Quick thoughts on Jaguars-Colts

[YDFL Commish]

I'll have to say this was Eberflus worst effort of the season.

He had the the let Bortles beat you concept down pat. But when you don't pressure Bortles or challenge his receivers, then you're making it much easier for him to beat you, and he almost did.

I thought Sheard was an absolute beast in the 2nd half, and that this was Walker's best game as a Colt.

[FatDT]

The DL has regressed. I fault them for a lot of the overall bad play. They were easily blocked on pass plays, easily moved on run plays. The back 7 didn’t look good but a lot of that looked like scheme to me. Bad coverages with big holes in the zones that Bortles was able to easily exploit. The shitty tackling is on the players though obviously.

I probably won’t defend Wilson anymore either, bad game by him. But he’s clearly not a zone corner. Miscast.

2nd half offense was as dogshit as anything the defense did all day. Just really bad play calling, bad concentration by players that, whether they’re backups/role players or not, need to catch the fucking ball. Anybody could’ve easily sniffed out that terrible quick handoff to Rogers, they’re lucky Campbell didn’t snag the ball himself.

We’re killing the Jags all first half with our TEs. What happened? I don’t think Ebron got a single target in the 2nd. Did Doyle? Granted they barely had the ball but still, when they did, it was dumb runs at the wrong time or the receiver dropping an easy pass.

Yeah the 1st half was a blast to watch. But given how dominant they were they still allowed the Jags to stay too close with shit kick coverage and lazy/incompetent coverage. Too many easy chunk plays given up to one of the worst starting QBs in the NFL. I didn’t feel that good going into halftime because I was afraid of exactly what happened. Colts got lucky. Neither team really deserved to win that game.

[YDFL Commish]

Originally Posted by FatDT

easily moved on run plays.

The Jags had an average of 2.7 yds per run play. The DL did their job in that department.

The pass rush is another matter. Hunt has disappeared, Sheard's effort can't be denied, but he's not elite, in speed or moves...and yeah, he gets held a lot. Autry is offering nothing. Sad to say, but we need Turay back in a hurry.

[FatDT]

Originally Posted by YDFL Commish

The Jags had an average of 2.7 yds per run play. The DL did their job in that department.

The pass rush is another matter. Hunt has disappeared, Sheard's effort can't be denied, but he's not elite, in speed or moves...and yeah, he gets held a lot. Autry is offering nothing. Sad to say, but we need Turay back in a hurry.

They had some solid stops for a loss, but they also got moved out of the way for chunks of yardage at critical times.

[Thorgrim]

Excellent observations as usual. Can you elaborate on point 6? Wondering what is fundamentally wrong and how you address it moving forward.

[GoBigBlue88]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Excellent observations as usual. Can you elaborate on point 6? Wondering what is fundamentally wrong and how you address it moving forward.

Multi-faceted:

1. Their drop depth seems consistently off. 3rd-and-11, they'll drop to 15. There is no successful scheme that does that.

2. It's not a pure zone scheme. They play Cover 1 man maybe 5-10% of the game. Problem is, they are AWFUL in man coverage and show it from pre-snap. I think they disguised coverage effectively once today, but other than that, they tell you what they're going to do before the snap EVERY play.

And that MIGHT work if you have Freeney, Mathis, Sanders, Brackett etc. But I don't know if fans realize how rare it is to have the talent some of those 2005, 2007, 2009 Colts defenses had. You CAN play this scheme a bit when you have the talent those units had, but it takes YEARS of drafting extremely well. I don't know if the Colts have that timeline available with Luck.

3. The scheme largely renders its safeties irrelevant. No one is going to test Malik Hooker deep. It's not because they are scared of Hooker, but rather because there is no need to throw deep when the MOF or 10-15 yard comebacks are always automatically conceded.

It feels like they play 9 on 11 sometimes when they play a Cover-2 shell where safeties drop 20+ yards off the ball, and everyone else drops 10-15 off themselves. Why would any QB ever throw deep then?

4. Even if the DL was playing well for argument's sake (it wasn't, and Hunt and Autry have been irrelevant for weeks now), they wouldn't be disrupting anything because, like today, they allow these little RB leakout flares on a quick step drop that are no-brainers for QBs and gain at least 5-10 yards every time.

[FatDT]

2. It's not a pure zone scheme. They play Cover 1 man maybe 5-10% of the game. Problem is, they are AWFUL in man coverage and show it from pre-snap. I think they disguised coverage effectively once today, but other than that, they tell you what they're going to do before the snap EVERY play.

And that MIGHT work if you have Freeney, Mathis, Sanders, Brackett etc. But I don't know if fans realize how rare it is to have the talent some of those 2005, 2007, 2009 Colts defenses had. You CAN play this scheme a bit when you have the talent those units had, but it takes YEARS of drafting extremely well. I don't know if the Colts have that timeline available with Luck.

3. The scheme largely renders its safeties irrelevant. No one is going to test Malik Hooker deep. It's not because they are scared of Hooker, but rather because there is no need to throw deep when the MOF or 10-15 yard comebacks are always automatically conceded.

