Quick thoughts on Titans-Colts

[GoBigBlue88]

1. Pretty much my only negatives for this game would be Ryan Kelly's injury and the fact that Indy Special wasn't a TD. Wow. What a ballgame. Hats off to everyone in the org.

2. That Ryan Kelly injury scares the hell out of me. I don't know anything beyond "knee", but I've seen too many guys walk off the field with a knee injury, go to the locker room, and next day you hear it's ACL. Here's hoping Colts dodge that bullet.

3. One nitpick in the run game is that Marlon Mack goes down way too easily on ankle tackles. Glad someone finally pointed it out this week; we've seen it through his career. I still think Mack's overall game is perfect for this offense, but I wouldn't mind seeing Jordan Wilkins (who I might argue is a bit undervalued by the team) taking 3-5 touches that have traditionally been drawn up for Mack.

4. TY Hilton just embarrassed Adoree Jackson today. Not much to say: Hilton is still awesome and smart fans already knew this. Dontrelle Inman has really impressed me though. Great route runner with solid hands and an ability to extend on plays I don't think other non-TE Colts receivers have. He won't turn heads with speed or YAC, but he's a pretty long target.

5. I like that Titans thought they would throw off the Colts by coming out with an emphasis on base nickel and Colts basically said: OK, cool. Colts can go 11, 12, 13, whatever personnel on you. Reich will pick apart whatever your defense was; it's just on players to execute.

6. I don't mind the Indy Special call at all. Your offense has been BALLING for a long time now. You earn the slack to try that when you routinely make the high % plays. I'm glad they ran it, because they value having fun playing football. When you do that, you tend to roll.

7. I think Mariota is super overrated, but I thought Colts had a great rush plan in place for him. There was no outside escape, and their was Darius Leonard spying in the middle. Mariota panicked routinely. Colts schemed him into total irrelevance. Blew up those edges all day.

8. Al Woods had himself a day after really struggling for most of the season. Thought he was the DL who showed up most on a live watch.

9. Darius Leonard is obviously a DROY favorite and we're running out of good things to say about him, but nitpicking: going for the strip did cost him 2-3 tackles today. Fine to be aggressive, but just gotta know you're less likely to get that on Derrick Henry and still be able to make a tackle.

10. FWIW, much will be made of Dean Pees' illness (hope he's OK!) affecting Titans defense. But I honestly thought the Titans played well on individual plays; the Colts were just unbeatable on many. Example: on the Indy Special red zone drive, second down, Colts run a play that is a TD on 30 other NFL teams, I am confident. TY Hilton comes across formation, drawing attention at snap, and Doyle fakes a block to leak out of formation going the other way. Logan Ryan stays with it, and stops the pass to Doyle for zero gain. That, to me, doesn't speak to a defense that was just caught off guard. It speaks to a defense that couldn't individually handle TY Hilton when they loaded the box against the run.

11. Sucks that Chester Rogers PR TD got called back. Colts return unit has been so bad for so long, you'd like to see a little momentum fall in their favor.

12. No idea how Luck didn't throw an INT to Adoree Jackson on the early 3Q play that ended up being a completion to Hilton. Colts got a few kind bounces today.

13. If Kelly is out, I wonder if Haeg or Boehm gets the call at center. Haven't seen enough from Boehm yet to have any feel for his game.

14. Quincy Wilson had a standout game today after a real dud last week. Not just the gimme INT; he played nasty. If you play nasty as a CB in this system, you will succeed more often than not.

15. Last few games have shown how overrated the run game is, IMO. Colts have done nothing special on the ground since OAK, and they're still dominating on offense. They can run when they have to, rip off one long one per game, and run in enough DIFFERENT ways to keep defenses guessing and honest. Which I have to think is Reich's preference all along: run well enough to allow the offense to work.

16. Quenton Nelson and Ryan Kelly getting majority of OL accolades. They deserve accolades, but I'd argue Anthony Castonzo has the strongest All-Pro case of anyone on the OL...

17. Colts are doing enough things with jet sweep action this year to make defenses think. Just so fun to see wrinkles like this after years of Pagano ruining everything. Jesus, does this season illustrate how bad Pagano was.

18. Nitpick: Colts hurrying up to the line on 3rd down to execute a shotgun handoff up the middle was effective earlier this season, but enough teams have seen it now where it doesn't sururpise anyone. Need to get a little more creative with hurry-up snaps on 3rd down.

19. He hasn't had a huge box score impact this year, and still clearly isn't the same player as last year yet, but make no mistake: this team needs Malik Hooker.

20. I keep waiting for this team to run a fake punt, given who their coaches are.