ColtsSpeak: Tripp Babbitt

PhilB: You’re the first call when we’ve had a game played, so I guess I ask you about your mood this morning?

Tripp: Well, I was surprised they lost (at Jacksonville). So my mood is I’m a little down on the team. I thought there were some poor decisions, not only by Philip Rivers but the coach (Frank Reich) also on a couple key plays. The penalties hurt ‘em. The Jaguars defense was a lot better than I thought they would be. I think that the Colts are going to be facing a lot tougher quarterbacks than Gardner Minshew, as we move forward.

PhilB: Yeah, that’s kind of humbling, isn’t it? He’s 19 of 20. Two of the last three games the Colts have played, going back to last year, the other quarterbacks have had only one incompletion. Remember Drew Brees in New Orleans?

Tripp: Absolutely, yeah. I was disappointed in the defense. I thought they would be a lot better than they were. I thought they exposed the secondary. Like you said, 19 out of 20, and that’s not an elite quarterback. I’m not saying he’s a bad quarterback, he’s not just an elite quarterback.

PhilB: Yeah, he’s good, he’s young, and shown a lot of smarts, but you’re right, he’s not (elite). And that’s disturbing. You touched on it, and I was trying to decide if it’s my biggest concern, but the secondary looked lost at times. When it came to picking up guys, a double team where T.J. Carrie stops moving and is staring at the quarterback and safety Khari Willis, no way can get over there. And safety Malik Hooker getting burned by a rookie on a stop-and-go route. Hooker should know that route easy. I don’t know. Xavier Rhodes, I don’t know where he was, whether he decided to leave the area code. Rivers bothered me a lot. T.Y. Hilton’s drops bothered me a lot. The penalties can be fixed. The offensive line didn’t block, but I kept coming back to the defense and the secondary and thinking, man, that looked about as far apart from reality as anything. But I’m open to discussion and debate on it.

Tripp: Nah, I think you summed it up pretty well. I’ll be honest with you, after watching the beginning of the game, they were rolling, I mean literally rolling at the beginning of the game. When Marlon Mack got hurt, that’s such a huge injury for the Colts, moving forward for the offense. But it really fell off. Rivers relies a lot on play-action to help get guys open and it just didn’t seem to work after Mack went down. I don’t know if that’s what you saw.

PhilB: Oh yeah, they couldn’t run the ball worth a damn. Mack had a healthy yard-per-carry average, but Nyheim Hines and Jonathan Taylor didn’t. You think about the three times they needed 1 yard, one on fourth down, they had three rushes trying to gain 1 yard up the gut and didn’t get it. I criticized Frank initially for trying with Nyheim on that fourth-down play, when it could have been 14-0. Then they went with Taylor the other two times, slammed the power up the middle, and still didn’t get it. That told me the O-line wasn’t getting it done. It started in there. Ryan Kelly got his $50 million, but he was hurt. Quenton Nelson has a sore back. Anthony Castonzo is banged up a bit. All three of those guys couldn’t have been healthy because I couldn’t believe they didn’t move those guys back.

Tripp: What they called the fourth-and-1 there on that second drive that you were referencing was really a fourth-and-2. It was 1-and-9/10s. (Laughing.) They ran it behind Quenton Nelson, and you’d think he’d do that. You’re right, he’s hurt, but he definitely got beat on that play.

PhilB: That was predictable, in my mind. I guess they thought because they had Nyheim out there that that would throw the Jags off because he’s a speed back in a power situation, but it ended badly. Nyheim had a great game, so I put that on Frank. Not for going for it, I love going for it. And then Rivers, he admitted that a couple of plays earlier, he missed tight end Jack Doyle on the slant. He threw the ball outside to Zach Pascal for 6 yards. It was one of the things Rivers lamented, if he had not looked off Jack Doyle and stayed with him a second longer and hit him, it’s 14-0 and nobody is talking about the fourth-down play. Doyle head-faked the guy and slanted inside. Perfect throw and it’s a touchdown. I’m not saying it would have definitely happened, but Doyle is pretty damn reliable down there, if Rivers throws it to the spot, he scores. Rivers’ two interceptions looked too familiar to me.

Tripp: Yeah, and he got lucky on one in the first half. He had a long third-down play, and he just kind of threw it up, and Parris Campbell caught it over his shoulder. But the other two got intercepted that he threw up like that. They were short.

PhilB: Way off.

Tripp: They were just poor throws, bad decisions.

PhilB: Yeah, and you think well, those were just two throws. He passed for 363 yards. My wife came home from work and said, ‘Well, he threw for a lot of yards.’ Yeah, that’s his M.O. Critics will tell you that’s Philip Rivers to a tee. The optimists will say you’re always in the game, he takes a shot, he’s not afraid, there’s not a defense he can’t recognize. The critics will say his M.O. is getting you close, then when you need him in the final minutes to come back and win, he throws a back-breaking interception.

Tripp: And then you also have to wonder is the arm strength still there? Then you start getting those types of questions.

PhilB: Yeah, that’s still a question.

Tripp: I don’t know whether he’s Peyton Manning in Denver. Peyton had such a great defense. We don’t have that. There were a few throws in there, I don’t know, I would guess the Colts would know whether the velocity of his throws are still elite or not. He has the ability at times to make good decisions, but I just can’t quite figure out when you’re in that much pressure a couple of times, which again you alluded to the fact that the line didn’t hold up as we expected, but when he gets pressure his go-to is to throw it, even if he’s not sure where it’s going.

