Don't get me wrong because I like Payton, I love what he has done.
Now that I have got that out of the way........
A blueprint was made to beat the Colts. It doesn't take great players, it doesn't take great defense and it doesn't take great offense. What it does take is patience, will and determination. We lacked all three tonight.
The teams that beat the Colts last year were the Texans, Cowboys, Jags and Titans. Only one of these teams made the playoffs and we killed them.
The way to beat the Colts is to run the ball right between the tackles. There is no other way unless you have a dominant defense and even those have not beat the Colts recently. You have to keep Manning on the sideline, it keeps him out of rythym, keeps the pass rush fresh and gives the defense a chance. Running the ball gets more effective each time you do it. The Colts defense is undersized and when they get tired they lose the advantage of speed. Our offensive line gets to take over and they are forced to come out of the cover 2 to stop it. When they do this then you can pass the ball and take shots deep but until then we are trying to throw into 8 man coverages with a ton of speed.
Every year we circle the shoot out game with the Colts to watch on TV. Every year the Bengals, Chiefs, Vikings and other high powered offenses get run over by Manning and once they get up these teams try to pass more and the ends get to just fly into the backfield and force more mistakes.
You can't get down big to the Colts and if ou do you can't give up on the run.
Payton gets on the podium after the NFCCG and admits and regrets he didn't run Deuce enough and run him more. Deuce only got 6 carries against the Bears and now Deuce might get 10 against the Colts. I like the West Coast offense but when teams dare you to run you have to accept the dare sometimes.
Freeney and Mathis combined weigh about as much as Shanle and Fujita. They have no DT's and they don't play 8 in the box. Could you imagine if Shanle and Fujita were our ends and Grant and Smith were our DT's? That is what you have with the Colts.
I'm sick right now and this is a rant but until Payton can learn from his mistakes then nothing will change. We will roll over bad teams and when it comes to a team that you have to run the ball to beat we will fall short......way short.
Crucify me if you want.