Cory Bailey, a Westwood native and former Xaverian Brothers standout, will be providing some film analysis for BSJ this football season. A former captain at Fordham as an offensive lineman and long snapper, Bailey signed as a free agent with the Giants and played a season in NFL Europe. A former coaching intern with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bailey has had a long career as a college coach with stints at Dean and Iona before becoming the head coach at Assumption and, most recently, as the recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach at Coastal Carolina the previous six years. A former Patriots ballboy in the 1980s, Bailey recently relocated his family back to Massachusetts.
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Overall, the Colts are a young team that is clearly in the process of trying to rebuild. As with any young team, injuries to key players create major problems. Anthony Castonzo, Jack Doyle, Marlon Mack, Darius Leonard and Ty Hilton all appear to be out for this Thursday night's game. The Colts have been competitive in all of their games but I think their schedule has been weak so far.
Colts offense
They like to be in 11 (three receivers) or 12 (one back, two tight ends, two receivers) personnel. From a passing game standpoint, they are a West Coast-based scheme. Their run game is very basic. They like counter, some trap, and some outside zone/stretch.
Andrew Luck is not the same player. He still has good instincts, can move fairly well and makes decent decisions. However, his arm strength and timing is off. He has looked better and better every week. But he struggles mightily with arm strength.
The offensive line is below average. The tackles are very poor. LaRaven Clark and Denzel Good get beat time and time again. They are definitely the weakness and should be exploited.
At tight end, Luck seems to have a lot of confidence in Eric Ebron and targets him a bunch. He has decent hands and moves fairly well but I don’t think he needs special attention. At receiver, Hilton is legit. Fortunately, I don’t think the Patriots will see him. Grant, Pascal and Johnson are solid but not game changers. At running back, Marlon Mack is certainly missed. However, I like Nyheim Hines. He’s the kind of back that has given the Patriots' linebackers trouble in the passing game. I’d expect the Colts to use some of the Philly pass attack and try and isolate linebackers early and often.
Colts defense
The Colts are very basic and give away what they are doing with pre-snap alignments. They are not a man-coverage team. They major in Cover 2 and Cover 3. When they play Cover 2, they reduce their front every time. They expect their corners to be run-support guys. When they blitz, it’s never more than bringing five and even then they like to play 3-under, 3-deep zone. I saw a little bit of man to man on the goal line and in short-yardage situations. Third-and-long, they tend to be in Cover 2 and will even drop a DL in the low hole.
I believe their DL is the strength of their defense. They play a bunch of guys and are active. The guys I noticed most were Marcus Hunt, Jabaal Sheard, and Denico Autry. They are an upfield group and are on the move with line twists quite a bit, obviously with all of the cover 2 that they play. As a result of all the movement, the perimeter run game is very good against these guys. Inside the tackle run game has not been as effective.
The linebacker group is athletic but I feel like they miss a lot of fits in the run game. Specifically Darius Leonard. Anthony Walker is their Mike and is also the hole dropper in cover 2. He gets beat quite a bit. Play action will hold the linebackers and allow the Pats to get receivers behind them. The secondary is very non-descript to me.
The corners are not physical in the run game. They will hold an edge and do a good job turning the run game back inside but they don’t want to mix it up. The safeties are asked to keep things in front of them and get a ton of depth. They will come up to support the run but can be out of control. Against the Texans, the Colts attempted to play coverage while also locking DeAndre Hopkins up man to man. It didn’t work very well.
Thoughts vs. the Patriots
Overall, if the Colts play the coverage they’ve been playing all season, Tom Brady will eat them up. Expect a lot of completions inside the numbers. If Rob Gronkowski is healthy, he could have an 8-10 catch game. Julian Edelman will create a lot of problems with all of the short to intermediate zone beating/option routes.
I don’t expect the Patriots defense to struggle at all with the Colts run game. I am concerned about the old Super Bowl game plan coming back and the linebackers struggling in space. However, this should be a 3-4 sack game with multiple hits and a couple interceptions on Luck.
The Colts are solid on special teams. New coach Frank Reich will take chances on offense and special teams. Don’t be surprised if there’s a fake field goal or punt.