1st Quarter Tape Notes

Of Indystar, the 7 yard cushion is no longer part of the Colts’ scheme. If you rewatch the 4th quarter, when Hayden was out, Jennings was giving the cushion, Lacey was not.

Read into that what you will.

I would like to see Mathis off the field and add an additional DE or DT (creating a 5 man front). This only pertains to Miami games though because they are the best Wildcat team in the NFL.

For now, I would like to see Mathis on the sideline against future wildcat formations if possible due to his lack of size. I actually thought that they planned on putting Dawson or Brock at DE on run downs anyway??

Sometimes I feel like it’s a huge waste of typing, since it’s ten times easier for someone to just watch it on NFL replay. But I am glad to help out those without DVRs/Tivos. I am learning a lot by watching it this way too. it’s a good thing I don’t have any real work to be doing these past few days though, as this is taking forever.

Drive 2:

1st/10/20: 3 guys in the backfield. Jennings is much tighter on Ginn and seems to anticipate run. It’s a draw though, and Ginn, Pennington, and Long sell it decently. Ginn takes Jennings, whose jam technique maybe slows him down but mostly just looks like a slap-filled girl fight, outside as a decoy and clears some space, as does a very good block by Brown on Session. Brackett sheds a block but can’t quite catch up. Bullitt makes the initial hit and he and Jennings bring Williams down about 2 yards later. First contact 4 yards out. A better angle by Brackett may have gotten him down right there. Maybe. This is the play where Jennings may have knocked the wind out of Ricky, who tried to come out.
2nd/4: both corners are backed off behind the marker and Brackett is feigning blitz for a sec before backing off. It seems a bit like Session deliberately ran into his blocker, which let him then be blocked a 2nd time instead of hitting him in the backfield. Mookie sheds a block and stands him up though with help on the tackle from Big Ed. Fine play, Session read the run very quickly.
3rd/1: Hagler is on the weak side of the line, Jennings is lined up almost like a linebacker and the toss left to Williams really should be stopped in the backfield but everyone is devoured completely, except Mathis, who is delayed just enough to let Williams go past. They hit him a yard past the marker but it takes a gang to actually bring him down. Session is unblocked, actually, but is too far away to hit him before the first down. There’s an argument to be made about why he should be that far back (to give him time to avoid a blocker) but not on this play. If he was as quick here as the previous play, they might’ve stopped them. Still, this is a case where better play on first down would’ve been more helpful, as there’s typically no great shame in giving up 2 yards on a rushing play.

1st/10: Wildcat. Bullitt in the box, corners backed off but leaning in to defend run. Similar to the previous plays with 65 pulling, but this time instead of taking the linebacker on his right he helps out on the left since the DB blocks Brackett. Brackett sheds that one and hits Brown 2 yards past the line but he muscles forward, with help from a lot of pushing linemen, to get 5 yards total. That’s annoying. If 65 had blocked Brackett, Bullitt (I think) probably still makes the same contact at the same place. I could be wrong but I believe this one was better because the DTs were better at the line. Foster definitely did not yield any ground (though he didn’t get off a block either and one guy still went to the 2nd level). But sometimes all they have to do is take up space. The hole was nowhere near as big as the other plays. Still, it sucks to have a play go fairly well and still give up 5 damn yards.
2nd/5: Pat White comes in in the shotgun and looks confused even as he directs traffic. Colts are in cover 2 but Bullit cheats forward. Session shoots a gap and makes light contact in the backfield and 3 other Colts are there to stop Williams for no gain. Excellent.
3rd 5: Hey, it’s Marlin! He’s in the box to take Fasano and the others are doing something different. Brackett is between Freeney and Foster in a DT spot with Mathis backed off as a LB before jogging back over outside Brock, who is at the 5 technique. Session is milling about just behind Foster. Not sure what having Mathis roaming accomplished, as he still rushes from left end, except from a standing start. Brackett comes on the blitz too. Blitz is picked up and the same Pennington to Ginn route is run to Jenning’s side. He is again nowhere near him at any point until the catch. First down, and this one was thrown so quickly that the only way it would’ve been defended would be by cheating and jumping the route. Which is one of those high-risk/high-reward things that guys like DeAngelo Hall do. Sure, it would’ve worked here, but make a habit of that and a double move and pump fake the next time is a free touchdown. Regardless, the blitz was pointless but didn’t lead to any wide open guys in gaping holes, and the high percentage quick drop and pass gives them a first down again. This is annoying but not something I’m going to crucify Jennings for. Maybe the call was poor though. If he’s in press coverage, maybe that play doesn’t happen, or maybe they complete one a few yards deeper and over his head. Who knows.

