Football IndyStar The Colts have no idea what they're doing - Page 4

oaklandhater · 09-10-2017, 09:23 PM

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports...ing/645793001/

The Colts have no idea what they're doing by Gregg Doyel,

LOS ANGELES – The Indianapolis Colts stink, and not just the players on the field for that 46-9 loss Sunday to the Los Angeles Rams in their 2017 NFL opener. The whole damn franchise stinks, starting with the owner and oozing downhill, as this sort of excrement tends to do.

The front office stinks. The coaching staff. The scouting department. The players? Bless their hearts, yes. The players stink, too.

A loss like this, it goes looking for people to blame and it does not go wanting. The difficulty is deciding where to start. Quarterback Scott Tolzien was terrible, but you don’t start there. Tolzien has been something less than an NFL quarterback for years, and he stayed in character Sunday from his first pass of the game: an interception the Rams returned for a touchdown. He threw a second pick-six, and flirted with a third and a fourth, before being benched for Jacoby Brissett.

Tolzien’s amateurish play Sunday – quarterback rating: 33.8 – was as predictable, if not as uncommon, as a lunar eclipse. Where were General Manager Chris Ballard and coach Chuck Pagano looking this summer when they chose Tolzien over Stephen Morris? Directly into the sun.

OK, that’s not the real answer. The real answer is even dumber.

While Morris was fabulous for a second consecutive year of preseason games, Ballard said last week that the job went to Tolzien because he was better than Morris in offseason OTAs and again in the early practices of training camp. And Pagano on Sunday said he “would never second-guess” that decision, because Chuck Pagano is nothing if not reliably prone to say things that sound blatantly untrue.

No, this loss wasn’t Tolzien’s fault, though he did try to take the blame for it. To his credit, he acknowledged that football “is a team effort, but I certainly want to own this” defeat. To Pagano’s credit, he accepted blame for this loss on multiple occasions, even as he referred to the Rams as "the 49ers." To the credit of star receiver T.Y. Hilton, who fumbled his first catch of the season as he was diving to avoid contact – read that again – he tried to take the blame as well, saying: “I fumbled. It started with me.”

Tolzien’s amateurish play Sunday – quarterback rating: 33.8 – was as predictable, if not as uncommon, as a lunar eclipse. Where were General Manager Chris Ballard and coach Chuck Pagano looking this summer when they chose Tolzien over Stephen Morris? Directly into the sun.

OK, that’s not the real answer. The real answer is even dumber.

While Morris was fabulous for a second consecutive year of preseason games, Ballard said last week that the job went to Tolzien because he was better than Morris in offseason OTAs and again in the early practices of training camp. And Pagano on Sunday said he “would never second-guess” that decision, because Chuck Pagano is nothing if not reliably prone to say things that sound blatantly untrue.

No, this loss wasn’t Tolzien’s fault, though he did try to take the blame for it. To his credit, he acknowledged that football “is a team effort, but I certainly want to own this” defeat. To Pagano’s credit, he accepted blame for this loss on multiple occasions, even as he referred to the Rams as "the 49ers." To the credit of star receiver T.Y. Hilton, who fumbled his first catch of the season as he was diving to avoid contact – read that again – he tried to take the blame as well, saying: “I fumbled. It started with me.”

Colts QBs Scott Tolzien and Jacoby Brissett talk to the media after the team's 46-9 loss to the Rams. Matt Kryger/IndyStar

Who’s right? They’re all right. A loss like this, a loss in need of a mercy rule given that one team belonged in Little League, it’s too heavy for any single set of shoulders. It falls on offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, who called two goal-line rushes, power running plays, with his power back – Robert Turbin – on the sideline. And after those two carries by home-run threat Marlon Mack resulted in a loss of 1 yard, Chud put in Turbin … and called for Tolzien to throw it. Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson, who delivered the pick-six on the Colts’ first pass of the game, might’ve had another had he hung onto this amateurish toss by Tolzien.

