Week 9: @ Texans

[Johanvil]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

For the life of me I couldn't understand why Luck didn't take off running in this game. I don't remember him running once. With all the pressure Houston was bringing he should have made them pay with his feet. Helps keep the defense honest too.

Agreed. There were some plays where he could have run but he didn't. One especially, when he started running and then threw an incomplete to Fleener or Whalen. We don't want him to become RGIII of last season but since he saw his passes weren't falling, our OL collapsing too many times not giving enough times for the routes to develop (that or the receivers not getting open), and Houston sending blitzes, he should have run. It would have given us some first downs.

[travmil]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

What's up with Fleener's "jazz hands" celebration? Did I miss something on Fallon or what?

Fallon voted Griff Whalen most likely to use Jazz Hands after a TD. Fleenor and Whalen were teammates at Stanford.

[Sollozzo]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

I know that TY is good at punt returns, but I absolutely hate that we continue to use him for it. We already lost our best receiver to injury this year, so why are we putting our remaining top receiver in that position? I cringe every time I see him return a punt. There has to be someone else on the roster who could be adequate enough at it.

[Basketball Fan]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

I know that TY is good at punt returns, but I absolutely hate that we continue to use him for it. We already lost our best receiver to injury this year, so why are we putting our remaining top receiver in that position? I cringe every time I see him return a punt. There has to be someone else on the roster who could be adequate enough at it.

I agree I thought LaVon Brazill would've been a far better option for the PR.

[Sollozzo]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

I agree I thought LaVon Brazill would've been a far better option for the PR.

Agreed. Marvin Harrison returned punts in his rookie year, but we put a stop to that once we realized that he was going to be our WR1 for a long long time. Reggie Wayne has never returned a punt in his life. You don't see the Lions throwing Calvin Johnson out there to return punts. I'm sure that a lot of the top receivers could be excellent at punt returns, but teams understand that throwing your best receiver out there in that scenario is foolish because it adds to the likelihood that they could get hurt.

It really does boggle my mind that we continue to put TY out there to do that. The guy is clearly our best receiver without Reggie. Playing WR is all he should be doing. It's just silly to use him as punt returner when it's a completely unnecessary added risk. Coach someone else to do it. That's something we should have been doing in the bye week.

[Gamble1]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

Agreed. Marvin Harrison returned punts in his rookie year, but we put a stop to that once we realized that he was going to be our WR1 for a long long time. Reggie Wayne has never returned a punt in his life. You don't see the Lions throwing Calvin Johnson out there to return punts. I'm sure that a lot of the top receivers could be excellent at punt returns, but teams understand that throwing your best receiver out there in that scenario is foolish because it adds to the likelihood that they could get hurt.

It really does boggle my mind that we continue to put TY out there to do that. The guy is clearly our best receiver without Reggie. Playing WR is all he should be doing. It's just silly to use him as punt returner when it's a completely unnecessary added risk. Coach someone else to do it. That's something we should have been doing in the bye week.

I can think of a few teams who have done this in the past. Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson to name a few. Punts are way harder to field than kick offs and its really important to have a sure handed guy doing the job.

[Bball]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

TY could always be instructed to fair catch everything outside the 10 yard line...

[Heisenberg]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

punt returns are one thing, but having TY return KO's is dumb. KO's don't even matter with the rule change last year. hell, I wouldn't be upset if they sent 11 guys to try and block it and just let the ball land wherever it may.

[Trader Joe]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

Luck is just incredible. I don't know that anyone in sports has ever lived up to the hype like he has. Even Lebron, LBJ did individually but it took Clevenland a couple years to get rolling. Luck just wins football games

[Since86]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

How many times does Luck need to lead the Colts back from behind, by opening up the playbook and allowing him to make plays with his arm, before Pep figures out that it might be a better idea to open it up a bit from the start of the game instead of waiting until he's forced to do it?

[Bball]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

punt returns are one thing, but having TY return KO's is dumb. KO's don't even matter with the rule change last year. hell, I wouldn't be upset if they sent 11 guys to try and block it and just let the ball land wherever it may.

KO is a live ball....

[Johanvil]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

How many times does Luck need to lead the Colts back from behind, by opening up the playbook and allowing him to make plays with his arm, before Pep figures out that it might be a better idea to open it up a bit from the start of the game instead of waiting until he's forced to do it?

Are you talking about the designed plays or the ratio between pass/run plays?

If it's the the former, I definitely agree with you.
If it's the latter, I don't think it was the case yesterday. The pass/run analogy was 40/14. Even when we were back at 7-0 and 14-0 we had more passing plays than rushing ones. It's not like we fell way behind the score and then started throwing the ball out of necessity.

Now we weren't successful for few reasons that have been mentioned ( shambolic play by OL, players not getting open, Luck having few bad throws).

[D-BONE]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

I'm planning to re-watch game, I was following in the moment but a bit distracted by a sick child. I've seen some suggesting in the second half one part of the change in offensive approach was a lot of no-huddle shotgun. That plays into the aggressiveness and opening up of the offense, too, if those observations are accurate.

[Pacergeek]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

I'm planning to re-watch game, I was following in the moment but a bit distracted by a sick child. I've seen some suggesting in the second half one part of the change in offensive approach was a lot of no-huddle shotgun. That plays into the aggressiveness and opening up of the offense, too, if those observations are accurate.

It seems the offense runs better when Luck is allowed to go full gunslinger. Luck has improved his decision making, and rarely makes a bad pass into coverage. Nonetheless, coaches want a "power" run game that really slows down Luck, and the entire offense

[Eleazar]

Re: Week 9: @ Texans

It seems the offense runs better when Luck is allowed to go full gunslinger. Luck has improved his decision making, and rarely makes a bad pass into coverage. Nonetheless, coaches want a "power" run game that really slows down Luck, and the entire offense

I don't think it is that as much as we spread out the defense and don't allow the defense sub or recover.