Stampede Blue
The Colts lost a tough one on the road to a very good Rams team. Before we get into some of the key plays from the game, let’s just state the obvious. The Colts had every reason to win that game. They beat themselves, which we’ve unfortunately seen too often with this team.
But it’s also Week 4, and I’m a glass half full kind of guy. There were a ton of positives from that game. Let’s break it all down.
This is the Jonathan Taylor run that unfortunately called back. This is 21 personnel Wide Zone (It’s technically 12 personnel but I’m going to classify Warren as a fullback on this play).
Watch Drew Ogletree kickout the force defender and create a massive hole. The Rams have a pirate stunt on and the offensive line does a gorgeous job playside picking that up. A pirate stunt is a DL movement that allows defenses to clog interior gaps and force runs to bounce outside or allow secondary players to fit exterior gaps. Both Fiske and Verse will stunt into the nearest interior gap. That can create a lot of weird angles for lineman and make it hard to execute combination blocks.
AD Mitchell gets flagged here for holding. My explanation is that after the touchback he felt like he needed to press. The reality is that the corner didn’t want any part of tackling Jonathan Taylor, so he didn’t need to grab him like that.
The Colts love to get into 3×1 formations and isolate AD Mitchell on a corner. This allows them to utilize Mitchell’s route running prowess to feast on corner matchups.
As soon as Jones sees that deep safety creep toward the three receiver side, it’s on. He knows he has AD Mitchell 1-on-1 with no safety help. AD Mitchell then proceeds to catch the ball one handed and then SPIN MOVE away from the corner and run by the defense for a would-be touchdown
It’s a special play. It’s also ridiculous not to run through the letters and logos and finish this play. Two things are true here.
I love AD Mitchell. I think he’s the most talented WR in that room, and it’s not really close. The Colts need him. With Pierce coming back, it’s likely he’ll be relegated to a much smaller role. But the reality, is that he’s too good to bench for long periods of time. I still believe he’s the future of the Colts WR room. I think we’ll see him bounce back in a big way. He’ll be much much better for this.
Now to some positivity. This is absolutely awesome from Daniel Jones. The Colts are running an offset FB dive and Daniel Jones pushes the pile. This is the little things that winners do. I promise you NOBODY expects a QB to do this. The fact that he did it shows how badly he wants to win. This is what winning players do.
This was a really nice...
