Quick thoughts.
 

1. AR played well, I thought. He had some bad throws but not as many as I expected. He’s GOT to learn to dial it back though. He’ll never last like this.

2. The run game was bad but that’s what I expected. It wasn’t “let’s give JT 16 million a year” bad but it wasn’t good.

3. Shaq Leonard was invisible. He may as well have not played.

4. Good to see Defo get a touchdown. He deserves it.

5. Jags are overrated.

6. Franklin might be the best player on defense not named Buckner.

7. Rigo had a really bad game. So did the coverage unit. I think we’re going to miss Bubba Ventrone.

8. I thought the young cbs held up ok but I also felt like Jax didn’t really challenge them.

9. I don’t know what Stuard makes but he’s worth every penny on special teams. He’s fun to watch.

10. I liked Steichens aggressiveness but I feel like the execution was lacking. The hurry up on the failed 4th and 1 was unnecessary. Take some time and execute the play.

Overall, it was about what I expected. You can see the potential but they’re nowhere near ready yet. This season is a wash for me no matter what as long as AR develops.

OL is just not very good.

Alec Pierce is pretty much a non contributor.

o


Anthony Richardson got banged up without getting seriously injured ...... part of it is because the offensive line did not play well, and part of it is because he needs to pick his battles a little more judiciously ...... it was a reasonably good choice when he put his shoulder down and bowled forward on 4th down with the game on the line late in the 4th quarter, but doing it again on the very next play was not.

o

Jags were crowding the LOS and daring them to pass. The Colts recievers didnt win many 1 on 1 situations.

The D was very good, the O needed some drives to give them a break.

To the head coach. Kick the field goal, take the points. The Colts paid a bunch of money on a FG kicker. Never pass up a chance to score. A lot of little things add up to a lot

Impressed with AR. The INT- the read was there, just underthrew the pass. He showed no panic at all which is pivotal for a QB, particularly one with such little experience. He appears willing to go through his reads, navigate the pocket, THEN take off if he has to vs one read and tuck it- which is great to see.

OL- not terrible in PP- though again Smith got worked a couple times which has become his calling card sadly. Atrocious in run blocking. Nothing is any better there AT ALL. Jackson, you have to be fucking kidding me with that abomination today. Get the fuck off this team.

WR's- meh, and Pierce, yeah that dude may need to be looking for a job in the arena league soon. Showed abso fucking lutely nothing!

D was mostly rock solid though again it seemed somewhat dejavu of last year- not enough time on the bench to keep fresh and eventually broken. As anticipated DB's are gonna get worked all year.

More competitive than I expected and see a lot of potential but there are some dudes that really need to look in the mirror after this game.

Agree on points, couldn’t help but think how this roster still really needs:

OL help, mainly RG or RT, and probably a new C eventually.

At least 2 WRs.

Secondary help.

And a scary edge rusher would be nice.

After week 1 Richardson leads all rookie QBs
-completion percentage 64.9%
-yards 263, TDs 2
-passer rating 79.0

Not too shabby since many think the jags are a playoff team.

I was reasonably happy with AR. He needs to develop some pocket awareness. A few of his passes were blocked and if he had just slid to the left, he would have had a clear lane to throw. Secondly, he's big and fast, but does he have any juke in him? It always seemed to me he just runs in a straight line. I'm not expecting Barry Sanders type moves, but maybe some elusiveness would be OK. All in all, I wasn't disappointed. I wish we had Taylor, he would be a big help to the offense. And finally, Alec Pierce, you suck. You shouldn't be a starter.

Jags were playing the run all game. Every other team will too until AR proves he can throw them down the field. Why Allen had so many hits on the RB. It will be trial by fire for AR.

Deon Jackson better be locked out of the Colts' facility come Monday morning. He is trash.

Did they say what the injury was to AR at the end? It sure looked like a concussion.

Bruised knee. Happened on a 1st quarter run when he hit the turf. Think he aggravated it on the last hit.

So this season is growing pains. Glad this wasn't one of those hold a clipboard and learn the game on the sidelines approach. I never understood that method with NFL QBs unless the starter is a future HOF.

pierce is a #4 wr. should not be starting

the colts know this

Another turd in Ballard's cap.

To me this was a nice debut by Richardson. He wasn't great. I didn't want him to be great this game, expectations would be to high. Wasn't crappy either so he shouldn't have his confidence hurt. Tons to work on but to me he looked like he belonged. I'm going to enjoy watching his development.

-Fun game to watch, first off.


OFFENSE:

-AR did pretty well all things considered. Still impressed with his poise and overall calmness.

-Two things that worried me about AR pre-draft were accuracy and chance for injury being a running QB. Both were pretty well on display today.