PhilB: They paid the guy $25 million. He makes more money than anybody on the roster. I’m not trying to be too harsh here, but you’re paid to make it happen, make it work.

Tripp: I think we all thought that, with the offensive line being the squad that it is, he would get better protected. At the beginning of the game, as I said, those first two drives with the ball, they were in a rhythm, and then I think the two turning points were the fourth- and I’m going to call it two, and then Mack going down.

PhilB: You’re right. I wrote my analysis late. I had time to think about it. I came to the summation that it was another loss at Jacksonville, another season-opening loss, and another reminder that not much has changed. I probably should have put more stock in Mack getting hurt. I mentioned it. As much as it’s a bummer and is sad, it sure simplifies the running back situation. It simplifies what you’re going to do after the season because you’re not going to re-sign a guy with an Achilles injury.

Tripp: Especially a running back.

PhilB: Sorry, Mr. Mack. I’m not saying anybody getting hurt is good, but the time is now for Taylor. He’ll get more touches. I saw enough to be encouraged. I don’t blame him for not being able to run anywhere because they didn’t block.

Tripp: He’s definitely going to have to step up. It almost seems like, in this first game, they were protecting him by not playing him. I was expecting him to come in on the second series a little bit more. And then rookie Michael Pittman Jr., that was the other person who kind of surprised me. Zach Pascal, he was thrown to twice and caught it twice. But Pittman should have been in there a little bit more. We’ve got to get those guys in there.

PhilB: Yeah, I don’t understand that. It wasn’t until like the second quarter when Taylor was used. It might not have been until Mack got hurt. Come on, I understand easing him in, but they looked like that had no intention of using him. I get that you’re crossing ‘em up with Nyheim Hines, and Hines played well, but come on. What’s all this ‘one-one’ punch talk if you don’t use one punch?

Tripp: There’s another thing that really kind of disturbed me, it’s a smaller thing, but it still kind of sticks with me, the Parris Campbell penalty for show-boating.

PhilB: He was flexing. He’s got real nice biceps. Geez, what were you thinking? I like Parris, but I ripped him on Twitter. I cut you off, were you about to say when you see a young player act so foolishly and so selfishly, it makes you question how he’s being coached or how the team is being coached?

Tripp: I didn’t say that, but you did. (Laughs.) That’s what I’m thinking.

PhilB: I had the same thought.

Tripp: That’s supposed to be one of their strengths is this whole kind of mature locker room they have. I found that to be out of character and it bothers me from the standpoint of that’s not really who the Colts are. I don’t think it really helps anything, and it certainly deteriorates the culture when you have that type of stuff going on. That’s the stuff the Jaguars always would do, you know? That was their thing.

PhilB: How did you feel about T.Y. Hilton on Thursday? He was giddy and happy. He said they couldn’t cover him when he’s hurt, they couldn’t cover him when he’s healthy, this is going to be fun, he couldn’t wait, this is going to be a different Colts team, this is going to be the best team he’s been on. In my analysis, I chastised both him and Darius Leonard for talking too much.

Tripp: There’s some deterioration there in the culture. When Parris Campbell did what he did, somebody should have gotten in his face. I would have liked to have seen Quenton Nelson or somebody grab him. It just wasn’t what you would expect from the Colts. With T.Y., I didn’t catch that, but yeah, you can’t have that. He has kind of a tainted background going back to Florida International.

PhilB: Why run your mouth about those guys?

Tripp: Yeah, I think the time to have done that would have been after they won the game, which they didn’t. Granted, if they had the play-action going and they did the things and Mack wouldn’t have gotten hurt, maybe they would have had enough points in there, but it was going to be a high-scoring game after I saw the defense the first few times.

PhilB: Yeah, T.Y. had three drops in the game. He said the last two, the cornerback didn’t do anything, he just dropped it. The other on the sideline, where he hit the ground and it popped out. It would have been a tough catch, the two feet just inside the sideline, but we’ve seen him make that so many times. Great players make great plays. You expect that. And when it hits his hands, that’s the Reggie Wayne rule. He told me if it touches the hands, he should catch it.

Tripp: I think him not playing most of the second half of the season last year, this was the preseason. That’s kind of what I saw overall. It was higher level than preseason, but that’s stuff you see in preseason. It doesn’t really matter. He’s going to have to acclimate himself pretty quickly if these Colts are going to win anything over or close to eight games this year.

PhilB: Well, what do you think? They’ve got Minnesota coming in.

Tripp: Let’s hope for a precipitous increase in play.

PhilB: The Vikings gave up a bunch of points to Aaron Rodgers, so you’ve got two teams with shaky defenses.

Tripp: Right now, I’d take Minnesota’s offense over ours. If it’s a race, I’d take them. I’m so shocked about the defense. I really am. I knew the secondary wasn’t quite up to par, but I really thought there would be a lot more pressure on the quarterback, but there wasn’t. There really wasn’t.

PhilB: It’s funny, they got four sacks, but without the sacks, Minshew seemed to have all day to throw and guys were wide open.

Tripp: I totally agree. I don’t know if there’s anybody on the market, but I think you’ve got to try something. You have to figure out something to shore up that particular thing. Maybe the coaches are looking at it and they’re saying, ‘Well, we had the wrong scheme’ or those types of things. But, boy, I didn’t see it. I saw them getting beaten pretty regularly all over the field, no matter where you were.

PhilB: If there’s anything else you want to say, it’s your floor.

Tripp: I guess the only other thing I would have to say, if I had to sum it up, I think it might be a long season.

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