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NFL Week 3 Takeaways: Lessons, Big Questions for Every Game

(Stephen Holder, NFL Nation)


What to know: ) The Colts' offensive struggles continued against Kansas City, but Indianapolis overcame a recurring early-season theme to notch their best moment of the season for coach Frank Reich and quarterback Matt Ryan. After buckling under the Chiefs' blitzes all day, the Colts managed to mount a game-winning drive, upset the Chiefs and move to 1-1-1.

Can the Colts create any offensive consistency despite their blocking issues ??? ) The Colts have endured more offensive line struggles this season than at any other point in Reich's tenure with the team. As a result, the immobile Ryan (five sacks) is having a difficult time dealing with the consistent pressure, evidenced by his seven fumbles -- the most through three games since Mike Vick had seven in 2011. To create any consistency, the Colts are going to have to truly stabilize things up front.


https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...-team-outlooks

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Pinter has been a major disappointment, seemed to fill in nicely for Kelly at C last year, but RG and C are two different skill sets.

I suspect that some of the struggles for Braden Smith are due to the poor play of Pinter, but not all of them. I think we under estimate just how good Jack Doyle was at blocking and this has also had a major impact, which seems to be being overlooked. He had been around for years, and just knew his job.

Pryor, just seems too slow to play on the outside, but might be good at guard, agree that assuming the German is healthy he should be given first dibs at LT. The new Kelly, i know nothing about him, to be able to say he should or shouldn't be playing in any position.

A line of Raimann, Nelson, Kelly, Pryor, Smith, might be a more solid foundation for our offense. But i also think that we have hung them out to dry with some of the atrocious play calling at times. We need to be using Campbell on quick slants, where the ball is out of there by the time Ryan has hit his back foot. This is what Brady has made a living off doing. 5-8 yard gains in the middle of the field are hard to defend. Just ask our defensive players and coaches when playing the first two weeks!! You can keep your TE's to block and the RB if so required.

Deep shots need to be taken when we know we are going to then keep the back and a TE in to block, expecting just the OL to be able to protect for 5-6 seconds is unrealistic at any point in time. To me these are too simple a concept, and if not adhered to, you are almost asking for miracles to happen to make a 30 yard completion without getting your QB killed.

I am sure the coaching staff knows that Pinter is not working out this year. Several of the beat reporters have written that he has been struggling since the beginning of training camp.

I am guessing the coaches just don't like the alternatives either. I think they would like to permanently insert Raimann at LT and move Pryor over to RG. But they didn't think Raimann was quite ready at the beginning of the season and were trying to "protect" the rookie and ease him into the job.

They could plug in Fries in Pinter's place but I don't think he would provide much of a upgrade at this point either.

I think this is correct. Protect both him and Matt Ryan seems like the rationale. However, Ryan is getting mauled anyway. So Raimann might as well take his lumps and get experience.

And the sooner the better. We all know the OL unit has to learn to work together. So don't wait until mid-season.

it isn't hard to be one of the best 5

Frank Clark, a 250 lb. DE, bull rushed Pinter on one sack so badly he was able to collapse Pinter and the pocket in under 2 seconds. That play alone should lose Pinter his job.

Pinter isnt the only one struggling. Smith hasnt been very good and Rainmann was out, there werent many options on Sunday. I dont think that Ryan Kelly has been very good either.

I was looking at the depth chart, I’m not sure the is much help there. I think the team is going to miss Jack Doyle more than the expected

Pinter makes Smith have to think too much. Get a real guard in there, and Smith will be like before.

Holder was talking about it on JMV, said the whole line is screwing up the shifts. Said there is some of this (feeling like they have to compensate for him) but the majority of it is tied to them not calling out the assignments right and thus ending up with double and he said there are even triple teams happening. Said a much bigger deal is the lack of communicating. Though he did say Pinter is much more of a Center than a Guard and that is showing up play after play.

That is not how it works. You do your job. You cant do your job and someone elses.

If you dont have an all 22 view you cant see the splits and how the O line attacks the D. Oh, and not knowing the line calls being given, you still dont have a true picture of what the line is suppose to do.