quick thoughts on the fucking bullshit raiders game
 

1) this defense will not work without a pass rush. changing it up won't work without a pass rush. this team has no pass rush and no help is coming. we have invested heavily on the dline and it isn't working. the young players aren't getting it done and the vets arent getting it done.

2) whatever miracle that happened last year with Hunt isn't working this year. he was benched this week. Sheppard with stampede blue made him his winner of last week but i didn't understand it. i thought he was bad. shep is usually spot on so i want to go back and watch but to me, hunt has been bad.

3) autry gets blown off the ball. offers little pass rush. can we finally stop with the preseason hype machine. it rarely means anything.

4) gruden knew exactly how to attack and knew where he could exploit this team. and they did it. we got manhandled on defense. they are big. we are small and inexperienced and they dominated.

5) this oline was trash. smith wasn't good. glowinski was atrocious again. kelly had his moments. when a player jumps in the air to swat a ball, kelly needs to plant that motherfucker in the ground. he leaves his feet and kelly should blast the dude.

6) brissett throws late. his deep ball is always late and the timing is shit. he still lacks touch.

7) fucking ebron dropping everything. rogers dropped his 1 or 2. pascal was on point but is limited as a player. cain is absolute trash. gets zero seperation on anyone. i could probably cover him. campbell looks fast as fuck but can't actually play football it seems.

8) who doesn't love jack doyle. the only reliable guy on offense.

9) willis really shows promise. yet proves why he was a 4th rounder.

10) motherfucking wilson is in position to intercept the ball but lets the fucker get a td. he blanketed that motherfucker.

11) our lbers can't cover. they don't do well in zone. our safeties still play back too far and allow shit underneath. this defense is a problem.

12) i thought hines might be the only dude that was just straight good today.

13) mack was good but left early. started out looking like it was going to be a big day for him.

14) a lot of hype but where is the actual talent on this team? i think we all jumped the gun on how talented this roster is.

15) the team wasn't ready to play. at home. against a shit team. that is on the players and coaches. that said i do love the aggressiveness of reich. he understands the goal is to win the game and he tries to do it.

16) next week play all chiefs against this shit defense. it won't be pretty.

17) ballard has a ton of money to spend and didn't. it really does show. so all you "trust ballard" cunts can shut the fuck up. we have been and this is the outcome.

Well stated although not quite harsh enough in my estimation.

I am especially disappointed with the offensive line play this year. We got rid of a coach that had them dominating He may have been a jerk but he managed to instill an attitude in the line that we never had before and seem to be losing now. No injuries to blame either. Sucks

Well put Omaha. Totally agree with every point you made.

What a shit show the Colts put on today.

Really thought FR should have attempted on onside kick at the end considering how bad the defense was playing. Couldn't stop shit all day.

Just a real painful game to watch today.

On number 17-where would you have liked for Ballard to spend money? I’m assuming you’re talking about defensive help. Who was out there that would have helped? I honestly don’t know.

As I said in the game thread, the defense is just soft. And teams have noticed it.

Definitely Reich’s worst game so far. No one was ready to play, except Brissett, who I actually thought played decently given the complete lack of help he got, and Hines. Then I thought, surely they’ll come out hot in the 2nd half-nope, same shit. Very discouraging.

I fully expect a better showing next Sunday night, although they’ll still lose.

We need a real 3 tech DT for this crap ass D to work efficiently.

I didn't get to see a lot of the game today. What I did see:

D-Line, that is some garbage, period, no one at all holds the LOS- at all, just getting trucked like fuck.

That helps to expose Walker's completely out of his lane play---- ALL THE FUCKING TIME! Dude needs to be a backup. When DL gets back- DL, Speed, Okereke- period end of discussion.

CB's / Safeties- I have no idea what the Fuck this scheme is- none? Is the design- "let them catch the ball with plenty of space in between you and them, that way they can easily make you miss on the tackle" because that's what the fuck I see! I hate it, fucking hate it, hate fucking it!

Yeah Oline got rocked today. Looked like the Dline- constantly moving backwards.

