Indy.com on passing game

[JAFF]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...n/69511767007/

The pieces around Matt Ryan have to be the ones to fix a broken Colts passing game

[QUOTE] 'We’re only as good as our offensive line.'

The only way to thrive with Ryan is to give this 37-year-old pocket passer a chance.

It starts with the offensive line. That was the area that was supposed to be most different for Ryan, after he was sacked more than 40 times in each of the past four seasons, including a league-high 48 times in 2019. The Colts helped lure him here with their personnel, such as All-Pro left guard Quenton Nelson, Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly and stalwart right tackle Braden Smith.


SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE
Hispanic Living
Lin-Manuel Miranda graces the cover of USA TODAY’s Hispanic Living magazine featuring cultural news, entertainment, and lifestyle trends.
Read Now in the eNewspaper
The Colts believed in their offensive line to pay it a combined $42.2 million for 2021, the most of any NFL team. But the first two games have fallen short of that standard, with Jacksonville representing a rock bottom, when Ryan was sacked five times and hit 11 times. He’s now on pace for 60 sacks, or 12 more than he ever had in Atlanta.

The number is not all on the line, of course. Sometimes Ryan is holding the ball with a receiving corps that isn’t looking or isn’t open, as happened when he bypassed Granson and Alie-Cox and took the sack. He’s too often getting sacked while bailing on a collapsing pocket or trying to throw over hands in his face, like he had to on a fade route to Dezmon Patmon that never had much chance.


“We’re only as good as our offensive line,” Kelly said. “Braden, Q and I have played a lot of games together. Danny (Pinter) has been here for a couple years. (Matt) Pryor has been here for two years now. It’s just playing five as one. … We’ve licked our wounds from the past two weeks.”

At age 37, Ryan is far from a superior athlete. He does have a feel for pressure that allows him to step up from some of the edge rush. That’s a life he was going to live sometimes with a 343-pound Matt Pryor on the left side, but Pryor has to win enough early in the rep to make it manageable. That didn’t always happen against Jaguars speedy edge rusher Josh Allen.

“It’s a learning curve. Some things on the right (side) you’re not going to get away with on the left,” Pryor said. “I just have to learn from the mistakes to get better prepared this week for the next game and to not try to drown myself on the negatives and just pick up from the positives.”

All-Pro left guard Quenton Nelson has to find a way to elevate the Indianapolis Colts offensive line after a tough first two weeks.
The Colts could manage edge pressure on one side of the line if Ryan could shift more to the other when it comes, but Braden Smith has not performed up to standard either. It collapses the places a marginal athlete can escape to.

To help the tackles out, the Colts can deploy tight ends, but they’ve been limited there. Alie-Cox is the only established pass catcher, and Ryan has long thrived with targets in the middle of the field. To use him more in that role, the Colts will need to find production out of Granson and to build more reliable middle-field routes with the wide receivers, which became a major problem with starters Michael Pittman Jr. and Alec Pierce ruled out late in the week.


Still, edge pressure is something aging quarterbacks find a way to work around with those pocket skills. Ryan mostly did that against the Texans, limiting the toll to two sacks, much like Tom Brady and Drew Brees have done late in their careers. Interior pressure is the bigger issue, as he doesn’t have the speed to take the long way out of the pocket, and hands in his face distort his accuracy and touch, or the sharpest tools he has in the box.

That’s where Danny Pinter and Ryan Kelly have to play better. In his first season as a starter at right guard after impressing as a fill-in center, Pinter has struggled with power, and the Colts have to find ways to get him in fewer 1-on-1 assignments.

But Kelly has also been susceptible to power at times, a threat to most centers. But the Jaguars were most successful with interior pressure when it wasn’t even blocked, as they drew up stunts and twists that Kelly and the players around him couldn’t identify in time to keep off of Ryan, killing plays before they started.

The Colts have to fix protection in a wholescale way. They need better trust between their three stalwarts and the new starters to trade off stunts and twists. If it doesn’t improve, they must consider changes, such as shifting Pryor to right guard or right tackle with Bernhard Raimann at left tackle.

They need to use tight ends to help slow down the fastest edge players. And they need to create the right math with backs in to pass protect, all while finding ways to utilize Taylor and Nyheim Hines in the passing game, as they are some of the only established pass catchers on the team.


Michael Pittman is the key

The Colts were always going to endure a slow build at wide receiver, with or without Pittman. The rest of the room is all age 25 and younger with next to no NFL track record, and they’re being coached by a first-year coach in Reggie Wayne. The upside remains high in the size-speed combinations of Parris Campbell, Pierce, Ashton Dulin and Michael Strachan, but catching up the routes and the details to game speed has been a process.

Michael Pittman Jr. looked like a No. 1 wide receiver in his nine-catch season opener against the Houston Texans, and he will have to continue to be that for the Indianapolis Colts to have a chance at a postseason berth.
This is where Pittman remains the most essential individual player on the Colts offense right now. He is the key to generating consistent first downs in a way that can generate touches for Taylor.

Against the Texans, Pittman took a true lion’s share of the workload with nine catches for 122 yards and a touchdown. In the process, the Colts were able to find 31 carries for Taylor that amounted to 161 yards and a touchdown. A defense keying in on Pittman allowed the Colts to engineer a comeback through their superstar running back, a defiance to the norms of modern football.

With Pittman out against the Jaguars, the volume and consistency elsewhere was gone. Dulin led the Colts with five catches for 79 yards, but he also ran into miscommunications on plays he hadn’t perfected. The Colts’ success on first and second downs disintegrated, and Taylor finished with all of nine carries for 54 yards.

Pittman could return this week against the Chiefs, a necessary boost in the effort to keep pace with Patrick Mahomes. But when he isn’t catching the passes, the Colts need to find ways to force feed the ball to Taylor and Hines as they allow younger receivers to grow series by series on lower volume.


They might have to work a quick passing attack until the offensive line is settled, as they have to keep the hits off Ryan.

If trust is the most essential element to an 11-on-11 passing game, it’s the most obvious missing ingredient on the Colts right now. They have 15 games to build it, but the wins have to come before it’s too late.

That puts the imperative on everyone to make improvements, to let the marginal gains fuel the whole.[/CODE]