Just how good is the Colt defense...really

[patfanken]

This thread comes as a result of a post by Andy Johnson. I replied in his thread, but think that the Subject deserved its own thread. I would disagree with Andy that I'm not exactly sure how good the Colts defense is. Luck and circumstance have give the Colts little competition this season.

1. Saints - over rated team in disarray at the begining of the season. Yeah the Colts beat them, but so did a lot of other teams with lesser lineages.

2. Barely beat a Tennesse team who is lead by a QB whose production is a lot less than his hype. A team, that at THAT time, didn't have a set RB or NFL quality WRs

3. Barely beat a Houston team WITHOUT its main receiver, and who has subsequently shown they are STILL a middle of the road, undistiguished team AT BEST.

4. Denver - They allowed 24 points to a team with a struggling QB injured WRs, and the worse rushing defense in the league

5. TB - they allowed a seemingly strong effort of only 14 points, but it was against a team without any running game, massive injuries on the OL and an entire offense which has had to be carried by Jeff Garcia, need I say more.

6. Jacksonville - Which has been their best showing so far, but the impact lessens when you think that the Colts were coming off a bye week, AND the Jags lost their QB early in the game...never a good thing at any time, but especially when he is THAT inexperienced and has a stable of pretty bad WRs. Not having your starting QB is a problem anytime, but when you lose him early in the game, THAT is the worse scenerio you can have.

7. Carolina - again the Colts draw the lucky card by having to face 43 year old Vinnie Testeverde, and then hit the Jackpot when HE went down with an injury. They also had the luxury of playing a team that is #32 in sacks.

BOTTOM LINE: I know you can put a similar list together to describe the Pats defense, but that is not the issue here. What I want to rebut is the overrating of the Colt defense, which has not played a SINGLE game against an offense of even marginal accomplishments, or one that was relatively healthy. On the other hand you can make a good arguement that both Dallas and SD had better front 7's and the Skins have a better secondary, yet NONE of those teams came close to stopping the Pats.

They will play a top notch defense THIS week, so by Monday we will see what they are REALLY capable of.

 

[3rtyse7en]

Indy's D really is pretty good, but they won't be able to stop the Pats, no one can. They have too many weapons, they're smart, well coached, efficient, explosive, relentless, they take what the D gives them, and they never beat themselves.

This O is unlike any other the Colts have seen, even with perfect execution, I don't see them holding the Pats to less than 30 pts.

 

[BelichickFan]

AND the Jags lost their QB early in the game

Plus, Garard was 8-12 before getting hurt.

I know you can put a similar list together to describe the Pats defense

You can put a list of bad QB we've faced. However when you look at the Top Thirteen rated QB (using QB rating over 90, I know it's not perfect but it's good enough), the Colts have faced Garard and Garcia (and Garard did well before going out).

Garcia, while not scoring points, had his second highest rating of the year against Indy - 121.6.

Garard had his lowest of the year, a still OK 82.6 against Indy but only in 12 throws.

We've faced Romo, Anderson, Palmer, Rivers. A lot more of the top rated QB.

Romo had his second lowest rating of the year - though a still solid 91.0.
Anderson had his second lowest of the year at 59.0.
Palmer had his lowest of the year at 65.7.
Rivers had a middle of the pack rating for him of 74.2.

The bottom line on top QB we've faced is they've averaged a 72.4 rating against us whereas they average 93 against the league. Against the other teams that would place the top four QB we've faced around 5th-7th against the league but equal to Trent Green against us. Whereas the only top QB the Colts have faced for at least a half had a rating in the game that would make him second in the league to Brady.

 

[ALP]

Indy's D really is pretty good, but they won't be able to stop the Pats, no one can. They have too many weapons, they're smart, well coached, efficient, explosive, relentless, they take what the D gives them, and they never beat themselves.

This O is unlike any other the Colts have seen, even with perfect execution, I don't see them holding the Pats to less than 30 pts.

i disagree, i do not believe the colts D is anywhere near good...at all...

they have an OK defense, one that is slightly better then last years regular season defense, and defenetely not as good as last years playoff defense

and no, u cant make a similar list with the pats...we have faced the top offenses all eyar long, and stiffled them...the only one that did slightly good was the boys, and they got 27 points, the rest never showed up...

i believe our O will blow away Indy's D, and our D will once again stiffle manning to do his trademark move (no, not make commericials) but to choke

 

[QuinielaBox]

We will get a good indicator today of how good the defenses really are.

My guess is another 38-34 score and I hope we are the ones with the 38.

The defense this year is behind the offense relatively speaking.

Indy will try to punish our aging linebackers. Our secondary will need to come up huge and get a couple of turnovers to tilt the game to the Patriots.

 

[boggleboggle]

This ties in with something else that has bothered me in the run up to this game.

Lots of people claim that the Colts have played a tougher schedule than the Patriots. This is presumably based on the better combined record of the teams Indy has faced. However, neither the Colts not the Patriots are likely to lose to a team with a losing record, so whether a team is 3-4 or 0-8 is really irrelevant - it is a comfortable win in both cases. Furthermore, some of the good teams Indy has played (like Jacksonville) were were affected by key injuries during the game. In other words, they were not as good a team when they played Indy as they were for the rest of the season so using their record as a measure of strength is misleading.

What is important is the number of good teams you have beaten. The Pats have beaten 4 teams currently with winning records compared to the 3 teams for Indy. Furthermore, I think Dallas and San Diego are better than any team Indy has yet faced. I would not be shocked if Indy loses to San Diego next week.