-Two (maybe three) hero ball Wentz plays: the almost sack completion and the final hit. Coaches HAVE to hammer home that he cannot do that. Hope the knee bruise isn't too bad.

-Left some plays and yards out there with bad placement.

-Oline + RB's sucked in run game. Didn't help that we didn't have much of a vertical passing game, but still. Without rewatching yet, I couldn't say who was more to blame. All three contributed.

-Jackson had a bad day, too bad Hull went out so early. Same with Ogletree.

-Pass pro was fine for the most part, I thought. Allen's 3 sacks are misleading as AR was running and went out of bounds twice. But pressure, which is more important I think, wasn't too bad.

-Smith gave up both legit sacks when he took his guy out wide, but AR held the ball too long on the Walker one and the Allen one was more Fries' fault for not helping Kelly with the stunt and forcing AR out where Allen chased him down.

-Downs started off promising, but disappeared. Of course everyone outside of Pittman disappeared as we didn't have much of a vertical threat. EVERYTHING was short. I hope they get more aggressive going forward, expect the INTs, but gotta go downfield to loosen everything else up.

------

DEFENSE/ST:

-Same story as last year. Easily played good enough to win. O didn't completely fuck them like last year, but eventually two bad plays happened and they broke... almost 34:00-26:00 T.O.P.

-The first unfortunate play was the punt where it looked like a dead ball, bounced right to Agnew. Looked like we'd pin them at the 5, instead it's in Colts territory. Right after that was the INT. (Honorable mention to JAX O-line carrying Bigsby from a 4yd loss to a 4yd gain at the 1).

-Front 7 was solid mostly, DB's gave up a few big plays (a couple were just awesome throw-catches by JAX).

-Moore did better on Ridley in the 2nd half. The young DBs' ceiling when they're mentally ready to take over is exciting.

-Buckner TD was a wild fucking play.

-The reason that play scored was because Franklin is fucking all-go all the time. Becoming one of my favorites.

-Sanchez had a bad day.

-I'm all for the 4th down aggression just past midfield or whatever... but not at the JAX 16 right after a turnover. 4-and-out after Brown's INT was a win for JAX and nulled the INT... ESPECIALLY because we rushed the 4th down play and didn't review the awful spot on 3rd down.

Not too shabby in comparable rookie debuts

Peyton Manning
21-37
302 passing yards
1 passing TD
3 INTs

Andrew Luck
23-45
309 passing yards
2 rushing attempts for 9 yards
1 passing TD
3 INTs
1 fumble

Anthony Richardson
24-37
223 passing yards
10 rushing attempts for 40 yards
1 passing TD
1 rushing TD
1 INT

Steichen called a game to protect AR in a way that wasn’t done for Manning or Luck. I definitely understand why, just context to the stats. Hopefully they start opening it up slowly. Honestly I’d rather see AR throw more picks than I would see him getting hit.

I’ve never seen a guy who is always so close to making a play yet literally NEVER makes it.

It’s so frustrating.

100% agree with that.

Yep, everything was super simple. It was frustrating that they never took a shot downfield though.

I like to think that Steichen is building an offense based on what AR does well and that that stuff will come later.

Also, I hope the staff has told him- NO TRYING TO KILL the interceptor after any INT's! He absolutely strikes me as the guy that would go after and destroy the guy who stole the ball- which looks great and shows leadership, but minus an AFC Champ or SB he should be instructed to find the sideline as fast as possible after a turnover.

I think you are being too hard on him. He did have a tackle for a loss that contributed to us getting the ball back. He has not played in such a long time, so he will improve as he gets back to game speed and gets his confidence in his body back.

Agreed. Main thing was I don’t remember seeing him look as out of place and bad as he did in his short stint last year. Considering the layoff I’m not surprised he didn’t make a huge impact first game back.

Jags played a 2 deep shell all game taking away the deep ball. He looked for it on some of those longer reads but it was double coverage. He made the right decision not to throw into that. Then they clogged the run lanes and wanted him to throw underneath hoping he would make a mistake.

Yeah, the flip side to the frustration of not being aggressive is that it's good to see patience in a rookie QB. He shouldn't force deep throws into doubles, but he'll need more continuity with his receivers to be able to do more against a shell than 5yd outlet passes.

I heard Zach Hicks talking about the run game... he said the O-line was moving guys, but Steichen's run scheme is way different than Reich's and the guys just aren't used to it yet. So they missed blocks, etc.

Very curious to rewatch.

