Colts coaching staff showed promise in first game

Even though the Colts lost their first game, the coaching staff showed some promise. That is something that will pay dividends for the team down the road.

The Colts have a brand new coaching staff from a year ago. People don’t realize how hard it is for a coaching staff to get cohesion early on. But this coaching staff did show some promise on Sunday. Some of the play calling was different and looked very effective.

Allowing Andrew Luck to get rid of the ball quicker was a point of emphasis all offseason. Seeing it in action in a real game was a thing of beauty. He was able to get the ball to his play makers quickly and allow them to take off in the open field.

Those type of plays opened up deep shots later in the game. Luck threw a great touchdown pass to Eric Ebron that traveled about 35 yards in the air. Those are the types of plays that the Colts need if they are going to be effective.

One thing that wasn’t great about the play calling was the amount of times Luck threw the ball. He had 53 pass attempts. That is way too many. The Colts got away from the run game early in the second half, which is an issue. They weren’t running the ball effectively then, but they still need to call run plays to keep the defense off balance.

As far as the defensive play calling is concerned, it wasn’t too bad either. More blitzes might be appropriate later in the year, but the staff did a decent job working with the personnel that they have. They need to shore up their zone coverages though.

All things considered, this was a decent start for the coaching staff in terms of play calling. But they need to learn how to hold onto leads. Once they learn how to do that, this Colts team will be in the right place.