To me beating up on weak teams is not a good test of a great team. The true test is this: can you beat (and beat well) other good teams? In this regard, the Pats have been tested at least as much, if not more, than Indy.

 

[PF1996]

I also think the Colts' defense is overrated. I've watched several of their games and it's apparent that you can throw as well as run, with ease, on the defense. It's somewhat strange that the media is ignoring the fact that the Colts are allowing over 100 yards rushing per game at a clip of a 4.1 average. The Colts passing defense has been helped by

1. Playing unbalanced offensive teams. The Colts have played one offensively balanced team, that being Denver with ypa ranks in the top 16 and Denver had its usual offensive output against them. The other teams are either awful running the ball or awful passing the ball which allows the Colts to simply overplay one or the other.

2. Playing against QBs who are not good at throwing the long ball/don't have receivers to stretch the field.


I do think the Colts D has improved from last year due to better speed and tackling from the linebackers/secondary and this shows in the PYPA. Their defense is adequate playing against unbalanced offenses and playing from ahead but is definitely not a "great" or "very good" defense. I actually think the same can be said about the Pats D except that I think we can stop the run better than the Colts. Our problems are a SOFT secondary and slow linebackers.

 

[JJDChE]

and no, u cant make a similar list with the pats...we have faced the top offenses all eyar long, and stiffled them...the only one that did slightly good was the boys, and they got 27 points, the rest never showed up...

...and the Cowboys only scored 20 of the 27 on offense.


We've played 4 top 10 scoring offenses, we've held each one to at least 10 point under their season average.

#2 Dallas (20 - 32.4 = -12.4)
#4 Cleveland (17 - 27.7 = -10.7)
#6 Cincinnati (13 - 25.3 = -11.3)
#8 San Diego (14 - 24.6 = -10.6)

 

[3rtyse7en]

i disagree, i do not believe the colts D is anywhere near good...at all...

they have an OK defense, one that is slightly better then last years regular season defense, and defenetely not as good as last years playoff defense

and no, u cant make a similar list with the pats...we have faced the top offenses all eyar long, and stiffled them...the only one that did slightly good was the boys, and they got 27 points, the rest never showed up...

i believe our O will blow away Indy's D, and our D will once again stiffle manning to do his trademark move (no, not make commericials) but to choke

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a best case scenario for the Colts, they hold us to 30 pts.,and that's if they execute perfectly, and we play our worst game.

 

[BelichickFan]

What is important is the number of good teams you have beaten. The Pats have beaten 4 teams currently with winning records compared to the 3 teams for Indy. Furthermore, I think Dallas and San Diego are better than any team Indy has yet faced. I would not be shocked if Indy loses to San Diego next week.

Even forgetting the Browns, Dallas and SD were good wins and Washington was 4-2 coming in.

Regarding SD, their three losses were to NE, GB, KC who are a combined 18-4. Their demise was greatly exaggerated and that was a damn good win. I also think there's at least a 50-50 chance SD beats Indy after the Patriots, win or lose, out physical the Colts this week and leave them crying for their mommies.

 

[PF1996]

This ties in with something else that has bothered me in the run up to this game.

Lots of people claim that the Colts have played a tougher schedule than the Patriots. This is presumably based on the better combined record of the teams Indy has faced. However, neither the Colts not the Patriots are likely to lose to a team with a losing record, so whether a team is 3-4 or 0-8 is really irrelevant - it is a comfortable win in both cases. Furthermore, some of the good teams Indy has played (like Jacksonville) were were affected by key injuries during the game. In other words, they were not as good a team when they played Indy as they were for the rest of the season so using their record as a measure of strength is misleading.

What is important is the number of good teams you have beaten. The Pats have beaten 4 teams currently with winning records compared to the 3 teams for Indy. Furthermore, I think Dallas and San Diego are better than any team Indy has yet faced. I would not be shocked if Indy loses to San Diego next week.

To me beating up on weak teams is not a good test of a great team. The true test is this: can you beat (and beat well) other good teams? In this regard, the Pats have been tested at least as much, if not more, than Indy.

It's funny. While recordwise, the Colts have played a tougher schedule, I would feel much better about playing Tampa, Carolina, Jacksonville, Tennesse, Houston, New Orleans, than I felt playing Cincinatti, San Diego, Dallas or Washington. Another interesting point is that all the teams on the Colts schedule thus far have all played each other (i.e., they're all beating up on the same weak teams from the NFC south or on each other).

 

[patfanken]

There is only ONE thing that worries me about this game. That last time some team looked THIS good when comparing all the PREGAME stats was....Rams vs Pats in the superbowl 2001.

 

[BelichickFan]

There is only ONE thing that worries me about this game. That last time some team looked THIS good when comparing all the PREGAME stats was....Rams vs Pats in the superbowl 2001.

But Mike Martz was the HC - as great a mind as he is, I doubt he was serving much humble pie

 

[ALP]

There is only ONE thing that worries me about this game. That last time some team looked THIS good when comparing all the PREGAME stats was....Rams vs Pats in the superbowl 2001.

no need to worry...then the pats had BB, and he gave them the win...

now the COLTS dont have BB, so he cnat give them the win...

 

[PATRIOT64]

Lets look at some of the Colts defense against the opposing QBs in the past 2 weeks - Quinn Gray (most of the game)
Vinny Testeverde and David Carr

After beating up and stopping these two world beating QBs only giving 7 points each game, they now face Tom Brady - A bit of an upgrade don't you think?

While we have not faced HOF QBs either the likes of Jason Campbell and Tony Romo definately are respected across the league more so than the 2 recent QBs the Colts have faced.