1st/10: standard cover 2 look. Ed’s jersey gets grabbed a bit so he can’t turn around to smother the runner at the line. Session shoots in there well but misses. Damn. But it slowed him up enough for Ed to turn around and eat him. No problems here as that was going to be a tough play for Session.
2nd/6: Jennings is in the box and on the line with only a TE to cover while Session is on Ginn, which is kind of an awful mismatch. Hayden is way off Camarillo and the safeties are high. Wheeler is in for Hagler. Run is off right tackle and Muir sheds a block and grabs him quickly, but does tackle him forward 2 yards. Session probably would’ve had him anyway. Brackett got obliterated by either a FB or TE.
3rd/2: Pennington under center with Ricky in the Wildcatlike motion. They block everything right and Brown slips through behind everyone as Long has an armful of Freeney’s jersey. Gaping hole, Brown is not touched til Bethea misses a tackle 12 yards downfield. Brackett and Session run blitz around left tackle and are completely out of the play. Bullitt is there too to lock up the backside but also ends up being useless. The Colts were being aggressive and it bit them in the ass as they ran it exactly to the area they left undefended. Mathis and Hagler impressed me with their hustle getting down to assist in the tackle though. But that really blew.

1st/10/28: Fins with 2 TE and I formation, Hayden in the box and Jennings offscreen. The OLBs read the play action reasonably well but Fasano still has two steps on Brackett over the middle. Throw is maybe a tad high and Bethea blasts Fasano for good measure. This could’ve been bad. OK, maybe they didn’t read the play action all that well. That looked a lot like a Manning-Clark type play, except those are the balls Dallas catches.
2nd/10: 2 deep and big cushions. straight up D. Run is left behind a FB but the Colts swarm it. 1 yard gain. The D gets a clear victory on that play.
3rd/9: They show the 3rd down D ranks for the last 3 years and it makes me want to vomit. 3 man line with Brock moving before the rush, Bullitt in box and corners high. Ginn beats Hayden but doesn’t catch it in the back of the end zone. Bethea must’ve been shading to Jenning’s side as it took him an awful long time to get over there and it wasn’t in the corner. I’m not sure what Hayden was doing there. On the replay it looked like his eyes were in the backfield til Ginn was already past him, and he almost seemed to try to brush him, which could’ve been illegal contact.

Field Goal.

Drive Summary:

• it sucked, but not due to any clear and obvious awful play. It was better in many ways, even. The Dolphins had some good play calls on 3rd down, really. But the coverage was poor by a different player on 3 different plays. Two were lucky incompletions.
• thus far there is no evidence that the Colts have switched to press coverage as a basic component of their defense, even though if it ever makes sense, it’s against the QB without much of a deep ball (though honestly, his arm strength was better than he gets credit for in this game. The YPA won’t show it though, as 2 deep balls were incomplete and several passes were super short.)

Drive 3:

