Points of Emphasis: Broncos at Colts

Anyone expect the Colts to come out and play that well from the start? In all honesty, I said to many people the Colts will either win this game and it'll be close or they will get just absolutely blown out. Thankfully, the former happened.

The Colts offense did very well right from the start, which can be at least partially attributed to the "promotion" of Chud to Offensive Coordinator. Just so everyone knows, I will only refer to him as Chud because trying to spell his name over and over again will get tedious for me. The team ran the ball more efficiently and used more max protect blocking schemes to keep Luck semi-upright. Also, it makes such a huge difference when the Colts actually win the turnover battle. Not giving opposing teams short fields makes so much difference on how the defense is perceived. Overall, the Colts offense finally leaned on Frank Gore and stopped running so many "go" routes and that made a huge difference.

The one guy who must be kind of pissed that the Colts offense played so well has to be GM Ryan Grigson. It was Pagano's guy, Chud, who really made things work and Grigson's guy, Pep Hamilton, who couldn't get it done. I think this again is another scathing indictment on Grigson's ability and ego. He forced Pagano to go with Pep and once Pagano got his guy in there, the Offense played great. Point: Pagano.

News just recently broke about Andrew Luck suffering a kidney and abdominal injury so I'll mention that briefly as well. We've all said for some time that Luck holds the ball too long and tries to do too much when he scrambles. It's tough to get on a guy for being a football player and trying to do everything he can to help his team win but Luck has to be smarter than to take a hit. I'd rather him Peyton up and just fall down than hold on to it and get blasted. Hopefully Luck will learn from this and be better because of it.

The defense seemingly held the Broncos offense in check, especially in the first half. However, they had two major losses that will likely affect them for the rest of the season. Mike Adams went down with an ankle injury, but reports are that it wasn't as serious as it seemed. And it seemed pretty nasty. Ankle and lower leg injuries have a tendency of hanging around though so I'd be concerned for Adams in the future.

The biggest loss was undoubtedly rookie DE Henry Anderson. Anderson was having a stellar season that may have garnered him some attention for Defensive Rookie of the Year. However, he went down with a torn ACL and his season is lost. That's truly a shame. I'll be interested to see who the Colts plug in to replace him. Zach Kerr was a fan favorite last season and Billy Winn is the leading candidate to replace Anderson but, in my judgment, undrafted rookie T.Y. McGill likely would serve the team best at that position. McGill has played well in limited snaps but has been impressive and is an incredibly hard worker. He's adept at shedding blocks and locating the running back to bring him down.

In a special teams note, it's unfortunate the Broncos got that late TD on the punt return in the first half. Although, how cool would it have been had Pat McAfee knocked that blocker into the return man to keep him from scoring? I'm assuming that's exactly what McAfee was trying to do. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite work out.

In maybe the first time in about 3-4 years, I don't have a lot to say about the coaching. The coaching staff had a solid game plan and seemingly executed it the way they intended. I was a little confused why on several plays they ran Ahmad Bradshaw between the tackles because that's certainly not his strong suit. Beyond that, the coaches did a pretty good job.

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