Three Issues the Colts Defense had Against the Broncos

The Indianapolis Colts started the season on the road in primetime against the Denver Broncos. As expected, both teams showed their ability to drive down the field and put up points. The Denver Broncos offense was the best in the league last year and they look to repeat that type of success again this season.

The Colts are entering year three of the Chuck Pagano era, and after stockpiling defensive players for the past few seasons the Colts expect to have an above average unit.  However during the first game of the season the Colts seamed to have a lot of the same issues on defense that they had in previous years. In this article I will point out three big problems that the defense showed on Sunday night:

Covering a Big and Athletic Tight End

During Week 3 of the preseason, the Colts struggled to contain Jimmy Graham, like most other teams in the NFL do. Julius Thomas is a very promising, young tight end, but he is currently not on the same level as Graham. However, Thomas still presented a huge mismatch for the Colts by catching seven passes for 104 yards and three touchdowns.  The reason for most of Thomas’ success was his ability to beat D’Qwell Jackson, Jerrell Freeman and LaRon Landry in man coverage. D’Qwell was unable to keep up with Thomas’ athleticism, Freeman couldn’t match up with Thomas physically and Landry simply is bad at coverage.

The good news about this game is that we once again saw the coaching staff make a half time adjustment that helped the team almost complete a comeback. Instead of tasking one of the above-mentioned players to play man-to-man, the Colts used a lot more zone looks. For the most part, the Colts would have two or three members of the defense playing zone coverage over the middle to help bracket Thomas. Using one of those players to jam him at the line and using another player in zone to take away part of the field allowed the Colts to slow down Thomas. Hopefully the Colts have learned a lesson from this game and will continue to use more zone looks against big, athletic tight ends.

Where is the pass rush?

The Colts didn’t show much of a pass rush in their first game. Erik “set the edge” Walden seemed like the Colts’ best pass rusher on Sunday and that is kind of crazy.  Cory Redding and Zach Kerr also showed their ability to disrupt plays, but neither do it consistently enough to help carry the pass rush.  Bjoern Werner has shown improvement in the preseason, but was unable to show any of that improvement in this game.

The bad news for the Colts is that Robert Mathis has torn his Achilles tendon and will not be able to return this season to provide a much-needed pass rushing boost. Mathis was not only the defensive leader for the Colts, but was their only constant pass rushing threat last season. The good news for the Colts is that they won’t have to play against Peyton Manning for the rest of the regular season. Manning has always done a good job of taking away the other team’s pass rush and, because of that, the Colts have hope that they can create pressure against other quarterbacks.

Missed opportunities

The Colts had two chances on Sunday night to create a big turnover, but both times they came up short. Early in the game, Peyton Manning threw a pass that bounced off Greg Toler’s hands in the end zone, and instead of getting an early turnover, the Colts gave up a field goal to the Broncos.  The second big missed opportunity came late in the second half when the Colts forced what seemed like a potentially game-changing fumble.  Jerrell Freeman chased down Julius Thomas and knocked the ball out of his hands and the four closest players to the ball all were members of the Colts defense.  However, none of the Colts players ended up with the ball and the Broncos got to continue driving towards the end zone for an eventual touchdown. Although these are only two plays, they led to 10 points for the Broncos in a game that the Colts only lost by seven. You can’t miss these opportunities if you want to beat the best team in the AFC.