Every week Parris Campbell Jersey , I will present a summary of some basic and advanced stats for the Colts performance relative to the league. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com and the nflSCrapR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.It’s difficult to talk about how good a defense is when the opposing offense was clearly hobbled, but I’ll do it anyway.The Colts defense against the Titans was excellent. Indy’s D forced 6 punts on the first 7 drives, limiting the Titans to just a field goal and the following 4 drives included 2 interceptions and a turnover on downs.Tennessee only managed 11 first downs and a 52% Drive Success Rate.That defensive effort is in the 95th percentile of any team on the year. TEAM TOTALSI like most of those numbers, but my favorite is Third Down Conversions of 11%. That is the 3rd best mark of the week and the “all down” conversions of 22% ranks 8th. I also like that only 1 first down was given up by penalty.PASSINGThe defense didn’t manage any sacks, but they did hold Blaine Gabbert to only 165 yards through the air. A low Yards per Attempt was lowered even more in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt due to2 interceptions.Yards After Catch given up was a little high but a lot of that was due to the mere 3.4 air yards per completion. RUSHINGIndianapolis stifled the Tennessee running game.Derrick Henry was the only Titan to touch the ball on the ground and while he managed 5.8 Yards per Carry that is skewed by 2 long runs.On the day he was held to under 100 yards and over half of his runs were for less than 3 yards.His only real contribution was 4 first downs resulting in an low overall Success Rate was low. CONCLUSIONS & NEXT MATCH-UPYou could look at this as more a failure by the Titans as opposed to a win by the Colts, but against a bad offense, a good defense will dominate and that is what happened here.Next, the Colts defense travel to NRG Stadium (again) to try and make a below average Houston offense look even worse.Here is how each team ranks in terms of passing (ANY/A) and running (wRSR).Match-upsRankHOU OffIND DefRankHOU OffIND DefThe top 5 Colts run defense should have the advantage over the bottom 5 Texans run game.They manage to put up yards but their success rate is low.It’s the match-up against the pass that is more interesting.Deshaun Watson has a top 5 YPA of 8.2, so even if the Colt’s get an early lead, game script will work against the Indy defense.The Achilles’ heel of Houston’s pass game is Watson’s tendency to hold the ball (3.01 seconds 4th longest in the league). In the first 2 games against the Texans,Watson threw for 642 yards at 8 yards per attempt for a cumulative 101 passer rating. However, over the two games, the Colts sacked him 12 times resulting in a pedestrian ANY/A of 6.4 and limiting him to 3 passing TDs. It’s going to take that kind of constant pressure to keep the Watson genie in the bottle. TRAILING 5 WEEK TOTALS (per game)SEASON TOTALS (per game) INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Three postseason losses taught Anthony Castonzo some valuable lessons about playoff football.The Indianapolis Colts left tackle hopes his teammates find an easier way to learn."Basically, my advice is not to take it any differently," Castonzo said Wednesday as the Colts prepare for Saturday's wild-card game in Houston. "Practice the same way, work the same way, play the same way. You have to not make it more than it is." It's a mantra coaches and players in Indy have stuck to since the Tony Dungy era.The Hall of Fame coach, who brought Indy its first football title http://www.coltsfanshop.com/Ben-Banogu-Jersey , often talked about how most playoff games were lost rather than won because of the natural temptation to try and do too much — and the ensuing mistakes.Young players, the Colts know, tend to be the most vulnerable and Indianapolis (10-6) has one of the league's least-experienced teams.Twenty-four of the 53 players on the active roster are in their first or second NFL seasons and only 15 have participated in a playoff game.Castonzo, T.Y. Hilton, Andrew Luck and Adam Vinatieri are the only remaining active players from Indy's previous playoff team, which lost in the AFC championship game at New England in the 2014 season.Of the seven who own Super Bowl rings only three — linebacker Najee Goode, defensive end Jabaal Sheard and Vinatieri — have actually been on the field for those title runs.The other 47 players on Indy's roster have won a total of six postseason games, with midseason acquisition Mike Mitchell accounting for half.So first-year coach Frank Reich recruited some help this week."I was sitting around thinking, ‘OK, how many playoff games has (Vinatieri) played?'" Reich said, noting the answer was 30. "So I said, ‘All right, tell me Vinny what have you learned?' The (text) message he sent me, I thought, was vintage and we shared that with the team (Tuesday) morning and we had Vinny share a few extra thoughts on that. A lot of wisdom in what he was saying."Vinatieri didn't need a handful of Super Bowl rings to provide credibility for his message.The league's oldest active player, at age 46, became the NFL's career