My quick follow, though Omaha hit a lot of points already.
1. I'm mostly encouraged heading out of this. Not for this season, necessarily. This looks like a 5-win team. But there are finally men on the sideline who appear to know what the fuck they are doing. Colts are not getting a Frank Gore Wildcat offense. Colts are getting pre-snap motion. Colts are spreading defenses out and stressing linebacker depth. Colts are creating mismatches and exploiting them. It's no longer just running into the teeth of crowded boxes and hoping Jack Doyle can run a stick route past the line. There is consideration to tempo, route levels, spacing, etc. It's honestly stunning to see.
2. And I get what the defensive design is. It's not where it needs to be. We knew that would be the case. It's a bend-don't-break defense that broke a few times. To be fair, one of those was on a bullshit DPI call, and the other was because Clayton Geather is a moron. I can easily see this as a defense that adds/develops the right DL talent, though, and starts holding opponents to under 20ppg. Under 20ppg should win most games with Luck under center.
3. If I was discouraged by anything, it was that Margus Hunt and Al Woods were by far the most effective defensive linemen. Good for Hunt and Woods, but there's no way that should be the case, and it doesn't inspire a ton of confidence in the rest of the DL going forward for me. I thought Turay had a few flashes, but nothing I could quantify into tangible evidence he's a player. I though Sheard SUCKED. Like, get off this team sucked. Basham was invisible, which is status quo for him.
4. It was great to see Hines confident, involved and honestly looking like a big part of this offense. I'm fine with this RB contingent once Mack gets back. I can see the roles. I still wouldn't complain if Le'Veon Bell was added as a 2019 free agent...
5. I know it pissed off people in the game thread, but I stand firmly against ever taking an offensive guard #6 overall. Nelson won some, lost some today. But at the end of the day: Colts still couldn't run the ball (especially up the middle) and Luck still got hit a lot. You can say "yeah well that's because ____ was playing" and you're not wrong, but it just shows my larger point: one offensive guard's impact on an OL is minimal. Luck had more of a pocket to step into, so not saying this line is as bad as last year at all ... clearly it's better. Still, is it #6 overall pick impact better? I don't think so.
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