the way they should.

And yes Chud sucks. ANd Pagano sucks.

I agree about the D playing well. That's a high powered offense and a great QB, they basically gave up 13 points. Once again the offense hands the other team 7 points with the deep turnover at the ten. There is talent on this D. I'd like to see what a good coach could do with it. I really don't think the D will miss Vontae Davis, whatever happened there. Desir even made a huge play on the INT.

Team actually played well today overall though. really didn't expect a close game. A moral victory I guess, but its still hollow when you have chances for the upset at home.

6 more games. At least we get a break next week and don't have to watch another loss.

Last line you stated does sum it up "more coaching issues than talent issues". A good coach and this is at least a .500 team right now even with all the injuries and still fighting for this admittedly bad division

This team is close to contending. Yeah, they will lose badly to the top four or five teams in the league, but good coaching puts this group in the playoffs and gives us a shot at winning it all.

Couldn't agree more with you regarding Chud. He makes Pep look phenomenal.

Chud is still running the 1995 U offense for christ sake.

Also very good point about Mack and Hilton rarely getting the ball in space. But I could add Rogers and Moncrief to that list as well.

I hate, hate, hate, watching Chud's boring unimaginative offense week after week.

No he doesn't. They're both pathetic. Pep just had a healthy Luck for a longer period of time to cover up his screw-ups.

They're both terrible, but Chud is worse.

Some credit should be given to Pierre Desir this week, who's come out of nowhere and again seemed to be up to the task this week. It seems like he's been given some tough assignments over the last couple weeks and he's held up well. Great interception on the second play of the game.

No, he's just more recent in your mind. They were both horrid. Pep was no better than Chud is. Neither of them make any adjustments to take advantage of matchups. Both are/were horribly predictable with play calls. Pep just had Luck there so when his calls resulted in the team being down, they could just let Luck be Luck and he would bring them back many times. That wasn't Pep, that was Luck.

lmao...

no it's not

Oh wait, you were being sarcastic right?

It's like being the tallest midget

I didn't watch the game. I didn't miss anything.

awesome stu


nobody gives a shit

hope you don't mind gbb but i will add a couple thoughts here. no need for two threads on this.

1) brissett is a young qb that struggles. but he was thrown into a shitty situation and he is improving. there is definitely something to work with here. can he ever be a really good starter? i don't know. but he looks like he could be the best backup in the league no problem. and those guys usually get plenty of chances to start.

2) the offensive line needs talent. that isn't up for debate. the who and what of that is debatable but we all agree we need more talent up front.

with that said, this offense gets qb's murdered. and at this point i don't think it is just a qb struggling to see the blitz. that is it at times part of it but i think it is just a fundamental issue with this coaching staff. and this isn't news to anyone here. other than i did blame Luck some and now brissett is having the same issues and both are smart kids.

there is absolutely no defense for having no answer for the blitz. we havent for years. and this is just atrocious coaching.

3) vontae davis has to go for no reason but aiken and tj green can start all day long. dumbasses can't blame grigson anymore. this is all on chucky. and it is disgusting. davis was a really good player for this team and we treat him like trash while just letting play poorly and keep starting. where is the coaching decision here chuckles?

4) dam still likes pagano. just imagine that. like that is a thing. he thinks he isn't the problem.

5) good to have you back rogers. tuck in your jersey fucker.

6) colts give up points before half and at the end of games. you can set your watch by it. it is going to happen. pagano has never learned.

7) there are probably 30 (and i am not even joking here) better safeties that are free agents than tj green. enough is enough ballard.

8) this offense is pagano. sorry but it is. pep and chud do the same thing. run up the middle, run up the middle, pass on 3rd and 8, then punt.

9) gbb made a great observation about how the defense defends mack as opposed to gore. good coaches would see this and counter punch. we have pagano and company.

10) i like desir. if vontae played that same game, fans would say he sucked.

Can't remember the exact #'s but Venturi said today something like the Colts lead the league in sacks and hits given up this year--- and did last year as well. I think he said we've let Brisset get hit something like 87 times so far this year and it way out in front of the pack.

I know a lot of us would sort of blame Luck for holding the ball too long and that being a part of the driver of the high sack hit #'s. Two diff QB's--- it's a combination of the line and even moreso- the shittiest design in the history of man.

Usually you talk about a QB being a coach killer, you are right, Pagano is a QB killer.

I was listening to Venturi today as well and he called the design of this offensive passing scheme with its focus on the slow developing 5 step drop back criminal malpractice on the part of the coaching staff given talent of the oline over the past 6 years......

Pagano almost beat a tough Steelers team with all the injuries.
What other coaches can you replace him with that will do better?



Signed,

Dam , The Clapping Wood lover.

Yeah he ripped it pretty good today. I loved the fact he just flat out said that Aiken is nowhere near as good as Rodgers and there is no reason he should be getting the time he has been and he did not understand how that could happen.

You can tell he is sort of in disbelief that Pagano and co. have been able to get away with some of these abysmal personnel decisions.

