End of Season - Stats and Stuff
 

Colts Bernhard Raimann’s PFF season grades and rankings among OT:

Overall: 83.9 (4th‼️)
Pass Blocking: 81.2 (9th)
Run Blocking: 77.1 (t-11th)

If there was any doubt the Colts had found their franchise LT, there isn’t anymore.

https://x.com/andrewmoorenfl/status/...L8ardaxv32vrGQ

Zaire Franklin (2022 season): 17 games, 167 tackles

Zaire Franklin (2023 season): 15 games, 170 tackles

Raimann has exactly 1 bad game and that was against the Bengals Hendrickson. I'll take that all season long.

Every LT has a DE that is their kryptonite. For Tarik Glenn that was Jason Taylor. For Jonathan Ogden that was Freeney.

I'm just hoping that Freeland can make the same 2nd year leap.

I don't see the same development from Freeland, you could see the improvement in Raimann in the later parts of last year. I am not so sure you can say the same about Freeland. I do hope he takes the second year leap, i just don't think the ceiling is as high as it was for Raimann.

AC had a terrible time with Robert Quinn

Physically, the ceiling is there. They were both 302lbs. at almost 6'7 and almost 6'8 respectively. Both 9.8 RAS guys, too. The only knock at the combine was their weight... and Raimann bulked up to around 320lbs. in one off-season. Freeland could, too.

Both were thrown to the wolves as rookies and both surprised at how quickly they held their own. Raimann was unrealistically quick which makes Freeland's progress look slower by comparison. But he's on his way.

He's certainly not better than Smith, so he hasn't been given the reigns like Raimann was. But with Freeland's ceiling, there's a realistic possibility we move on from Smith before his contract is up if Freeland keeps progresses like he has.

Yes, even in college that was the case.

Or he becomes the swing guy on the right side, albeit overpaid to do so.

How many INTs he have?

Fuckin stone hands has clearly become the target of opposing QBs

Hit the jugs machine I’d say you’ve hit the sled enough mfer

That’s especially for you C and O

o


Quincy Williams of the Jets is regarded among the best linebackers in football this season, and he has 1 INT in his 5-year career.

You're a man with a chip on his shoulder who is obsessed with something that you said that was foolish.

o

Dude it was a joke, but since you wanna go there Quincy Williams is not regarded as one of the best linebackers. Your attempt on spinning things in your favor isn’t working….

Roquan smith has 8 career INT
Fred Warner has 9
Olukan has 6

The best LB do both

To be fair, the other two have been starters for a lot longer.

o


Quincy Williams was the AFC Player of the Month for October. He was the ranked #2 linebacker in the NFL by PPF on December 14th.


https://www.newyorkjets.com/news/jet...h-october-2023


More significantly, Lawrence Taylor is arguably the greatest linebacker of all-time, and he had 9 career INT's in 13 seasons ...... that's an average of less than 1 per sseason.


https://www.jt-sw.com/football/pro/p...sf/ID/06270022


The best linebackers don't necessarily get many INT's ...... although Rod Martin of the Oakland Raiders had 3 INT's in one game in the 1980 season Super Bowl, against the Philadelphia Eagles.



Rod Martin Remembered for 3 Super Bowl Interceptions

(By Bill Williamson)

https://www.silverandblackpride.com/...-interceptions

o

I hate to reveal this to you (and it saddens me), but they don't hit the sled anymore.

Also, Z's tackles for loss are way down this season. Too many of those tackles are too far downfield.

As solid as Franklin is, I think the direct comparison to Leonard doesn't help him in regard to impact plays.

Leonard had 11 INTs in four seasons (despite having 0 in '20) before he fell apart. Then he barely plays in '22... and still gets another INT. He was a magnet.

First two years he had 12 sacks, 7 INTs, and 6 forced fumbles. Final year before he broke down he had 4 INTs and 8 forced fumbles... that's retarded.

Franklin's resumé is always going to look modest compared to that. And so will every other LB's.

https://twitter.com/HaydenClark81/st...55042599428109

Eagles had 4 with 10 last year. Seems like they're missing Hargrave.

Yeah, who wouldn't the guys a beast.

Defensive scheme use for the season.

https://i.ibb.co/WsjcRKF/IMG-5937.png

Leonard’s pace was historic. If he kept that up over a decently long career ppl would be arguing for him as one of the greatest LBs ever. Now I think he’ll be remembered like Bob Sanders.

That went back to college. UNC Quinn DEMOLISHED BC Castanzo, he had like 3 sacks in the game. It made me scared of AC being the LT.

Bob is still the best safety I ever saw. Better than Reed and Polamalu, and they would be the standard otherwise. Shame he couldn't stay healthy.

That's a stretch, IMO, but Bawb was incredibly impactful when healthy.

To me, the greatest I ever saw was Kenny Easley. Bawb did remind me of him a bit.

I wasn't alive for part of the 80s. I've only watched football since 1995. In that time, I can't name a more impactful safety than Bob Sanders when healthy.

Final center ratings for the season

https://i.ibb.co/0rtV649/IMG-5987.jpg

Guard ratings for the season

https://i.ibb.co/4Nx0224/IMG-5986.jpg

I don’t have the tackles yet, but according to pff Smith dishes 5th among tackles and Raimann finished 7th.

The line overall was rated 3rd by pff. That’s with starting a rookie RT most of the year.

Exciting stuff for next season. Sort of wishing it was August already, but also excited for draft season.

Crazy what a change in coaching can do for essentially the same group of players.

I don't know, I don't buy it. They guys seem to like Sparano, which is great.

But Chris Strausser wasn't just the O-Line coach for the '22 disaster. He was also there for '19, '20, and '21 when the Colts had one of the best O-Lines in the league (like they do again now).

'22 was just a freak fucking year top to bottom. Our vets had injuries and personal issues and young guys, who are now solid starters, were thrown to the wolves and took their inevitable lumps.

I'm not saying Sparano isn't an improvement, but I don't think '22 should be scapegoated to Strausser as if it defined his tenure. A lot of guys tried to make it out as if '22 defined this same OL unit, too. Clearly, it doesn't.

Ehhh, that’s a good point. I guess it helps having a quarterback who can actually move.

o


A mobile quarterback helps a lot ....... but since the retirement of Andrew Luck, the Colts' best season was when they went 11-5 in 2020 with one of the least mobile quarterbacks in recent history (a 39 year-old Philip Rivers.) The Colts had a great offensive line that year.

If Philip Rivers had had the offensive line that was "protecting" Matt Ryan in 2022, the team wouldn't have won 5 games that year.

o

Rivers was a master at deciphering defenses. Ryan appeared to suck at it.

o


Rivers would have sucked at it if he had had Ryan's 2022 line blocking for him ...... in fact, he would have sucked at everything if he had had that line blocking for him.

o

Usually, I agree with you on here. However, Ryan was not able to call out the protections like Rivers could. Atlanta fans had the same argument we had. One faction said the line sucked, and got Ryan sacked. The other said Ryan made them worse because he could not call the protections. We will have to just agree to disagree on this one.

Couple of comments:

While Ryan definitely made a really bad situation w/ the OL worse, it was still a really bad situation. Rivers would have done better w/ the '22 OL than Ryan did IMO, but I don't think well enough to get us anywhere near the playoffs.

IMO the biggest source of improvement was Raimann locking down the LT spot. This allowed Q to not have to babysit the guy to his left, which helped Kelly out, and so on.

And I'm glad to admit that I was wrong about the OL. I thought only bringing in a rookie swing OT (Freeland) and no one to compete w/ Fries or at least more IOL depth in the offseason was a huge mistake. Glad it I was wrong on that!