Mo is 7ft and can’t catch a jumpball, get him out of here

Jackson is trash

Got waaayyyy too conservative once they got the lead

The punt return changed the entire game

Anthony Richardson showed in Game 1 abilities that Trevor Lawrence first showed today in his third season. Hopefully Anthony can build on that for the rest of the season and Trevor goes back to being unable to read coverages. I know it's only one game, and I definitely want to see more, but I haven't been this excited about the future of the Colts since the end of Andrew Luck's rookie season.

The NFL forces you to work on your weaknesses. He will have to work on his short and intermediate game till defenses are forced to cover it honestly. That will open up the other aspects. The rest of the nfl will just copy what the jags did till he shows he can beat it.

Not happy with the coaching. Not surprised either.

I said it in the game thread. Outside of some pistol/flexbone formations and some read option, I'm not sure what the difference is between Reich and this guy. I get it's his first go around. I have to believe Indianapolis hired a guy that is objectively better than the guy they just fired, right? 3 rookie head coaches in a row. Same bullshit. Insanity.

I think the Defense played great and I'm fucking tired of watching those guys gas out because the offense is garbage. I'm tired of it. I like AR's words regarding that though. They have to help their teammates.

I loved the game...just not the final score. So much to look forward to. We played hard against the cream of the AFC South, many who think they'll go deep into the playoffs.

Houston next...hope we show them what they got with their #2 pick.

AR played less than 2 full college years? 15 games, is that right? It shows. He did run out of bounds, he didnt try to take on a linebacker.

I dont understand going for it on 4th down when the team spent a bunch of money on a FG kicker. They need all the points they can get.

Re watched the damn game. Tough loss, hope we grow quickly. We have no running backs, no real legitimate wide receiver threat (Pierce seems to be a bust-little early to label him but he is trending that way), the offensive line still sucks (what a shock) and for some god awful reason we refuse to take 3 points. What fucking analytics is Steichen looking at, we were 1/5 in fourth down attempts. It is like 4 turnovers to overcome. Stupid.

This offense has zero weapons other than AR. We need JT back not only because we have no real starting backs (how the hell did Ballard let this happen?) but we are desperate for explosive plays. Find a way to make up and get the man on the field.

Chatter now about Ravens getting involved in JT offers due to loss of Dobbins. Demand their 1st next year, and concede the RB position is a fatal flaw on this team right now. Next year new GM is required to draft WR 1st and RB 2nd setting up a triplets v2.0 scenario.

If you can get a big haul for him (I kinda doubt we can) go for it. Him playing for us or high draft choice-either way I’m in.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is a new scheme. You don’t master it in just one training camp. It’s going to take awhile for it to click. Then add in a rookie QB compounds the problem. Also most offenses don’t hit their stride till mid season. I also wonder how effective RBs are in this system. I wonder if a pass catching back like Mcaffrey might be better in it.

Pass rush win rate among edge defenders. Weird don’t see Josh Allen on there.

https://i.ibb.co/McG2dCN/IMG-2947.jpg

Week 1 Quarterback EPA/play (ex MNF)

1) Tua*Tagovailoa 0.59
2) Jordan*Love 0.55
3) Matthew*Stafford 0.51
4) Jimmy*Garoppolo 0.47
5) Dak*Prescott 0.34
6) Brock*Purdy 0.27
7) Derek*Carr 0.20
8) Russell*Wilson 0.17
9) Jared*Goff 0.14
10) Justin*Herbert 0.12
11) Anthony*Richardson 0.07
12) Kirk*Cousins 0.07
13) Baker*Mayfield 0.05
14) Deshaun*Watson 0.04
15) Geno*Smith -0.03
16) Patrick*Mahomes -0.05
17) Lamar*Jackson -0.06
18) Justin*Fields -0.10
19) Mac*Jones -0.12
20) Sam*Howell -0.16
21) Jalen*Hurts -0.16
22) Ryan*Tannehill -0.19
23) Desmond*Ridder -0.20
24) Bryce*Young -0.22
25) Kenny*Pickett -0.23
26) C.J.*Stroud -0.25
27) Trevor*Lawrence -0.28
28) Joshua*Dobbs -0.36
29) Daniel*Jones -0.43
30) Joe*Burrow -0.48

Wow Colts D gave Lawrence fits. Debut at 11.

Kwity was mauling his guy much of the day. I saw two or three plays where he tossed the OT on his ass. Freeney taught me not to overvalue sack totals. Josh Allen is helping that cause.

By the way, I watch some PHI-NE afterwards and Jalen Hurts ran the ball out of bounds untouched... they marked it like a foot short of the marker, so it went down as a sack... I'm thinking, who the fuck just got credit for that one?

Second BTW... JAX was 4-of-15 on 3rd and 4th down.