Venturi must be reading my posts

Rogers looked pretty good on returns as well, at least as good as Bray had been all year.

Desir has been much better the last few weeks. He sucked the first several weeks.

There is just no reason for TJ Green to be on this team. He is awful AND plays stupid. Horrible draft pick.

Personnel decisions are still handled by grigson

-dam

I thought Grigson was demoted to just calling the plays this season?

First 7 weeks of season:

201 attempts / 120 completions / 59.7% / 1,409 yards / 226 ypg / 3 TD / 3 INT / 079.8% QB Rating

Last 3 weeks of season:

093 attempts / 059 completions / 63.4% / 0,763 yards / 254 ypg / 6 TD / 2 INT / 101.7% QB Rating

I honestly would like to see him in a competent offensive system with a full off-season of training under his belt. I bet he would be a quality starter; his progress this season has been pretty outstanding.

Walk Worthy,

I completely agree. Problem being, he still has 6 games to be offered up as Pagano's sacrificial lamb to Satan as part of what is obviously the deal he made to get a job in the NFL... thus by about mid December Jacoby will be eating through a straw, peeing in a diaper, and drawing plays with crayons...all thanks to Chuck QB Killer Pagano.

Ughhhhhhh.........I have to seriously give Pags credit. He gives a post game speech with his patented talking points and his team dutifully marches out with his talking points. That's a hell of a coach that can keep his team together like that. Too bad the messaging is one that celebrates mediocrity. I can't listen to this anymore.

Today's puppet is Castonzo on his weekly segment with Grady and Big Joe.....they try every way without being assholes to get him to acknowledge one little bit of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Instead it's " we came really close to beating a really good football team". No asshole! They played down to your sorry ass. You lost. It doesn't matter that the effort was really really good. Have some pride. Be willing to say you aren't satisfied with your performance and that you all need to get better. The only way to stop being a loser in the W/L column is to first stop having a loser mentality! Ugh....Chuckie is infecting their brains with a satisfaction with mediocrity. He has to go!!!!!

Just thinking out loud, but I cant blame anyone for towing the 'corporate' line here. You imagine that the Indianapolis colts have about 360 million in revenue, making them a solid mid-sized company, surprisingly of similar size to Etsy.

I would think that if a high level Etsy employee went about to the media trashing their own performance and the performance of their colleagues there would be some negative repercussions.

At the end of the day, Castanzo has to keep his job.

As much as I LOATHE N.E. they have a fair eye for talent.
However that being said they also traded him to us...

....you forgot the full quote.

"They also traded him to us.....for Phillip Dorsett!"



Hahahahahahahahahaha. So much for the fair eye for talent!

Walk Worthy,

So someone here is finally acknowledging positive development of a player under Pagano? What a novel concept.

True... but former number one pick for what a third string QB?

I love that Dam's take for the 4th QB Pagano has killed in his time here is "look at how well Pagano is developing him!"

Dam, you are fucking delusional with the Pagano shit.

I don't expect him to trash the franchise. Just to acknowledge that he/they aren't satisfied to merely play really, really hard. Last week I heard Ballard on 3 interviews say. "We are what our record is and none of us should be satisfied with that". That's a winning mentality and that's the person who will be judging the talent on this team. Thank God.

Lol. Venturi was talking about Jacoby yesterday and he's convinced we haven't yet seen Jacobys true potential because of the "criminally incompetent" offensive scheme of chud and Pags. He thinks he can absolutely develop into a solid starter (not elite like Luck but good) if only he were in a better system with good coaching. Until this year he was so careful to not rip this coaching team but his gloves are off now and he's been very specific with his critique of this offense.

Not sure Luck IS elite, very good, but not sure about "elite" yet. No hving said that he has played with crap around him lately.
Then we have to ask, if he was "elite" will he be again?

No, I just refuse to buy into the narrative that most Colts fans have bought into which blames Pagano for any negative result, stretching the limits of cognitive dissonance to do so in some cases.

Look, moron. Pagano is trash. Yes, it seems like he has grown a little this year in game-planning, but he has miiiiiles to go on in-game and halftime coaching. This team will be 2-3 games over .500 next year if he is gone, without a doubt. If he stays, we will be no better than 7-9.

Oh, and if he was so good at player development, explain TJ Green to me.

Do you really want to die on this hill Dam? Anyone, and I mean anyone who knows football realizes that Pagano sucks. Not that hard to comprehend.

Cutting VD and playing Greene is fucking dumb.
Playing Aiken above any other receiver we have is dumb.
Timeout management from Pags is pretty much always dumb.
Rushing 3 against the rapist was dumb.
No halftime adjustments from Pags is dumb.
Not getting playmakers like Mack involved is dumb.
Having an offense that is so predictable is dumb.
Getting blown out numerous times each year is dumb.
Not playing Wilson is dumb.

There is more, but the bottom line is that Pagano is a dumb ass.

Great point. TJ was Pagano's wet dream and he isn't worth a shit. Pagano is trying to justify the pick by continually playing this hack.