After Further Review: Colts vs Jets
Another AFC East team was able to best the Colts on Monday, and in very embarrassing fashion if I do say so myself. The Jets flat out beat the Colts 20-7 in Lucas Oil Stadium last night as the offense was yet again unable to find a rhythm all game. It seemed as though the Colts came into the game unprepared on the offensive side of the ball and just looked discombobulated on the field. Before we unpack that issue, here are some of my the other takeaways from last nights game
Takeaway number 1: Henry Anderson is the real deal.
Anderson shined in the Colts week one loss in Buffalo with a team high nine tackles. In last nights game, Anderson was stellar again, totaling five tackles and setting the tone for the rush defense all game.
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Now with Anderson utterly dominating up front, it would easy to assume that would carry over to the rest of the defense, and it did. With the aid of Anderson, the Colts defense looked fairly sharp all night. Which brings me to my next point…
Takeaway number 2: The Colts defense was sneaky good.
Now why would I be saying this when the Colts gave up 20 points last night? First off, one of the two touchdowns the Colts gave up last night was when Andrew Luck threw an interception and the Jets got the ball deep in Colts territory.
Despite the scoring the Colts defense held pretty much the entire game, except for the Jets final touchdown drive, they played surprisingly well. For the second week in a row they committed to stopping the run and the Jets finished the game with only 101 rush yards. After a great week one Chris Ivory was limited to only 57 yards on the ground and no touchdowns.
The Colts were also able to get off the field on third down, as the Jets third down concussion rate was 6/13, that has to be promising as the Colts have historically been terrible on third down defense.
The secondary played okay up until Vontae Davis went out with a concussion, but I think if you’re the Colts front seven you have to be happy with the way you played. If the offense played a little bit better, this would be an entirely different story.
Takeaway number 3: The Colts secondary is absolutely decimated.
Coming into the game the, two of the Colts top three corners were hurt in Greg Toler and Darius Butler. It was evident that the Colts secondary, as Eric Decker was able to make a lot of easy catches in the middle of the field. Vontae Davis was playing well guarding Brandon Marshall up until his injury. This left the Colts decimated at the position.
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Once Davis went out Eric Patterson was forced to guard Marshall the rest of the contest. As Mike Tirico stated multiple times throughout the broadcast, Patterson had never played a snap of defense in the NFL, he is primarily a special teams player.
Shouldn’t that be a wake up call to GM Ryan Grigson? Coming into the game the Colt were already without three of their regular cornerbacks, why wouldn’t they bring someone aboard? Now with Davis injured, this has turned into an all at forest fire. The Colts have to make some signings this week, otherwise they will continue to get torn up down the field.
Takeaway number 4: Andrew Luck and the offense are in complete disarray.
For the second week in a row the Colts were only able to put together one. good looking scoring drive, and it took place the fourth quarter. Andrew Luck struggled yet again, turning the ball over four times in game, the ultimate back-breaker however was Frank Gore‘s fumble on the one-yard line. That would have surely put the Colts back in front in terms of momentum, but alas the drive was killed by the turnover.
The offensive live yet again failed to properly pick up blitz packages the Jets had, and that led to Luck being hurried on his throws and Luck was hit eight times during the game. Now I won’t say the offensive line is to blame for Luck’s early season struggles, he has played very poorly despite the offensive line play. However, to say that the offensive line has nothing to do with the struggles is completely asinine.
There were a number of plays where the Jets got a free rusher on Luck because the line couldn’t figure out the blitz. Along with that the line killed the Colts first three drives due to penalties. Frank Gore started the game with three straight 10+ yard carries, and all of them were brought back due to penalties. That stopped the Colts early offensive rhythm and they were unable to get it back.
On top of all those issues, the Colts receivers were unable to find any openings all night, which doesn’t help being as the pocket was collapsing so quickly. That can be attributed to the Jets great secondary, but I think it goes beyond that. T.Y. Hilton looked visibly injured, and maybe it’s just me but Andre Johnson looks uninspired. These last two weeks from Johnson have been a terrible disaster, the only receiver that got any space last night was Donte Moncrief, who ended up having a pretty nice stat line.
The Colts however, will not be able to rely on Moncrief to boost their passing game, he is technically their third wide out. They need a better effort from Johnson especially with Hilton dinged up and Dwayne Allen hurt as well.
Remember when EVERYONE said the Colts offense would be unstoppable? Now look, they’re sitting at 0-2 with an offense that is a complete massacre.
However it’s not time to hit the panic button, it is only two weeks in and the Colts have a favorable next couple of weeks(Tennessee, Jacksonville, and Houston). Hopefully, Chuck Pagano makes some sort of adjustment because the Colts need a spark. They just look lackluster right now.