This loss also falls on defensive coordinator Ted Monachino, who either chose converted safety T.J. Green to start and play most of the game at cornerback – or yielded that decision to Pagano, when what Monachino should have done was offer to resign before letting someone as lousy as T.J. Green undermine his defense.

And make no mistake: T.J. Green is lousy. Moved from safety midway through the preseason because all he'd consistently done there since last season was miss tackles and deliver cheap shots, Green missed a tackle early in the second quarter when Rams running back Todd Gurley was fighting for extra yardage near the goal line. With Gurley’s entire body as a target, Green went for a cheap shot – he targeted Gurley’s head – but glanced off Gurley’s helmet, allowing the Rams running back to fall forward, into the end zone for a touchdown.

Oh, and Green was in coverage on Rams receiver Cooper Kupp’s 18-yard TD catch that gave the Rams a 24-3 lead. At the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Kupp ran the 40-yard dash in 4.62 seconds. Green ran it in 4.34 seconds. On the touchdown in question, Kupp was wide open because he was running away from Green.

Don’t ask me to explain that. Still can’t believe I saw it.

Can’t believe what happened on the Colts’ second series, either, after Tolzien completed a short pass to Marlon Mack and Mack sprinted toward the end zone. When 5-8, 190-pound Rams safety Lamarcus Joyner approached near the goal line, he nudged the 5-11, 210-pound Mack pushed out of bounds. It was a soft play by Mack, a play the Colts have become famous for in recent years as their blowout losses have mounted – and then it became something much worse.

Because Chuck Pagano didn’t challenge the official ruling that Mack was pushed out of bounds before reaching the end zone.

No, Pagano was too busy hurrying his next play onto the field – a power rush that Chudzinski gave to speed back Marlon Mack, who had just demonstrated that power is not his thing. With the Rams unable to substitute, Pagano was looking for a personnel mismatch, and he found one: His personnel was outmatched.

Pagano outsmarted himself, the only NFL coach I’ve ever seen him outsmart, and afterward said that whole sequence was on him.

And it was. But other sequences were on the defense, which put almost no pressure on Rams quarterback Jared Goff (career-best 117.9 quarterback rating) and allowed multiple Rams receivers to run wide open. The defense has been completely remade from the Colts’ 2016 opener, literally 11 new starters, which means that’s on the general manger who put the unit together. And his name isn’t Ryan Grigson.

The Colts offensive line, meanwhile, allowed four sacks and nine quarterback hits in a game where they attempted just 21 passes. It was this past week when Pagano had decided “I’ve never felt better about an offensive line,” but again, that’s what he does: He says things that simply don’t sound honest. Pushed on that piece of Pollyanna a few days ago, Pagano doubled down:

“Never felt better,” he said again. “You guys can write it. You can put it on the record and hold it to me.”

Done. And now let's move on and remember what Colts owner Jim Irsay had said this summer about the biggest problem of the Andrew Luck era: his lack of protection.

“I’m telling you,” Irsay said in June, “the offensive line is fixed.”

I'm telling you something else: The people who run this team, from the owner on down, have no idea what they’re seeing, saying or doing.

TLO · 09-11-2017, 01:13 PM

Ha ha!

Sassy Squatch · 09-11-2017, 01:15 PM

Simply Red · 09-11-2017, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

Ha ha!

Heh!

**Ming the Merciless** · 09-11-2017, 01:20 PM

thats what they deserve for 'sucking for luck'

karma

**Ming the Merciless** · 09-11-2017, 01:21 PM

they ****ing tanked that season for luck

**** them forever

I actually think I hate the colts more than the donks or fade

Simply Red · 09-11-2017, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

they ****ing tanked that season for luck

**** them forever

I actually think I hate the colts more than the donks or fade

well you shouldn't hate anyone.

ChiefsCountry · 09-11-2017, 01:57 PM

Just watch Colts blow this year, get #1 pick and then trade Luck to Denver.

big nasty kcnut · 09-11-2017, 02:07 PM

Indy shitty.

