Preseason week 1 thoughts
 

Only watched 2.5 quarters. I pretty much bowed out once Walker was in the game. Didn't study anything too closely, all just first impressions...


THE GOOD:

1. Andrew Luck played, hit some passes, took some hits and survived. That's a win for the Colts.

2. Look, the defense is going to suck, but I did think they tackled well for a preseason week 1 game. Doesn't mean they got their angles right all the time, but you can tell this has been a more physical camp just by the tackling in this game.

3. Gone are the days where the offensive design is to run the RB aimlessly into the LOS on inside runs and have no creativity (besides dumb RB direct snaps that do the same thing) besides that. This is clearly an offense that's going to exploit matchups and play to RB skillsets.

4. Pressure up the middle doesn't look to be the QB thread anymore. Interior OL is night and day pass-blocking.


THE BAD:

1. ...but pressure off the edges is an issue. It will be far less of an issue if Castonzo is back and healthy, but this team needs an answer besides Castonzo. Not because Castonzo is bad, but because they've been pushing their luck relying on him to be there for every single game as long as they have, with no viable alternative. Also: I don't trust anyone at RT.

2. This defense is going to be pretty awful for a lot of reasons, but primarily because there are so few natural scheme fits. That front seven, as expected, is an absolute mess of inexperience and poor scheme fit.


WHO KNOWS:

1. I think the jury is very much out on Chris Ballard identifying defensive talent. Of his picks...

*Malik Hooker is probably a good player, but hurt and hasn't/hadn't reached his potential, so jury out a bit here.

*I like Quincy Wilson personally, but he isn't exactly locking down a starting spot and didn't look especially good last night. I think it's an incredibly tough look if your 2nd round corner from a year ago isn't confidently holding down a starting CB spot the following year.

*Tarell Basham doesn't really look like anything, if we're being honest. He's there. He gets a few unblocked pressures. That's really it.

*Grover Stewart doesn't look like a guy who should make the final 53.

*Nate Hairston is a good nickel back. This was good talent identification from Ballard.

*Jury is out on Anthony Walker, who can't stay healthy. I haven't seen anything special when he is healthy. I would take Skai Moore over him if both were healthy.

*Jury is out on the entire 2018 draft class, of course. There's not much to fairly judge, but between camp and the first game, could you tell me you have confidence in any of them besides maybe Leonard making an impact?

2. Chester Rogers making business decisions while locked in a heated battle for the WR2 spot tells me this WR2 spot is still completely open. I don't think Ryan Grant is any kind of talent that can hold on to the spot, and I don't think Deon Cain has proven anything yet. It's going to be really interesting to watch this battle. WR2 snaps in preseason week 3 will look so much different than regular season week 1 will look so much different than regular season week 8 etc.

Watched the entire game. Other than Luck looking as good as I could have hoped for, the most encouraging thing to me was that the team looked like an NFL team. Plays were called that actually had a chance to work and I wasn't predicting correctly almost every play. I didn't curse or throw anything at the TV because of idiot coaching decisions. I had forgotten how nice that is. I am going to enjoy watching this team play and improve. Good start.

I agree with this. Forgot to mention that -- and I realize the sample size is incredibly small -- this team didn't have its trademark undisciplined false start or offsides penalties galore as it did in the Pagano days. They looked composed at the snap, albeit defensively out of sorts after the snap.

The only really ridiculous penalty was Shamarko Thomas', and he was brought in a few weeks ago so no expectations he would be anything other than a flailing body out there.

He had 2 pretty dumb penalties IIRC

Good thing you didnt watch the end of the game..... it gets REALLY ugly in the 4th qtr.... The center almost gave the game away. 3 bad snaps in a row (fumbles under center) with the last one being launched into the endzone (shotgun) for a seattle TD

If I want to be critical, I could pick on Luck for retaining one of his classic bad habits, forcing the ball to TY in tight coverage. He was 1/3 to TY. On the last incompletion, Doyle was open running a crossing route to the left. Luck locked on to TY on that sideline throw that never had a chance.

Nice to see Luck in action. Locked in on TY too much. I liked his pass to doyle, 7 step drop and drove through the throw.

We executed a screen!

Nice use of short passing and RBs.

Defense will be an issue this year but I think better than last year.

I really think this offense will encourage (/force) Luck to go to the mismatch/open man whether it's Hilton or someone else. It makes sense that he'd favor Hilton in his first game in 500orwhatever days, but I saw enough role and play-specific action with RBs to make me think it won't be a season-long problem.

Think we'll see Luck comfortable with Hilton, RBs & TEs early. The major question is who wants to win the WR2 spot.

Luck's velocity and delivery seemed softer to me than usual. But rust and time off I'm sure had an effect. Hopefully that picks up as we go through the year.

Just off the top of my head:

- The team has a new offense and a new defense. They scored, stopped the other team and won the game. The team didn't suck.

- Luck moved and had mustard on the ball and he looked like he was having fun It's a tough game to play if you don't love it. I'm encouraged by his play.

- Knee injuries already, WTF??????

- The Colts ran play action, holy shit! They ran a screen, double holy shit!

- Don't worry about the D. No one game plans for pre season. Wilson is a very good QB and he's smart. Just remember how young the Colts are on the back end and LB. He did what he should do, move the ball.

- I fell asleep, (had to go to work) and when I got up to check the score and I'll quote myself: FUCK ME THEY WON!

I smiled all the way to work

Luck has to stop that with TY.