scoring leader earlier this season and heads into his 31st playoff game already holding the title of career postseason scoring leader."I told them it's a playoff game but it's the Houston Texans we're playing," Vinatieri said. "There are a lot of ebbs and flows and you've got to stay focused on your job."His words appear to have resonated.Rookie linebacker Darius Leonard, the league's top tackler with a franchise-record 163 Rock Ya-Sin Jersey , said he's sticking to his regular routine and Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson, another rookie, isn't making any changes either. Both are eager to get started.Reich acknowledges there is one significant difference between the regular season and postseason: Mistakes are magnified.So the Colts will spend the rest of this week on cleanup duty after having two turnovers and 12 penalties in Sunday's 33-17 playoff-clinching victory at Tennessee."I would say the needles adjust slightly. For instance, the importance of running and stopping the run, the importance of the turnover battle, the importance of penalties or lack thereof," said Reich, who played on all four of Buffalo's AFC championship teams in the 1990s."I think we have proven we can win a game throwing it 50 times, but in my experience that gets harder to do in playoff football. You can do it if you have to, but you want to establish dominance."Being young also has an advantage."They have no idea how big a moment it is and if they go on a run they'll have no idea how special it is," former punter Pat McAfee said after doing his first NFL broadcast for Fox Sports last weekend. "My rookie year we didn't lose until we chose to lose in the Super Bowl and I thought, we'd be back the next year."Instead, McAfee never made it back and Castonzo missed out on the playoffs each of the past three years.But this time feels different to Castonzo, who believes the young guys such as Leonard and Nelson have changed this team. They didn't crack under the pressure all season and none of the Colts expect them to start now."They bring a lot of energy and are playing at a high level," he said. "That's one of the big reasons we're here."Notes: Center Ryan Kelly (stinger), safety Clayton Geathers (knee), linebacker Anthony Walker (shoulder) and running back Jordan Wilkins (knee and ankle) were full participants at practice Wednesday. Geathers and Kelly were inactive last week, but Kelly said Wednesday he expects to start Saturday. … Pro Bowl tight end Eric Ebron took the day off while four-time Pro Bowl receiver T.Y. Hilton missed another workout because of his injured ankle.
Posted June 10, 2019 03:02 AM
Every week Parris Campbell Jersey , I will present a summary of some basic and advanced stats for the Colts performance relative to the league. Thanks to Pro Football Reference, NFL.com and the nflSCrapR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.It’s difficult to talk about how good a defense is when the opposing offense was clearly hobbled, but I’ll do it anyway.The Colts defense against the Titans was excellent. Indy’s D forced 6 punts on the first 7 drives, limiting the Titans to just a field goal and the following 4 drives included 2 interceptions and a turnover on downs.Tennessee only managed 11 first downs and a 52% Drive Success Rate.That defensive effort is in the 95th percentile of any team on the year. TEAM TOTALSI like most of those numbers, but my favorite is Third Down Conversions of 11%. That is the 3rd best mark of the week and the “all down” conversions of 22% ranks 8th. I also like that only 1 first down was given up by penalty.PASSINGThe defense didn’t manage any sacks, but they did hold Blaine Gabbert to only 165 yards through the air. A low Yards per Attempt was lowered even more in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt due to2 interceptions.Yards After Catch given up was a little high but a lot of that was due to the mere 3.4 air yards per completion. RUSHINGIndianapolis stifled the Tennessee running game.Derrick Henry was the only Titan to touch the ball on the ground and while he managed 5.8 Yards per Carry that is skewed by 2 long runs.On the day he was held to under 100 yards and over half of his runs were for less than 3 yards.His only real contribution was 4 first downs resulting in an low overall Success Rate was low. CONCLUSIONS & NEXT MATCH-UPYou could look at this as more a failure by the Titans as opposed to a win by the Colts, but against a bad offense, a good defense will dominate and that is what happened here.Next, the Colts defense travel to NRG Stadium (again) to try and make a below average Houston offense look even worse.Here is how each team ranks in terms of passing (ANY/A) and running (wRSR).Match-upsRankHOU OffIND DefRankHOU OffIND DefThe top 5 Colts run defense should have the advantage over the bottom 5 Texans run game.They manage to put up yards but their success rate is low.It’s the match-up against the pass that is more interesting.Deshaun Watson has a top 5 YPA of 8.2, so even if the Colt’s get an early lead, game script will work against the Indy defense.The Achilles’ heel of Houston’s pass game is Watson’s tendency to hold the ball (3.01 seconds 4th longest in the league). In