Colts vs Saints: Next Day Reaction
By Evan Reller
We don’t overreact at Horseshoe Heroes. We’re here to give you a realistic breakdown of the Colts after each and every game.
The Indianapolis Colts lost yet another winnable game where they came out flat, uninspired and completely unprepared to face the New Orleans Saints. This is a trend that has persisted throughout coach Chuck Pagano’s career with the team.
Far too often the team takes the field and looks completely outmatched by their opponent, or they dig a big hole and require some Andrew Luck heroics to climb out of it. The problem this season is that Luck is playing like a rookie and has been the biggest problem on the roster this season. It feels like a mental issue that Luck needs to overcome, but no one seems to have any answers.
Luck’s struggles are baffling. We’ve seen enough from him the past two weeks to assume it isn’t his shoulder (he can still make any throw on the field) but he appears to be hesitant in the pocket (which could mean he doesn’t trust his arm).
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Against the worst defense in the NFL, Luck struggled until late in the third quarter (and needed defensive backs to fall down a couple times to get some confidence back).
Luck isn’t progressing through his reads like he should and is rarely coming off his first or second option. He does have receivers open, but isn’t reading the whole field and often times when he finds the open man his pass isn’t accurate enough to be a completion. He’s hesitating on his attempts and staring down receivers which leads to tipped passes at the line, pass broken up by DBs or interceptions.
Luck has been throwing picks at an alarming rate and has had multi-turnover games in four of his five starts this season. According to ESPN stats, Luck’s interception rate since November 30 of last year has been one in every 24 attempts, which is 86 percent higher than his career rate prior to that date (one in every 45 attempts).
That still doesn’t excuse Pagano for consistently not having his team prepared to play on Sundays. It was so bad this week that Pagano laid into his players at halftime with a profanity laced speech that was unlike anything the normally even-keeled coach has ever done. He called out individual players, questioning their commitment and effort, something that some in the organization have wanted Pagano to do for some time.
The result? A three-and-out by the offense and a six play, 82-yard touchdown drive by the Saints out of the break. The defense shut the Saints out for the rest of the game and the offense produced three touchdowns, but they’d dug too big a hole to climb out of in the first half.
It feels like the players have stopped caring in part because they know Pagano won’t be back next season. And the front office staff might be gone too. But even changing the entire staff won’t make a difference if they can’t figure out what is wrong with Luck. The fact that no one seems to know what the problem is is even more troubling. This isn’t exactly the best coaching staff to find, diagnose, and solve an issue with the roster (or Luck’s abilities).
Despite the bad loss, there were a few positive things that stood out:
- Good Enough. The Colts defense played very well on Sunday, especially considering the circumstances. The defense was on the field for 38 minutes (far too much) and gave up just two long touchdown drives (the other two were off shorts fields from turnovers). In the second half, the Colts forced punts on six of the Saints eight drives (the first went for a touchdown and the last ended the game). The Colts had eight drives of their own in the second half, and while they scored on three of them, five ended up being completely wasted. This was shades of the 2011 season where the defense would at times keep games close only to get zero help from the offense.
- The Boom Stick. Have we mentioned just how good Pat McAfee is lately? Because we really can’t do that often enough. He’s the best punter in the NFL and averaged nearly 52 yards per punt Sunday. For the season, McAfee is averaging 49 yards per punt and only has one touchback. Punt returns are averaging just 4.3 yards per return, a testament to McAfee’s hang time and the special team’s coverage. He’s well on his way to another All Pro nomination.
- But the stats paint a telling picture of the offense as well. In 2014, McAfee punted 69 times but in 2015 through just seven game he’s already had 37 punts. That puts him on pace for nearly 85 punts this season due to offensive failures.