[DrSpaceman]

Originally Posted by GoBigBlue88

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.

All true.

But I think we saw early on the problem with the Colts secondary playing up to close. Donte Moncrief beats them deep and scores a TD. These corners are not good at all in man to man, one on one coverage. Its why we are seeing this. That plus the mentioned lack of a pass rush. After that first deep score I think they decided to stay back and keep everything in front of them.