Friday, October 10, 2008

18 Plays...mostly

The 18 Plays podcast is not dead...but it is in a coma. We sat down to record it on Wednesday night, and were depressed to discover that the slow internet connection I have here has made it impossible. It's really too bad, because this would have been a seriously fun game to talk about. There's nothing we can do about it until I get a house and real internet, so for now we are going to have to just do write-ups of the 18 Plays. Enjoy the first installment, such as it is.

Links:
Merrill Hodge looks at the tape and finds two things wrong with the Colts, and one surprised me. He says Freeney doesn't look right and isn't making as many game changing plays. Freeney is making at least one or two HUGE plays a game, but I think his lack of consistent impact has as much to do with the kind of plays teams are running as it does his health. The Colts O isn't scoring enough to put real pressure on teams to throw. When it does, you'll see Freeney make even more plays. Hodge's stat on mental errors by the O-line is right on and at the heart of what's wrong with the Colts.

Dr Z gets one question right and the other...he just got lazy. He crushes the Manning v Manning debate, but then totally misunderstands the context of the Bill Polian quote. He seems to think Polian wants fewer holding calls. The article made it clear that he wants MORE holding calls. Read the original piece Z, then comment.

11 comments:

shake'n'bake said...

Merril Hoge is also so concussed he thinks Marvin is so done that the Colts shouldn't even have him on the field most of the time.

Bob M. said...

I TOLD you guys months ago that Andre Johnson was a concern--he was responsible for most of their best season last year and if he wasn't injured, the div would have been even statstically better (though they might have reduced Tenn/Jax's success).

Bob M. said...

18 plays rocked, BTW. thanks.

shake'n'bake said...

Hayden is officially out.
Marlin, Freeney, Gonzo, Sessions and Richards are all back at practice.

I think Gonzo is the least likely to go, because it's a concussion. Then Sessions because he missed two days and no one from the Colts talked about him playing or not. Then Freeney, Richards and Marlin the most likely.

Anonymous said...

Freeney, Gonzo, and Jackson are going to play, but what the $#@& is wrong with Ugoh??? He isn't on the injury report, but he's not the starting LT? We need Ugoh in at LT so that C.Johnson can play LG. We need him for THIS GAME. Arg.

shake'n'bake said...

Either he's not 100% and they want him very close to it before putting him back on the field or he's benched for some reason (that can't possibly be on the field play).

Deshawn Zombie said...

I think the implication with Ugoh is that he is still not 100%, but is a better option at back up than whoever would be an option if he was inactive. In other words, he's hurt bad enough that he's not 100%, but if they really need him he can go and modestly effective.

All I know is that to be worse off than CJ means he must be pretty bad.

Bob M. said...

Nice stat from ESPN's Sunday Countdown picks for this weekend:

"No team's better at using and abusing the clock than the Indianapolis Colts. On average, they use only 25.65 seconds per play, the fastest pace of any team. When they have a lead of seven or more points? That goes all the way down to 35.75 seconds per play, the slowest pace of any team in those situations. " Let's see... who can be responsible for thopse stats...? Stan, any ideas? Some guy named Manly? Hanning? Manling? Something like that.... Even with his OL in tatters, maybe because of it in some instances, PM is ruling the clock.

shake'n'bake said...

You make fun of me for liking Simmons, but then you watch ESPN's NFL coverage (minus the actual MNF broadcast). Who's so high and mighty now.

shake'n'bake said...

On the bright side, One of the Ravens starting CBs is out, along with their starting SS and nickelback. Their starting RT is doubtful, their left tackle, Ray Lewis, their backup SS and a backup LB are all questionable.
It looks like the Colts have finally met a team as injured as they are.

Bob M. said...

Shake,
I agree about the injuries looking comparable ("God, my check is in the mail"), but I never made fun of you for liking Simmons (even as you say part of the time). I just said he's a worthless piece of narrow-minded, biased, self-obsessed excrement. Your view is perfectly valid, just different from mine. It happens to be as wrong as a Red Sox fan marrying a Yankee fan, or anyone paying to actually see a Jags game live, but it's still perfectly okay. No making fun here.

And I really don't watch TV--anything I get is from the Internet unless the Colts are broadcast in the Seattle area. And those stats were pretty interesting--first time I have come across them. My kids playin a continuously running clock flag football league and as coach last week I considered really m-i-l-k-i-n-g the clock and slowing things down once they got ahead by one TD. But I relented and we scored one more near the end. But if the game is close.....

Okay, I admit that if my nighttime workload is not too burdensome I WILL watch the end of a SNF/MNF game regardless of who is playing once my kids are asleep. As it is, it's 1 a.m. on a Saturday and I am taking a break from work to check on the horseshoe, just in case Ugoh got, like, you know, a groin transplant or something.

Oh, I just found out at work yesterday that the local station cut away from the usual game for the final 4 minutes of Colts/Texans last week. Oh the pain of not knowing!
Okay, back to the grindstone.