**notorious** · 09-11-2017, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

Just watch Colts blow this year, get #1 pick and then trade Luck to Denver.

I bet Bolles would stay in college if Indy has the 1. Denver will draft him with the 1 in 2019.

Red Dawg · 09-11-2017, 02:25 PM

I have no problem with them getting their butt kicked every game. They deserve it.

crayzkirk · 09-11-2017, 02:31 PM

I just can't really give a darn about the Colts. It looks like they will be fighting with the Jets for the first pick. Andrew Luck might be done. Blame the kicker that will remain nameless however Marty and his stupid game plan of throwing the ball down the frozen sideline when running the ball was working is why the Chiefs lost that game.

Screw any team that leaves it's fans behind because they don't make enough money. And screw the NFL wanting me to give $10 to hurricane relief when the NFL makes BILLIONS for the owners. Let the owners give some money back that the fans have been paying to watch this entertainment.

Mile High Mania · 09-11-2017, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

Just watch Colts blow this year, get #1 pick and then trade Luck to Denver.

If only... Denver is the place where former #1 QB picks by the Colts go to end their careers with SB titles though.

'Hamas' Jenkins · 09-11-2017, 03:38 PM

Pagano is one of the few people on Earth that actually benefited from cancer. The dude is totally clueless. Can't embed, but watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCmvSWN0xus

MagicHef · 09-11-2017, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mile High Mania

If only... Denver is the place where former #1 QB picks by the Colts go to end their careers with SB titles though.

I'm pretty much assuming it will happen.

Hoopsdoc · 09-11-2017, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Pagano is one of the few people on Earth that actually benefited from cancer. The dude is totally clueless. Can't embed, but watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCmvSWN0xus

That's hilarious.

