Colts Defensive Coordinator Matt Eberflus: Young Players Will Make Difference

INDIANAPOLIS — He sounds as if everything in a two-year overhaul has gone according to plan, except for the part where the Indianapolis Colts defense falters in a late-season collapse to the 2019 season.

Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, entering his third season, still sees the positives of his defensive personnel getting continually younger and faster with fresh talent entering 2020. The Colts added an interior cornerstone with All-Pro defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, who entering his fifth season is just 26. The only projected starter older than him is defensive end Justin Houston at 31.

When Eberflus arrived along with head coach Frank Reich, the Colts switched from a 3-4 to a 4-3 scheme. It was going to take time to not just adjust to that transition but find players that fit that philosophy.

“I think the switch from there and also the standard – setting the standards – is a big part of that first year,” Eberflus said in a Monday Zoom video conference call. “When we accessed that season, we looked at it and said, ‘Hey, we did a relatively good job of doing that.’ We made the switch from 3-4 and then we also set the standards in terms of guys – if you just watch it from 10,000 feet, I think you can see the effort, the hitting, and the things we want to see on tape.”

He mentions the philosophy of retired Colts coach Tony Dungy, who arrived in 2002 with a design of getting quicker players. That process took time, experienced some hiccups along the way, but eventually blossomed into a Super Bowl XLI winner in 2007.

“The thing Coach (Tony) Dungy used to always stress is the quickness, the instincts, and the striking ability,” Eberflus said. “We still stress those things today and I think the first year we saw that. Now, the second year we ended up drafting a bunch of rookies and we were making the transition to more of a personnel standpoint – not that we didn’t do that the first year because we did. Obviously, we got Darius Leonard, (Kemoko) Turay and those guys, too. But the second year we drafted a bunch of guys defensively. We were going to put those guys in and play because we knew that they were out future, they were going to be our future and they were going to be a big part of our success going forward. So we knew that we were going to put them in there and we couldn’t be afraid to put them in there right away so they can get that experience and playing time because we knew they were good enough.

“Point and case – Rock Ya-Sin, Khari Willis, Bobby Okereke, Ben Banogu, Marvell Tell III or any of those guys that we put in there. We knew that at the end of this year, 2019, we wanted to have a young, but experienced defense and that is what we have now. So we have guys that have a lot of play underneath their belt and they understand what the standards are. Also, going forward for this year with the acquisitions that we have had, we feel good where we are right now but again, situations have dictated to us that we are not able to evaluate the way we normally do. So we are going to have to adjust and adapt to those situations.”

He’s referring to offseason training activities being handled remotely because NFL facilities have been closed indefinitely by the coronavirus pandemic. A young defense needs quality practice time together on the field, so going over everything in Zoom video conference calls wasn’t part of the plan.

In 2019, the Colts ranked 16th in fewest total yards allowed, 16th against the rush, 23rd against the pass and 18th in points allowed. In 2018, the Colts ranked 11th in fewest total yards allowed, eighth against the run, 16th against the pass and 10th in points allowed.

Eberflus acknowledged that his defense was bound to experience growing pains these past two years. That said, he echoed the sentiments of Reich and general manager Chris Ballard in reiterating the Colts didn’t finish strongly enough defensively, when they lost seven of nine games and finished 7-9 in 2019.

Except for an easy 38-6 home rout of Carolina in Week 16, the Colts allowed an average of 35.25 points in their last four losses. And a fifth loss before that stretch, 20-17 at Houston, saw the Colts fail to protect a 17-10 lead in the third quarter, a reoccurring theme for a team that finished 5-6 in one-score games.

The Colts led 17-7 in the third quarter of a 31-17 home loss to Tennessee and were ahead 35-21 in the third quarter of a 38-35 road loss at Tampa Bay.

A 5-2 season start turned at Pittsburgh when the Colts led by a field goal at halftime and were in front 24-23 in the fourth quarter of a 26-24 loss.

“We believe in every one of those guys,” he said of the influx of young talent. “You remember when we all first started doing our jobs – coaching, writing or on TV, whatever that might be. You get better at it. You get better at doing your job and that takes experience. That was just simply the situation we were in.

“We were turning over a defense from a 3-4 defense to a 4-3 defense and that is OK. We understand in the vision that we had from coach Frank and Chris, we knew that this was the vision that we have and it is a holding process. You take one step at a time. We felt that after those first four games that we started to really come on. There was a situation in the middle there where a lot of those young players were playing at a very high level, we thought. There were the eight games or 10 games in the middle there where we thought that we were doing a nice job. We were winning those games where I thought we were doing a decent job of that.

“I think that is going to pay off, I know it will. Like I said, we believe in those guys and the maturation of each one of those players. It doesn’t matter if it is (Anthony) Walker or Hook (Malik Hooker), guys that were there one year before us or guys that we got the first year, Darius (Leonard) or (Kemoko) Turay, or the six guys we got last year or the three or four guys we got this year. That is just turning over a roster and having building blocks, which we have – that inexperience, turning that into experience.”

(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)