WR position- what seemed like a huge area of strength, looks like a mash unit and JB's throws across the middle are just setting these up for Safety smashing- that shit is gonna find us having to go searching for FA help at the position real soon!

It seemed like we played more man last season.

Desir wasn't inactive but didn't play?

This defense is missing the good Darius Leonard.

Omaha is so spot on about the WR play. Absolutely atrocious...including Ebron.

Disagree about Brissett though. He was not in any way the reason we lost. Even the pick 6 was just a great defensive play, that every QB in the league would've made the same mistake on.

Yeah, I don't wtf is wrong with Hunt, when Lewis gets back, get Hunt off the field.

Reich looked pissed on the sideline and he needs to let the team know that this is not Colts football.

The putrid play on both sides of the ball today kind of leaves you wondering
what this team has really accomplished and where its headed. But it is only one game, although the D has been lame all year IMO. I think expectations were
too high for this defense. Grigson left the cupboard completely empty on that side and Ballard has chosen to fill it for the most part with draft picks. That takes some time.
I disagree with the thread author about Brisset's play. If the D had been
serviceable and the WR corps hadn't shit their pants I think he played well
enough to win the game.

Keeping al woods alone would have been great. I don’t remember where else but are you telling me this is the best dline we could get?

You disagree that his deep ball was late and he lacks touch?

I never imagined that criticism wouldn’t be widely accepted

Don't know where I could get the stats, but it seems to me that the o line was not very good in the first half of last year and then gelled. My guess is, after next week, the team is 2 and 3 and still in the hunt. The O line needs to gel once again, we need TY and Funchess desperately, Ebron needs 6 times the amount of stickum that he's currently using, JB needs work on his release, earlier downfield and softer when less than 10 yards. Finally, he needs to be able to audible, especially early. It was clear to me that early in the game, the Raiders were intent on stopping the run. Play action early would have worked and fucked up their entire defensive game plan.

Oh, and I agree with Omaha, JB's deep passes were almost always too late and most of his short passes have way too much zip on them.

Agree, it was a bad pick, 100%.

But it's Jacoby brissett making a bad read against a savvy defensive play. I think everyone is surprised this hasn't happened more often, and we're lucky to be 2 and 2.

I'm not sure what else to say. We sucked on defense, offense, and special teams. We can't win like that and were lucky to even be in this game.

When the reichs best coaching decision was to give up and let them take knees at the end were saying something. We have a long way to go.

We underestimated the raiders and got punished for it.

Their defense was impressive, completely shut or running game down, made us pass the ball. As soon as one skill player has a bad day, we're cooked. Ebron dropped 4 today. Andrew luck can overcome a margin of error like that, brissett cannot.



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The td over Wilson was just fucking inexcusable. He had position, he won, then proceeded to watch him catch a td 18 inches away from him.

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I thought the Raiders weakness was their LB's--where were the seam routes? Moe-Allie Cox, hello? I'm so tired of every excuse in Ballard's favor is to blame Grigson. That shit is so far in the past, it's time for some accountability in the present and like Omaha said, keeping Al Woods would've been a good start. How about Hankins and Simon too? Throwing out decent, physical players with size for this? None of that is any previous regime's fault. It looks like a failed attempt to be the smartest guy in the room. Apparently, finding reliable wide receivers is this regime's area of difficulty. Thankfully, this division is bad all around and anything near 9-7 will be seen as a fair season. It'll be chalked up to a tough schedule when in reality, injuries to other star players will continue to make it look less daunting by the week.

Too bad someone like Gerald McCoy didn't become available in the offseason who would have been perfect..... oh wait.

Brissett definitely lacks touch and accuracy at times, but played ok enough until late in the game. Too many easily catchable balls were dropped by WR's and TE's today.

This game basically exposed our lack of talent on the team without a few key stars. No one stepped up. Everyone instead just got stepped on.

Offensive line is a disappointment for something that is supposed to be a strength. Glowinski needs to go. He's horrible. Has been all year.

Pathetic effort on defense. Those motherfuckers better be embarrassed with how awful they played. The coaches should be embarrassed with how badly they coached. Ballard should be embarrassed for not spending any money to actually address that d-line properly.