the first 2 games against the Texans,Watson threw for 642 yards at 8 yards per attempt for a cumulative 101 passer rating. However, over the two games, the Colts sacked him 12 times resulting in a pedestrian ANY/A of 6.4 and limiting him to 3 passing TDs. It’s going to take that kind of constant pressure to keep the Watson genie in the bottle. TRAILING 5 WEEK TOTALS (per game)SEASON TOTALS (per game) INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Three postseason losses taught Anthony Castonzo some valuable lessons about playoff football.The Indianapolis Colts left tackle hopes his teammates find an easier way to learn."Basically, my advice is not to take it any differently," Castonzo said Wednesday as the Colts prepare for Saturday's wild-card game in Houston. "Practice the same way, work the same way, play the same way. You have to not make it more than it is." It's a mantra coaches and players in Indy have stuck to since the Tony Dungy era.The Hall of Fame coach, who brought Indy its first football title http://www.coltsfanshop.com/Ben-Banogu-Jersey , often talked about how most playoff games were lost rather than won because of the natural temptation to try and do too much — and the ensuing mistakes.Young players, the Colts know, tend to be the most vulnerable and Indianapolis (10-6) has one of the league's least-experienced teams.Twenty-four of the 53 players on the active roster are in their first or second NFL seasons and only 15 have participated in a playoff game.Castonzo, T.Y. Hilton, Andrew Luck and Adam Vinatieri are the only remaining active players from Indy's previous playoff team, which lost in the AFC championship game at New England in the 2014 season.Of the seven who own Super Bowl rings only three — linebacker Najee Goode, defensive end Jabaal Sheard and Vinatieri — have actually been on the field for those title runs.The other 47 players on Indy's roster have won a total of six postseason games, with midseason acquisition Mike Mitchell accounting for half.So first-year coach Frank Reich recruited some help this week."I was sitting around thinking, ‘OK, how many playoff games has (Vinatieri) played?'" Reich said, noting the answer was 30. "So I said, ‘All right, tell me Vinny what have you learned?' The (text) message he sent me, I thought, was vintage and we shared that with the team (Tuesday) morning and we had Vinny share a few extra thoughts on that. A lot of wisdom in what he was saying."Vinatieri didn't need a handful of Super Bowl rings to provide credibility for his message.The league's oldest active player, at age 46, became the NFL's career scoring leader earlier this season and heads into his 31st playoff game already holding the title of career postseason scoring leader."I told them it's a playoff game but it's the Houston Texans we're playing," Vinatieri said. "There are a lot of ebbs and flows and you've got to stay focused on your job."His words appear to have resonated.Rookie linebacker Darius Leonard, the league's top tackler with a franchise-record 163 Rock Ya-Sin Jersey , said he's sticking to his regular routine and Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson, another rookie, isn't making any changes either. Both are eager to get started.Reich acknowledges there is one significant difference between the regular season and postseason: Mistakes are magnified.So the Colts will spend the rest of this week on cleanup duty after having two turnovers and 12 penalties in Sunday's 33-17 playoff-clinching victory at Tennessee."I would say the needles adjust slightly. For instance, the importance of running and stopping the run, the importance of the turnover battle, the importance of penalties or lack thereof," said Reich, who played on all four of Buffalo's AFC championship teams in the 1990s."I think we have proven we can win a game throwing it 50 times, but in my experience that gets harder to do in playoff football. You can do it if you have to, but you want to establish dominance."Being young also has an advantage."They have no idea how big a moment it is and if they go on a run they'll have no idea how special it is," former punter Pat McAfee said after doing his first NFL broadcast for Fox Sports last weekend. "My rookie year we didn't lose until we chose to lose in the Super Bowl and I thought, we'd be back the next year."Instead, McAfee never made it back and Castonzo missed out on the playoffs each of the past three years.But this time feels different to Castonzo, who believes the young guys such as Leonard and Nelson have changed this team. They didn't crack under the pressure all season and none of the Colts expect them to start now."They bring a lot of energy and are playing at a high level," he said. "That's one of the big reasons we're here."Notes: Center Ryan Kelly (stinger), safety Clayton Geathers (knee), linebacker Anthony Walker (shoulder) and running back Jordan Wilkins (knee and ankle) were full participants at practice Wednesday. Geathers and Kelly were inactive last week, but Kelly said Wednesday he expects to start Saturday. … Pro Bowl tight end Eric Ebron took the day off while four-time Pro Bowl receiver T.Y. Hilton missed another workout because of his injured ankle.