It feels like they play 9 on 11 sometimes when they play a Cover-2 shell where safeties drop 20+ yards off the ball, and everyone else drops 10-15 off themselves. Why would any QB ever throw deep then?

These two points, especially #3, have been bothering me for weeks. I know Eberflus wasn’t here when Ballard picked Hooker. But Hooker is a unique talent and he’s being used stupidly. Imagine having a world class artist paint the outside of your house. Yeah, he can do it, but it’s a waste of his talents.

The deep drops past the 1st down line on 3rd and long are very frustrating. We used to do this shit back in the Dungy days and it was stupid back then too. Eberflus just doesn’t know what to do with his DBs yet. And he needs to figure it out because right now any QB outside of Derek Anderson on 3 days of practice can pick our bullshit zone apart and, as you said GBB, take our safeties out of the game. Why are we defending deep so carefully all the time but not trying to make a play on the ball on all the quick short throws?

[DrSpaceman]

Originally Posted by GoBigBlue88

Multi-faceted:

1. Their drop depth seems consistently off. 3rd-and-11, they'll drop to 15. There is no successful scheme that does that.

2. It's not a pure zone scheme. They play Cover 1 man maybe 5-10% of the game. Problem is, they are AWFUL in man coverage and show it from pre-snap. I think they disguised coverage effectively once today, but other than that, they tell you what they're going to do before the snap EVERY play.

And that MIGHT work if you have Freeney, Mathis, Sanders, Brackett etc. But I don't know if fans realize how rare it is to have the talent some of those 2005, 2007, 2009 Colts defenses had. You CAN play this scheme a bit when you have the talent those units had, but it takes YEARS of drafting extremely well. I don't know if the Colts have that timeline available with Luck.

3. The scheme largely renders its safeties irrelevant. No one is going to test Malik Hooker deep. It's not because they are scared of Hooker, but rather because there is no need to throw deep when the MOF or 10-15 yard comebacks are always automatically conceded.

It feels like they play 9 on 11 sometimes when they play a Cover-2 shell where safeties drop 20+ yards off the ball, and everyone else drops 10-15 off themselves. Why would any QB ever throw deep then?

4. Even if the DL was playing well for argument's sake (it wasn't, and Hunt and Autry have been irrelevant for weeks now), they wouldn't be disrupting anything because, like today, they allow these little RB leakout flares on a quick step drop that are no-brainers for QBs and gain at least 5-10 yards every time.

All true.

But I think we saw early on the problem with the Colts secondary playing up to close. Donte Moncrief beats them deep and scores a TD. These corners are not good at all in man to man, one on one coverage. Its why we are seeing this. That plus the mentioned lack of a pass rush. After that first deep score I think they decided to stay back and keep everything in front of them.

[GoBigBlue88]

Originally Posted by DrSpaceman

All true.

But I think we saw early on the problem with the Colts secondary playing up to close. Donte Moncrief beats them deep and scores a TD. These corners are not good at all in man to man, one on one coverage. Its why we are seeing this. That plus the mentioned lack of a pass rush. After that first deep score I think they decided to stay back and keep everything in front of them.

They were playing Cover-1 man on the Moncrief TD. It wasn't a result of getting burned by tightening zones. It was a result of...

1. Jags spreading out Colts, and Arthur Maulet having to play CB this week. Maulet sucks.

2. Hooker rotating over a tad late (I'm sure a read held him, but I'd need to see the full route tree)

3. A poor tackle by Hooker then erased by Maulet tackling Hooker off Moncrief.

I don't think you can look at that play and say "see, this is what happens when you tighten your zones!" Mostly because it wasn't zone coverage.

I do think you can look at it and say: we need to do a better job hiding man coverage before the snap if we're going to play man.

[DrSpaceman]

Originally Posted by GoBigBlue88

They were playing Cover-1 man on the Moncrief TD. It wasn't a result of getting burned by tightening zones. It was a result of...

1. Jags spreading out Colts, and Arthur Maulet having to play CB this week. Maulet sucks.

2. Hooker rotating over a tad late (I'm sure a read held him, but I'd need to see the full route tree)

3. A poor tackle by Hooker then erased by Maulet tackling Hooker off Moncrief.

I don't think you can look at that play and say "see, this is what happens when you tighten your zones!" Mostly because it wasn't zone coverage.

I do think you can look at it and say: we need to do a better job hiding man coverage before the snap if we're going to play man.

I know they were playing man coverage, that's what I said

But whether it is playing man or tightening the zones, the point is these corners are not great at playing any sort of tight coverage. Which is why I think they are playing so far off.

That and with no pass rush to speak off they again don't want to get beat deep, knowing the QB is going to have time and the WRs will have time to get downfield.

But really yesterday, do the Jags have any real WR "threats" beside Moncrief, and we all know he is a moderate "threat" at best? I would think somehow they could have just made sure he was covered the rest of the game even if you have to use an extra guy in coverage for him.

But it goes back to lack of pass rushers and a lack of talent at corner. No scheme is going to be able to cover for those problems over the course of a whole game or over the course of a season.