09-10-2017, 09:23 PM
oaklandhater future chiefs fans Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: oakland california Casino cash: $7628993	IndyStar The Colts have no idea what they're doing http://www.indystar.com/story/sports...ing/645793001/ The Colts have no idea what they're doing by Gregg Doyel, LOS ANGELES – The Indianapolis Colts stink, and not just the players on the field for that 46-9 loss Sunday to the Los Angeles Rams in their 2017 NFL opener. The whole damn franchise stinks, starting with the owner and oozing downhill, as this sort of excrement tends to do. The front office stinks. The coaching staff. The scouting department. The players? Bless their hearts, yes. The players stink, too. A loss like this, it goes looking for people to blame and it does not go wanting. The difficulty is deciding where to start. Quarterback Scott Tolzien was terrible, but you don’t start there. Tolzien has been something less than an NFL quarterback for years, and he stayed in character Sunday from his first pass of the game: an interception the Rams returned for a touchdown. He threw a second pick-six, and flirted with a third and a fourth, before being benched for Jacoby Brissett. Tolzien’s amateurish play Sunday – quarterback rating: 33.8 – was as predictable, if not as uncommon, as a lunar eclipse. Where were General Manager Chris Ballard and coach Chuck Pagano looking this summer when they chose Tolzien over Stephen Morris? Directly into the sun. OK, that’s not the real answer. The real answer is even dumber. While Morris was fabulous for a second consecutive year of preseason games, Ballard said last week that the job went to Tolzien because he was better than Morris in offseason OTAs and again in the early practices of training camp. And Pagano on Sunday said he “would never second-guess” that decision, because Chuck Pagano is nothing if not reliably prone to say things that sound blatantly untrue. No, this loss wasn’t Tolzien’s fault, though he did try to take the blame for it. To his credit, he acknowledged that football “is a team effort, but I certainly want to own this” defeat. To Pagano’s credit, he accepted blame for this loss on multiple occasions, even as he referred to the Rams as "the 49ers." To the credit of star receiver T.Y. Hilton, who fumbled his first catch of the season as he was diving to avoid contact – read that again – he tried to take the blame as well, saying: “I fumbled. It started with me.” Tolzien’s amateurish play Sunday – quarterback rating: 33.8 – was as predictable, if not as uncommon, as a lunar eclipse. Where were General Manager Chris Ballard and coach Chuck Pagano looking this summer when they chose Tolzien over Stephen Morris? Directly into the sun. OK, that’s not the real answer. The real answer is even dumber. While Morris was fabulous for a second consecutive year of preseason games, Ballard said last week that the job went to Tolzien because he was better than Morris in offseason OTAs and again in the early practices of training camp. And Pagano on Sunday said he “would never second-guess” that decision, because Chuck Pagano is nothing if not reliably prone to say things that sound blatantly untrue. No, this loss wasn’t Tolzien’s fault, though he did try to take the blame for it. To his credit, he acknowledged that football “is a team effort, but I certainly want to own this” defeat. To Pagano’s credit, he accepted blame for this loss on multiple occasions, even as he referred to the Rams as "the 49ers." To the credit of star receiver T.Y. Hilton, who fumbled his first catch of the season as he was diving to avoid contact – read that again – he tried to take the blame as well, saying: “I fumbled. It started with me.” Colts QBs Scott Tolzien and Jacoby Brissett talk to the media after the team's 46-9 loss to the Rams. Matt Kryger/IndyStar Who’s right? They’re all right. A loss like this, a loss in need of a mercy rule given that one team belonged in Little League, it’s too heavy for any single set of shoulders. It falls on offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, who called two goal-line rushes, power running plays, with his power back – Robert Turbin – on the sideline. And after those two carries by home-run threat Marlon Mack resulted in a loss of 1 yard, Chud put in Turbin … and called for Tolzien to throw it. Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson, who delivered the pick-six on the Colts’ first pass of the game, might’ve had another had he hung onto this amateurish toss by Tolzien. This loss also falls on defensive coordinator Ted Monachino, who either chose converted safety T.J. Green to start and play most of the game at cornerback – or yielded that decision to Pagano, when what Monachino should have done was offer to resign before letting someone as lousy as T.J. Green undermine his defense. And make no mistake: T.J. Green is lousy. Moved from safety midway through the preseason because all he'd consistently done there since last season was miss tackles and deliver cheap shots, Green missed a tackle early in the second quarter when Rams running back Todd Gurley was fighting for extra yardage near the goal line. With Gurley’s entire body as a target, Green went for a cheap shot – he targeted Gurley’s head – but glanced off Gurley’s helmet, allowing the Rams running back to fall forward, into the end zone for a touchdown. Oh, and Green was in coverage on Rams receiver Cooper Kupp’s 18-yard TD catch that gave the Rams a 24-3 lead. At the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Kupp ran the 40-yard dash in 4.62 seconds. Green ran it in 4.34 seconds. On the touchdown in question, Kupp was wide open because he was running away from Green. Don’t ask me to explain that. Still can’t believe I saw it. Can’t believe what happened on the Colts’ second series, either, after Tolzien completed a short pass to Marlon Mack and Mack sprinted toward the end zone. When 5-8, 190-pound Rams safety Lamarcus Joyner approached near the goal line, he nudged the 5-11, 210-pound Mack pushed out of bounds. It was a soft play by Mack, a play the Colts have become famous for in recent years as their blowout losses have mounted – and then it became something much worse. Because Chuck Pagano didn’t challenge the official ruling that Mack was pushed out of bounds before reaching the end zone. No, Pagano was too busy hurrying his next play onto the field – a power rush that Chudzinski gave to speed back Marlon Mack, who had just demonstrated that power is not his thing. With the Rams unable to substitute, Pagano was looking for a personnel mismatch, and he found one: His personnel was outmatched. Pagano outsmarted himself, the only NFL coach I’ve ever seen him outsmart, and afterward said that whole sequence was on him. And it was. But other sequences were on the defense, which put almost no pressure on Rams quarterback Jared Goff (career-best 117.9 quarterback rating) and allowed multiple Rams receivers to run wide open. The defense has been completely remade from the Colts’ 2016 opener, literally 11 new starters, which means that’s on the general manger who put the unit together. And his name isn’t Ryan Grigson. The Colts offensive line, meanwhile, allowed four sacks and nine quarterback hits in a game where they attempted just 21 passes. It was this past week when Pagano had decided “I’ve never felt better about an offensive line,” but again, that’s what he does: He says things that simply don’t sound honest. Pushed on that piece of Pollyanna a few days ago, Pagano doubled down: “Never felt better,” he said again. “You guys can write it. You can put it on the record and hold it to me.” Done. And now let's move on and remember what Colts owner Jim Irsay had said this summer about the biggest problem of the Andrew Luck era: his lack of protection. “I’m telling you,” Irsay said in June, “the offensive line is fixed.” I'm telling you something else: The people who run this team, from the owner on down, have no idea what they’re seeing, saying or doing.
Posts: 23,761