1st/10/20: basic cover 2 look with corners about 5 yards off. One thing I’ve noticed so far is that Coyer is one of the many DCs who are teaching the Champ Bailey-esque shuffle step instead of the backpedal. Or maybe they’ve been doing that for a while. I never paid attention til someone pointed it out in an article about a different coach… Capers, perhaps. The idea was that people started to notice that Bailey was somewhat unique with that style and it helped him a ton, both in getting in for run support and in moving the hips to get into a full run on deep routes. Anyway, the play is the same play they beat Jennings with for first downs except on Hayden’s side. It gets 5 yards because that’s what it’s supposed to get and that’s what the D yields. Hayden was at least one full step quicker to read it and defend it though. He wasn’t going to get to the ball for a pick or anything, but he at least left the possibility of the contact disrupting the catch. This one had a full 5 step drop though, which may be designed to make the corner respect the possibility of a deep route. Still, Hayden does everything right and it’s still a 5 yard gain. Evidence that perhaps the 2 1st downs against Jennings so far are less his fault than everyone thinks.
2nd/5: Side note- I hate Bill Parcells. Run right, Hagler stops it for no gain, good play. Hayden was in tight for run support and Jennings was 5y off. I probably don’t need to point this out anymore.
3rd/5: 3 man front for the D, 2 receivers close by on both sides for the offense. Miami has used a ton of formations so far. Pennington hits Camarillo outside the low hash marks and Session misses him. They were off screen so it’s hard to tell whose responsibility it was, but my guess is that Jennings was drawn deep by the outside guy, likely in man-2, and that pass was in Session’s zone or on the seam since he was much closer than Jennings. Can’t rule out that it was Jennings’ man though, but I doubt it. Another one of those safe plays that is useful against a zone. Damn it.

1st/10: Jennings is up tight on his man. Basic run up the middle for 2 yards, though it feels like they should’ve hauled him down without letting his momentum get that far.
2nd/8: Wildcat, receivers in tight and Bullitt in the box on the weak side. No special blocking at all on a sweeping run way left. This is the play where Dawson was slow off the snap and our D just wasn’t fast the way it should be when running side to side. Their tackles got out to the 2nd level very quickly, but it was 81’s block on Bullitt that really helped. Session overpursued at the end too but that didn’t really cost any yards.

1st/10: basic look with corners backed off. Play action, Bethea (safety on Jennings’s side) totally bit, throw to Ginn broken up. Great coverage by Jennings, and Bullitt was very quick to get there too, given that his responsibility was the other half.
2nd/10: Wildcat. Hayden doesn’t seem to care about his receiver up top, which makes sense. Mookie jumps offside, which sucks, because Freeney came in unblocked and Foster beat everyone too and this would’ve been a loss of 1.5 yards.
2nd/5: basic look but Bullitt, who has switched to the weak side, sneaks forward to the 1st down marker, leaving only Bethea high and the corners in man-1. This is a pass all the way, the 4 man rush doesn’t get to him but is as good as any other one they got all night, and Hagler makes an excellent play in coverage. Incomplete.
3rd/5: Corners both press and pass their guys inside and off to the safeties, settling into zones right around the first down marker. Pennington rolls out and has nothing, comes back into the pocket and Freeney eats him for lunch.Brackett was all over the checkdown guy, obviously the safeties had the receivers covered, and the pursuit was coming quickly. But hey, look! Pressing them seems to work! Gruden praises Jennings for not buying a TE fake falldown then crossing into his zone. Didn’t see it at all, but I’m not sure covering a guy who comes into your zone is really all that worthy of high praise.
PUNT!

Summary:

• only complaint is that 2nd and 8.

Drive 4:

1st/10/40y: Colts come out in a conservative looking nickel. backed way off. This is only Marlin’s 2nd play of the entire game. Give to Williams, and Session looks like the guy on the spot til he gets hit hard. Bethea comes up, not quite a perfect route, but is there in plenty of time to stop him for a 3 yard gain but misses another tackle. Hayden hits him decently at 5y and he falls forward another 2. Bethea has missed 3 tackles already.
2nd/3: same D look, draw up the middle, 1 yard gain, good on the linemen. Stunt by Brock, unblocked. Love it. 2 minute warning.
3rd/2: bunch formation and the Colts have 10 in the box. Give to the fullback who gets 3. That’s annoying. Their O Line wins.

1st/10/49: nickel, high safeties, shotgun draw give to Williams who has plenty of space. Bracket looks kind of ridiculous on this play as he is blocked at the 2nd level. Ed gets dominated by one guard. Not great. 8.5 yard gain.
2nd 2: same D, shotgun and quick pass out to 15, Hayden was nowhere near Bess, in fact Session was closer. Hayden backed off so quickly it makes me think he thought it was 2nd and 15 and he was playing a cover 3.

