They had some solid stops for a loss, but they also got moved out of the way for chunks of yardage at critical times.

He read the play...he made the play...he just let him get 1 foot to much. It happens. A Pagano coached team is totally unprepared for that play.

Excellent observations as usual. Can you elaborate on point 6? Wondering what is fundamentally wrong and how you address it moving forward.

The Bears were about as bad as the Colts were last year, but I don't think they could beat them. Probably a more relevant comparison than the other teams.

Does Al Woods playy or is he hurt? Always thought he was a good run stopper.

Multi-faceted:

1. Their drop depth seems consistently off. 3rd-and-11, they'll drop to 15. There is no successful scheme that does that.

2. It's not a pure zone scheme. They play Cover 1 man maybe 5-10% of the game. Problem is, they are AWFUL in man coverage and show it from pre-snap. I think they disguised coverage effectively once today, but other than that, they tell you what they're going to do before the snap EVERY play.

And that MIGHT work if you have Freeney, Mathis, Sanders, Brackett etc. But I don't know if fans realize how rare it is to have the talent some of those 2005, 2007, 2009 Colts defenses had. You CAN play this scheme a bit when you have the talent those units had, but it takes YEARS of drafting extremely well. I don't know if the Colts have that timeline available with Luck.

3. The scheme largely renders its safeties irrelevant. No one is going to test Malik Hooker deep. It's not because they are scared of Hooker, but rather because there is no need to throw deep when the MOF or 10-15 yard comebacks are always automatically conceded.

It feels like they play 9 on 11 sometimes when they play a Cover-2 shell where safeties drop 20+ yards off the ball, and everyone else drops 10-15 off themselves. Why would any QB ever throw deep then?

4. Even if the DL was playing well for argument's sake (it wasn't, and Hunt and Autry have been irrelevant for weeks now), they wouldn't be disrupting anything because, like today, they allow these little RB leakout flares on a quick step drop that are no-brainers for QBs and gain at least 5-10 yards every time.

These two points, especially #3, have been bothering me for weeks. I know Eberflus wasn’t here when Ballard picked Hooker. But Hooker is a unique talent and he’s being used stupidly. Imagine having a world class artist paint the outside of your house. Yeah, he can do it, but it’s a waste of his talents.

The deep drops past the 1st down line on 3rd and long are very frustrating. We used to do this shit back in the Dungy days and it was stupid back then too. Eberflus just doesn’t know what to do with his DBs yet. And he needs to figure it out because right now any QB outside of Derek Anderson on 3 days of practice can pick our bullshit zone apart and, as you said GBB, take our safeties out of the game. Why are we defending deep so carefully all the time but not trying to make a play on the ball on all the quick short throws?

On #6, who was the premier pass rusher on the dominant Lovie Smith Bears defenses pre-Julius Peppers. I’ll hang up and listen for your answer.

Tommie Harris was, for a time, the 3 tech we all constantly dreamed of. They also had hall of fame freak off nature/MLB Brian Urlacher.

Re-read #6. GBB specifically named edge rushers and said the D cannot work without a dominant edge. He’s right about a lot of things, but evidence shows that he overreached on #6.