09-11-2017, 01:13 PM	#46
TLO Life is changing.. Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: NW Missouri Casino cash: $2004900	Ha ha!
Posts: 38,832

09-11-2017, 01:15 PM	#47
Sassy Squatch The man you could post like. Join Date: Oct 2010 Casino cash: $2549655
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09-11-2017, 01:20 PM	#49
Ming the Merciless Emporer of Mongo Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Milky Way Casino cash: $3037556	thats what they deserve for 'sucking for luck' karma __________________ ---- 2018 Adopt-A-Chief : Chris Conley 2017 Adopt-A-Chief : FRANK ZOMBO Click here-->*The Holy Chiefsplanet Lexicon **
Posts: 44,477

09-11-2017, 01:21 PM	#50
Ming the Merciless Emporer of Mongo Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Milky Way Casino cash: $3037556	they **ing tanked that season for luck them forever I actually think I hate the colts more than the donks or fade __________________ ---- 2018 Adopt-A-Chief : Chris Conley 2017 Adopt-A-Chief : FRANK ZOMBO Click here-->The Holy Chiefsplanet Lexicon ***
Posts: 44,477

09-11-2017, 01:57 PM	#52
ChiefsCountry The Insider Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Lake of the Ozarks Casino cash: $2408752	Just watch Colts blow this year, get #1 pick and then trade Luck to Denver.
Posts: 49,528

09-11-2017, 02:07 PM	#53
big nasty kcnut The pizza king of kansas Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Somewhere in the u.s.a. Casino cash: $1710900	Indy shitty. __________________ When it's grim, be the grim reaper and go get it. Adopt a chiefs Travis Kelce. You woke up the wrong mother****er!
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09-11-2017, 02:25 PM	#55
Red Dawg Going home eventually Join Date: Dec 2002 Casino cash: $4822858	I have no problem with them getting their butt kicked every game. They deserve it. __________________ If you're not first you're last!
Posts: 30,349

09-11-2017, 02:31 PM	#56
crayzkirk Veteran Join Date: Nov 2016 Casino cash: $3900000	I just can't really give a darn about the Colts. It looks like they will be fighting with the Jets for the first pick. Andrew Luck might be done. Blame the kicker that will remain nameless however Marty and his stupid game plan of throwing the ball down the frozen sideline when running the ball was working is why the Chiefs lost that game. Screw any team that leaves it's fans behind because they don't make enough money. And screw the NFL wanting me to give $10 to hurricane relief when the NFL makes BILLIONS for the owners. Let the owners give some money back that the fans have been paying to watch this entertainment.
Posts: 4,354

09-11-2017, 03:38 PM	#58
'Hamas' Jenkins Now you've pissed me off! Join Date: Jan 2006 Casino cash: $8019572	Pagano is one of the few people on Earth that actually benefited from cancer. The dude is totally clueless. Can't embed, but watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCmvSWN0xus __________________ "When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
Posts: 74,820