Inside the Box: A Final Look at the Indianapolis Colts Week 1 Victory

Credit: Pat Lovell-USA TODAY Sports

The NFL season has to be taken in stride.  Not only should you refrain from looking several games/weeks ahead, you really have to take things day by day.  My normal NFL week consists of the following:

• Sunday Night – Gut reaction to the day’s game.  Slightly irrational, but a first blush look nonetheless
• Monday – More thoughtful and in-depth analysis of Sunday’s game (in most cases – sometimes, I’m still irrational)
• Tuesday – Final review of Sunday’s game.  After Tuesday, it’s clearly time to move on.
• Wednesday – I begin gathering pieces of information for the upcoming game and report bits and pieces.
• Thursday – A more thorough analysis of the upcoming game; perhaps sharing insights with the opponent’s writer(s).
• Friday – A look at our final preparation for the week’s game.
• Saturday – Maybe share a few tidbits, but overall, readers should already be prepared.
• Sunday – See the first bullet.

So as I sit here on Tuesday, I am going to do exactly as I say (above).  I think the best way to do a final review is to peer through the box score and pull out some type of statistic about the game that readers should find interesting.  The statistic may change every week or it may be the same.  It just depends on the game itself.  In this case, I want to take a look at the Indianapolis Colts offensive line.  We all know that Luck was pressured – specifically on drives 3-6 of the game.  The worst of the pressure seemed to come from the left side (Castonzo was eaten up) and up the middle (Satale played like Satale — which isn’t good).  Despite the lack of protection afforded Luck, we had a pretty good run game going on Sunday.  So where were we successful when running the ball?  Here are the numbers:

• Off Left Tackle / Left End – 3 rushes for 16 yards – 5.3 average
• Behind Left Guard – 2 rushes for 3 yards – 1.5 average
• Up the Middle – 10 rushes for 49 yards – 4.9 average
• Behind Right Guard – 2 rushes for 8 yards – 4.0 average
• Off Right tackle / Right End – 3 rushes for 14 yards – 4.7 average

As much crap as I give Satale, he clearly did a nice job run blocking up the middle – as did McGlynn and Thomas, sealing their assignments.  It’s hard to put much stock in the other runs that weren’t up the middle considering there were no more than 3 rushing attempts behind any other position on the line.  I’m not sure this is a trend that will continue, but I’m anxious to see how we run the ball against a tough Dolphins defensive line.