My quick follow, though Omaha hit a lot of points already.

1. I'm mostly encouraged heading out of this. Not for this season, necessarily. This looks like a 5-win team. But there are finally men on the sideline who appear to know what the fuck they are doing. Colts are not getting a Frank Gore Wildcat offense. Colts are getting pre-snap motion. Colts are spreading defenses out and stressing linebacker depth. Colts are creating mismatches and exploiting them. It's no longer just running into the teeth of crowded boxes and hoping Jack Doyle can run a stick route past the line. There is consideration to tempo, route levels, spacing, etc. It's honestly stunning to see.

2. And I get what the defensive design is. It's not where it needs to be. We knew that would be the case. It's a bend-don't-break defense that broke a few times. To be fair, one of those was on a bullshit DPI call, and the other was because Clayton Geather is a moron. I can easily see this as a defense that adds/develops the right DL talent, though, and starts holding opponents to under 20ppg. Under 20ppg should win most games with Luck under center.

3. If I was discouraged by anything, it was that Margus Hunt and Al Woods were by far the most effective defensive linemen. Good for Hunt and Woods, but there's no way that should be the case, and it doesn't inspire a ton of confidence in the rest of the DL going forward for me. I thought Turay had a few flashes, but nothing I could quantify into tangible evidence he's a player. I though Sheard SUCKED. Like, get off this team sucked. Basham was invisible, which is status quo for him.

4. It was great to see Hines confident, involved and honestly looking like a big part of this offense. I'm fine with this RB contingent once Mack gets back. I can see the roles. I still wouldn't complain if Le'Veon Bell was added as a 2019 free agent...

5. I know it pissed off people in the game thread, but I stand firmly against ever taking an offensive guard #6 overall. Nelson won some, lost some today. But at the end of the day: Colts still couldn't run the ball (especially up the middle) and Luck still got hit a lot. You can say "yeah well that's because ____ was playing" and you're not wrong, but it just shows my larger point: one offensive guard's impact on an OL is minimal. Luck had more of a pocket to step into, so not saying this line is as bad as last year at all ... clearly it's better. Still, is it #6 overall pick impact better? I don't think so.

Where did you get that?

out of his ass

Kind of a bittersweet game. The most important thing is that Luck is back,
really back which will at least give them a chance in every game they play.
And they now seem to have an intelligent offensive gameplan.
But they lost, a game they definitely could have won. And in many
respects in the same way they have in the past- bonehead mistakes by
the defense and either failure to make plays(Hiltons drop) or critical
turnovers(Doyles fumble and Lucks pick). It all adds up to culture of
Wouda couda shouda that fermented under Pagano and still hasn't
been shed. I feel better about the team than I thought I would going
in but it's going to be a long steep climb.

I was impressed with Hines. He had a nice game. He is going to be a weapon in the passing game

Good post bert

Yeah, there's definitely a losing culture that still needs to be shed.

This was probably the most depressing for me as well. Sheard isn't going to get any better. So play the young guys on the edges on pass downs and see if they can develop.

Like I said, you judge them on offensive gameplan. Nothing you mentioned isn't about offense. Pagano was awful at offensive gameplan, as I mentioned several times throughout his tenure, and Reich was obviously very good at that today. Even compensating for missing OTs is, you guessed it, offensive gameplan.

I did. It's called offensive gameplan.

His original point #3 and follow up post.

What I've been saying all along. It would take a lot to convince me that Nelson will have a bigger impact over the course of his career than whoever the Colts would've picked with 12 and 22, and today did nothing to help that case.

So you are admitting that Pagano hired the wrong OC's and tried to make them run an archaic offense?


Have you noticed that Reich (offensive minded coach) hasn't tried to make the DC which he did not hire.... run a different de
Game decisions didn't make you scratch your head like in the pigshit era. Did you see how the half ended while we has the lead? We didn't sit on the lead and go into the locker room like pigshit would havefense than what he is used to?




TBH if Pags wasn't such an idiot and hired the right people and stayed out of their way he MAY have still had a job. But he meddled in areas he had no strengths in.