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Ask A Colts Fan




Greetings Jags fans! This weekend my Colts head to north Florida for the first of our two meetings this year. With both teams at 0-2 this feels like an early season must-win. The Colts are coming off a game in which they beat the Eagles by 10... only to have the officials reverse the outcome in the last 5 minutes. (Still more than a little salty about that one.) Officiating aside, I'll share some of the early positives and negatives of this years Colts team.

Offense

Andrew Luck is really good... but not quite as good as you want him to be. Everything is there for him to jump into the stratosphere of elite QBs, but he hasn't. He holds the ball a split second too long... sometimes accuracy eludes him just a bit... and he tends to focus in on Wayne and Hilton too much. All that being true, he is still one of the 5-10 best players in the league at the position and can easily carry the Colts to victory on his own.

The WRs are legit. Wayne looks fully recovered from last year's injury. Hilton continues to play well. Nicks hasn't seen a lot of the ball, but has been good when called upon. Dwayne Allen is a great all around TE as well. The biggest problem in the passing game is the OC Pep Hamilton. Very questionable play calling continues this year as he seems to forget that he has one of the best QBs in the league running the team... let him win a game for you!

The running game was actually a pleasant surprise last week. Ahmad Bradshaw has been seeing more snaps than Richardson and rightfully so. He's better. Richardson actually looked serviceable last week as well if he could just hold on to the ball. Credit to the much maligned interior OL which actually did a fair job run blocking for once. They still can't pass protect to save their lives though and this will be a problem against any team who can bring pressure up the middle.

Defense

Overall the Colts defense has been better than they are given credit for, but they have two glaring weaknesses that will ultimately put the team in jeopardy throughout the season. The run defense has been adequate. DL Arthur Jones will likely be out this week which hurts, but Ricky Jean Francois is a decent replacement. The corners have been very good this year. Vontae Davis is living up to his big FA contract by locking down other teams #1 WR. Greg Toler draws a lot of flags (and a lot of undue hatred) but he is a solid #2CB. Darius Butler may be one of the best nickle CBs in the league and had a fantastic outing last week.

Now the bad. There is no pass rush. NONE. I don't believe they even laid a hand on Foles last week. Without Mathis there simply is no one else on the team he can generate pressure. They try to throw in a blitz every now and then, but the success is hit and miss. The other major issue with the defense is right down Broadway. Our safeties are awful. Absolutely putrid. They can't cover, they can't run support, and they can't tackle. Compound this with some shaky ILB especially in coverage and you get open receivers over the middle all game long. We saw it in Denver with Julius Thomas and we saw it last week with Darren Sproles. I have confidence in Andrew Luck to right the offensive ship... the defense will remain adrift all season and ultimately be the limiting factor as to how far this team will go.

Prediction

Colts win because they have to. Super Bowl talk this season is premature, but this team should make the playoffs. At 0-3 that goal is seriously jeopardized. Hopefully (even though there is no evidence to this effect) the coaching staff will have learned their lesson from last week and will actually let Andrew Luck win the game for them. The Jags are definitely on an upswing, but for this game too much Luck and too much Henne.

Colts 31 Jags 17

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