Are you crazy? That would blow all of their cap space!!!

:D Yeah thank god we have all that cap space so Ballard can use it to sign completely worthless players like Margus Hunt and just sit on it otherwise.

The Raiders wanted this game more than we did. We pushed them around last year and they remembered. Young teams need to learn that there are no Rutgers on the schedule. This isn't college where you can have a shit game and still win by 20. We still almost won this. But this defense is giving up a lot of points every week. If they are going to average 24 points allowed every week, we are going to lose a lot of games.

I feel this team is a little above average. But their margin for error is low. If they make mistakes they will lose. That is not the sign of a talented team.

It sure what game some of you were watching but this was a horrible game by Brissett. Maybe his worst game he’s played.
I was at the game. Omaha is spot on saying he was late with tried and reads.

He had Campbell open deep a lot and never made it to that read. Or when he did he threw to late and let the D catch up.

PC was open A LOT! And JB mossed me. so aggregating to watch

WTF Ebron???? Having a Detroit flashback. He sucked

NO IDEA WHY FR DIDNT TRY THR ONSIDE!! !

Does anyone have a possible idea why?

Some questions about Ballard's strategy of building through the draft:

1. How many players are actually long term difference makers from each draft?
2. How many areas of concern are there currently?
3. How many areas of concern were there going into this past offseason?
4. How many holes were created by letting players walk who weren't too bad, all things considered?

To me, the math doesn't add up to anything other than always being several players short of a well-stocked roster. It's a long-con to fall back on saying "be patient, we have a plan" since instead of dabbling in free agency a GM can buy an additional 2+ years because in order to evaluate his work, the youth has to properly grow into their envisioned roles on the team.

Success rate of onside kicks is now practically zero since there's no running start and no unbalanced lineup for the kick. They've neutered it in the name of player safety. The new strategy for this is to lob the kick over the receiving team and in front of the deep man and hope to create a scramble for the ball around their own 30-35. Please tell everyone on reddit and Colts.com this as well. I'm tired of typing it already.

Nelson, smith, Mack and Leonard right. Who else was drafted that is a major contributor going forward?

There isn’t a single position that is good to go as it sits.

Sure those are cornerstones, but even being generous for this past draft you have maybe 2-4 guys who could be worth re-upping. Like I said in my edit after you quoted me, the math doesn't add up to ever actually "going for it". Now take that math and imagine they still had a franchise QB--even with Luck they were never going to be anything more than a solid 11-5 team hoping to catch a few breaks and find themselves with a favorable AFC championship match-up in the best of scenarios. There are worse places to be in the NFL landscape, but it just reeks of a franchise that's cool with hanging Wildcard banners.

The story we were given is that Luck was going to start Week 1. If that is true, and THIS is the team Ballard came up with for going for it in a franchise quarterback's better years...yeesh. I'm not even mad at Jacoby--he's ok, but he's the QB equivalent of Jabaal Sheard.

He certainly didn’t have a great game, but he was about 20th on the list of reasons why they lost. Especially considering it felt like we were in 2nd and 3rd and long all freakin day.

At one point I wondered if the Colts were tipping their run plays because it felt like the Raiders were behind the LOS to meet the back every single time.

Al Woods is 32 years old and coming off a torn ACL. Resigning him wouldn’t have made much difference.

While he was not the single reason or deserving the most blame for the loss He was certainly a reason we lost

1. Injuries to key players. Hilton Hooker Leonard hurt bad not counting Mack’s broken pussy and Ebrons loss of hands

2 play calling Frank was too predictable

3 defense is completely over rated even when 100% healthy. I don’t get the hype. They are bad. Houston so far has been a terrible signing no pass rush what so ever

4 Brissett. He’s not going to win Very many games if he has to play from behind. He threw 46 times today. Because we were behind and the whole Marlin hurt his pussy again deal. That fucker is brittle


So I don’t see the 20 things you could be talking about

Yet Al Woods is off to a great start playing very well for the Seahawks who are the #4 rushing Defense in the NFL. Nope Colts couldnt use a guy like that.