1st/10/36: play action and Foster missed a sack. Complete for a yard or so to Jennings’ man, who came back 3-4 yards ahead of Tim. Obviously they’re backed off a bit more by design here to avoid a big play.
2nd/9: same D again, but the LBs are cheating back a yard more or so. Another draw and Foster and Session get him for 2,tops.
3rd/7: Brock is standing, corners and safeties are deep. Yet another draw, which they read and covered well yet somehow Williams bulled forward for 6 goddamn yards.
4th/1: FG. They should’ve gone for it. There’s been nothing to suggest that they wouldn’t get it. Kind of a wuss move by Sparano.

Summary: Meh. Stronger DTs would’ve meant they punted. Better, but they’re winning at the LOS on almost every single play.

In less detail. Sorry, this was taking too long, and there was a fun little police adventure outside to watch.

Drive 5:

D looks the same pre-snap. Brackett missed a tackle in the backfield when he run blitzed. 3rd and 5 conversion, Ginn beats Jennings even when it was press coverage. He’s just a step ahead on that route, which is to be expected, but Jennings’ change of direction is poor. Hayden, by contrast, closes on a WR screen and blasts him for no gain on the next play from 5 yards away. Williams gets 12 on the play with the Foster offsides when Hagler dives through a gap and Williams just jumps right over him. Stay standing (and onside) and that’s a loss. Next play is wildcat and is stuffed just fine when Muir holds his ground. Pass to Ginn on the same exact route again against Jennings. Big cushion (Hayden too), but decent close to keep him away from the marker. Like it matters though as the fullback easily converts. Session wins on the next play with White at QB, totally beating the guard, and then good LB play again on 2nd and 11 on the checkdown. No pass rush. On 3rd and 8 Lacey comes in for Jennings and coverage by everyone is good and a ball over the middle is tipped. This was another standard 2 deep zone, with the corners letting the WRs go. That’s twice on 3rd down that this provided better coverage than man. Missed FG.

Drive 6:

No rest at all. Jennings is back and Brown drags Ed for like 5 yards. Boo. Brackett’s run blitz whiffs. A pitch left goes nowhere only because Brown slips. On 3rd and 3 the corners press and coverage on the outside is good, but Bess comes across the middle and gets it by a yard. Pass rush was OK but not enough there. 15 yard wildcat run on the pulling left guard play (plus a bad Bethea tackle) immediately followed by the left end around-ish wildcat play for 15 more. Jennings misses a tackle while half blocked and Muir beat a guy and probably would’ve had him in the backfield if he was quicker. Middle run stuffed on first down. Draw play up the middle for 3, decent. On 3rd and 6, Ginn is wide open on the same play as usual, except on Hayden’s side this time. 1st down Wildcat, give to Williams running right plows for 8 when everyone but Muir is completely sealed off. They pick up the first on a standard run left where Brackett gets hit by the FB when he thought he had him. Wildcat gets 6 on another goddamn offsides, this time by Mookie. Both DTs were manhandled by a solitary guard on that play. End 3rd Quarter. First run up middle is stopped just fine, as is the next. So 3rd and 1 after 1st and 5 is not bad at all. Until the next play, where the tired D line is blown off the ball and Brown easily scores. Boo.

Verdict: Another long drive featuring some great OL play but a few plays by the D that were better than any in the first half. We can probably use fatigue as an excuse on that one. But in a nutshell, any play where our DTs did well was a successful play for the Colts.

As a side note, Don Brown’s TD run was fucking great. So powerful. And good play by Pollak too.

Drive 7:

