Despite Strong Performance, Colts' Defense Must Be 'Better Situationally'
It's been a rough start to a season filled with high expectations for the Indianapolis Colts, especially on the offensive side of the football.
Injuries, poor play and poor execution in key situations has done in the Colts' offense under head coach Frank Reich as the Colts are off to an 0-3 start.
The Colts' defense is not free of blame though.
Through three weeks, Indianapolis sits 21st in the league in Football Outsiders' DVOA and Weighted DVOA. According to ESPN's stats, the Colts sit 18th in total defense, just ahead of the Atlanta Falcons.
Struggles abound on the defense under Matt Eberflus, largely with situational awareness, especially off of Sunday's loss on the road to the Titans.
Playing sound, situational awareness football, Eberflus says, will help the Colts get back on track defensively, which can go a long way for a banged up Colts team dealing with a number of injuries, especially on the offensive side of the football.
“You have to play winning football and that’s as a football team. I think that we need to just take the positives that we’ve had through the course of the season so far, build upon those and then look and see what we can do better," Eberflus said to the media during his session Tuesday. "Last week against Tennessee, I thought we played the run really well. Take the QB scrambles out of there, which I know you can’t do, the rest of the runners had about 3.85 yards average. I think that was really good. You could feel that on game day. You could feel the guys playing downhill and doing good things and a lot of good things in the run game. I thought the DBs played an excellent job of crack replace. We looked at those things. The takeaways were outstanding. That’s winning football. You take the things that you need to take away.
"Obviously, we limited the explosive plays in terms of with the receivers, we did a good job there. We just have to be better situationally. We get some third downs there on that second series. Then we get to a fourth down, we have to execute better there and then really in the red zone. Red zone, we have to improve as a football team, we have to improve defensively. We’re working hard at those things and those are what we are going to work to achieve this week, and that’s all we have is this week and that’s all we can do is work on for tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and get ready for the game on Sunday.”
While the Colts improved defensively in terms of the explosive plays through the air in Week 3, the fact of the matter is the Colts allowed a number of chunk plays on the ground to Derrick Henry, Ryan Tannehill and the Titans.
That will certainly happen against a dominant run game like the Titans, but overall the Colts must be better situationally, understanding the down and distance, what the Titans are trying to do, and what is being asked of them as a unit.
Do that in Week 4 on the road at Hard Rock Stadium against the Miami Dolphins, the Colts should be 1-3.
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