What bothers me is that the Colts defense went backwards big time. Not only did Ballard fail to improve the defensive needs. He let guys go that were contributing to stopping the run. The Dline got very light and less depth. I'm afraid what teams like the Chiefs or Patriots will do to this defense.

I don’t recall his torn acl

Oh it's going to be bad, and Ballard better see it and realize that he fucked up.

We’ll find out next Sunday nite !!

Al was IR'ed last season with a foot injury, not a torn ACL.

Here was an article from Seattle at the beginning of this year which discussed his recovery:

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/...eed-suspended/

I for one did not realize how fragile our receiving corps was. Two people and were suddenly losing to the raiders, in a game that wasnt as close as the score would indicate.

Take away Hilton for injury, take away Ebron for having a bad game and you are down to:

Rookie Paris Campbell
Rookie* Deion Cain
3rd year guy Chester Rogers
2 year guy Zach Pascal
Ashton Dulin (activated 2 days ago)

Our options after that are Jack Doyle.

They know we are not going to threaten them with the pass so it's easy to stop the run, especially when the OL has an uninspired day.

This is only the first or second time I have seen Reich field a team that looked completely unprepared.

I think if you take away the WR1 and WR2 of most team's receiving corps, it would be a similar dropoff.

Ballard and Reich tried to thread the needle here - keeping guys that had upside as well as less talented guys that had some game experience.

When Inman left to sign elsewhere - no one cared because the Colts had Cain and Campbell. Sure Cain and Campbell have more upside vs Inman, but they are young and there are going to be growing pains. Cain is coming off a torn ACL - he obviously put in a lot of work to be back for this season, however, I doubt he will regain his full speed until next year - similar to Malik Hooker. Before Malik went down this year, he looked really good - that he had regained his "top gear." I expect Cain will be a step slow this year and may have trouble with separation all season.

You have unrealistic expectations. Every good team has quality players who aren't difference makers. If you can get 2 difference makers from each draft, you're ahead of the curve. Hooker & Mack were two great picks in 2017, Nelson & Leonard in 2018, and four games is too soon to tell for 2019.

The real problem is that they're getting nothing from three 2nd round defensive linemen. It's still early in their careers, but they need to start showing some things by the end of this year.

I hope Pascal can get better with routes and getting open. He has good hands, he plays hard, he's physical and willing to block downfield, all good attributes, but he just doesn't get open much. The TD vs Atlanta got him open schematically with trickery, he didn't beat his guy. I rarely see him beat his guy, but I also don't watch the all-22.

I'm starting to worry that, as omaha said, Brissett has slow timing. He doesn't anticipate where the open guy will be, he waits to see the wide open guy and when that isn't there, he checks it down.

There's a lot of comments on not opening up the passing game and the coaches not trusting him. I think neither of those are true, I think they are calling plenty of deep passing plays, but JB seems unwilling to make the throw and takes the check down for 7 yards.

Same shit we watched week in and week out under Pagano for years. Supposedly they were attempting to get cornerbacks who were more physical and could win off LOS in trying to disrupt timing/patterns. I don't have a very deep background in football other than being a lifelong fan but I do not understand the acceptance of a coaching staff to slowly bleed to death. It's death by a thousand cuts and it sucks. Doesn't make any difference the down/distance but when the first move of your CB is to backpedal regardless of whether they are 3 yards off or 7 yards off is maddening.

As for Quincy Wilson...holy shit dude, you have the receiver essentially penned in where there is no move he's going to put on you and you don't turn your head looking for the ball? What good is your size and athleticism if you're going to play blind out there?

The Quincy Wilson TD was just nuts. If you cant turn your head and play the ball, it would have been better if he just tackled him and drew the PI. They would still socre the TD as our DL was playing like sh**, but at least you dont get completely embarrassed by Derek Carr.

Parris Campbell and Dieon Cain are crap without TY Hilton drawing the opponent's best coverage. One is a true rookie and the other may as well be.

Zach Pascal is doing his job. He's theoretically out 3rd guy, and he was the best receiver on the field yesterday.

I thought Khari Willis played well. I think Geathers is going to be our 3rd string guy as soon as hooker gets back, that's good news all around.