1st down throwing, Ginn drops what should’ve been 1st down on Hayden’s side. 2nd down run played well for no gain. 3rd down 10, and Mathis goes offsides on a play with the typical short sideline pass to Hayden’s side which wasn’t enough for the first otherwise. Fucking penalties. 3rd and 5 and Jennings presses, passed Ginn off, but he catches it in front of Bullitt anyway. Not sure why he had so much space there. Maybe cause Marlin came up to cover the RB in the flat and Camarillo cleared the LB out of the way a bit. That was a big hole in the zone. Kind of unacceptable on 3rd and 10. To make matters worse, Hayden comes up lame – something on his right leg – and leaves the game. Great. 1st down Wildcat gets 5 after Hagler misses a tackle and then the pile is pushed. He makes up for it by stopping the wildcat run right for a loss on the next play. Good job. 3rd and 6 again and Ginn goes right to the seam in the zone, beyond and inside Jennings (who passed him off after pressing) and in front of Bullitt. So now two plays this drive where the zone is exploited after 2 plays last half where it worked great. I think that was deeper than they expected them to throw, and the OL gave Pennington lots of time. Session blows up the next play, the quick toss to Ginn, no gain, and on 2nd and 10 Freeney came in uncontested and missed, but the rest of the D still did OK to force a 3rd and 6. Colts showed blitz with 8 guys right up near the line but only sent 4, run play only got 3. Seemed like they were baiting them into a short throw. Drive ends in a FG.

Then Peyton went out and won the game, and on drive 8 the Dolphins bungled the clock and the Colts D got to play a basic nickel and do fine. They were clearly energized by having a lead. Jennings pressed on the 2nd and 9 run, the 3rd and 4 was complete to a seam in the middle, no big deal, though the next pass to the sideline at the marker was way too much space allowed by Lacey on a fairly obvious route. Jennings then had a great play on Fasano to hit him immediately and keep him in bounds. Finally some pass rush on the sack with the D in a zone. Brackett got hurt here and it’s a total mystery how. Offside on Freeney on the next one and complete to Bess in a big gap, but they seemed to be a cloud coverage at that point with Lacey backed way way off him 20-25 yards downfield. The QB sneak was an easy call because their line was winning everything, but of course Miami was too slow with it. On the 2nd and 10, I have no idea where Bullitt was, but Lacey was right on top of Ginn. Ginn still should’ve caught it though, as Lacey’s hands never got any higher than Ginn’s shoulders His glove looks like it got stuck in the sleeve. 3rd and 10 was a bad throw to a well covered receiver (Lacey and Bullitt) and then 4th and 10 to Ginn probably should’ve been batted by Marlin en route. No matter, though, as Lacey stopped him immediately and the clock kept running down to the final play and the pick.

Conclusion: Way too much negative attention was paid to Jennings. He played like a 4th corner, no more and no less, and did not blatantly flub any play. Not even Deion could defend every single 5 yard quick out. The corners played most of the game backed off, so it wasn’t just a Jennings thing either.

The real issue is that the Miami O Line dominated the front 4 all game and that’s why the game was nearly a disaster. Levante’s conclusions below are pretty much spot on, though I still think that the Wildcat success was mostly their blocking rather than any major screwups on the Colts’ part. Otherwise, he sums it up well in about 20 million fewer words.

We finally agree on something KR. I have already forgot about the run D in this game because of the unusual circumstances for them (that you explained very well, so I won’t repeat them). I’ve said before that the Dolphins are built perfectly to play the Colts. It makes sense that they would dominate us statistically. I’m just glad to escape there with a win. As long as Brackett isn’t out (Hayden seems fine, was on the sideline near the end of the game), we should be fine for the Cards game. Then we have a much easier game against the Seahawks..

The secondary tackled well and the LBs didn’t? Did you watch the same game? While each LB did whiff a tackle, two at most, it was Bethea who missed the most. And he’s part of the secondary.

LB Overpursuit was far less of a problem than being unable to shed blocks. They were usually in the gaps…. they just got whacked by a lineman, FB, or even TE. I only saw a few plays of obvious overpursuit. That problem is something that has been much more apparent in the past.

You sound like you’re just parroting the lazy TV announcers. Throwing this game out the door would be retarded. This game gives every other team a perfect example of how to block the Colts and run against them. You don’t have to use 80 million trick formations and have a direct snap to a running back to pull a guard and have 7 blockers on 7 defenders. You just have to win your matchups. As we’ve said repeatedly – when the DTs get dominated, the rest of the defense is in trouble. If the DTs win battles, the run D is fine. That was the story of nearly every play in that game. Not the wildcat, not the linebackers, not Tim Jennings. Their O line overmatched us. And the coaches will do the opposite of ignoring this game- they’ll study the tape, figure out why, and be more prepared next time.