I’ve got a shovel, and I’m digging deep…there’s gotta be a silver lining here…somewhe

[Kray007]

First of all, I don’t think that the game was lost on Defense. Whenever you give up 16 points, you’ve got a reasonable expectation that you’re gonna come away with a W.

While it’s true that the first thirty minutes were brutal, they made adjustments at the half that seemed to have worked. They gave up 262 yards in total Offense in the first half, but only 121 in the second. On the ground, they went from 237 yards in the first to 24 in the second. In 60 minutes, Willis managed a pedestrian 122 yards through the air.

Part of the problem was personnel. The professional hand wringers are out in force, wailing about how the Colts were dominated by Green Bay on the ground. But, going into the game, anyone who’s paid even the least attention to the Colts would have begun raising red flags the moment it became clear that Deforest Buckner would only play 10 snaps. Taven Bryam is little better than a turnstile, and Raekwon Davis mossed virtually the entire preseason.

The other thing that sticks out is Gus Bradley’s odd scheme that features only two Linebackers. Carlies played 30 out of 70 snaps, and I’d be curious to see a breakdown of just when he was in the game and how it impacted the run D.

On Offense, Taylor looked good against a Packers D that seemed to be concerned about not being beat deep.

Richardson, I thought, showed real improvement. This was only his 19th start since High School, and it shows. He makes rookie mistakes that he will, with any luck, begin to put behind him.

Specifically, he tends to be greedy, passing up a sure 10 yards in favor of the potential big play. He doesn’t see the whole field; and, at times, locks onto a Receiver.

On the bright side, he seems to have begin to figure out that you don’t need to always pitch the fastball. The TD throw had beautiful touch

And, any luck, he contnues to improve once Josh Downs takes the field and serves as a safety valve. Concurrent with that is the hope that one of the Tight End’s on the team steps up into a feature role or that Ballard prioritizes finding talent at the position during the offseason.

It’ll also help if his Receivers figure out how to hang onto the gosh darn ball. Richardson might have only completed 50 percent of his throws, yesterday, but that would have increased to 68 percent if they had eliminated the half dozen drops.

Finally, I hate to complain about missed 50 yard Field goals, but I wonder whose idea it was to have Matt Gay Kicking them just three weeks after hernia surgery. I also bemoan the fact that Steichen blew through one of his timeouts earlier in the fourth quarter. Give Richardson an extra 40 seconds at the end of the game, and the results might have been different.