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Speaker 1: Football is about the jimmies and joes and exes and oh's check New York plenty. Ain't thank you, Bruce. It's time to get out the chopboard and diagram some plays. Here's what all starts right, Here's what jam money Chris. This is Inside Football with former Colts and NFL coach Rick Venturi. Hello again, Welcome to Week twelve. This is Inside Football with Rick Venturry. I'm Matt Taylor and the Colts are trying to shake off that heartbreaking seventeen sixteen loss to the Eagles last time out at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts were up ten points going into the fourth quarter, couldn't close the deal, and they're now four and six and one. They've lost four of their last five games. And Rica, I know you're glad the Colts play on a Monday night this week to have that extra day to get over that tough loss to Philadelphia, one of the best teams in the NFL. I know that one got you pretty good. I know you're still kind of heartbroken over that one. Well, yeah, and I'm finally you know, I'm finally onto Pittsburgh. But you're exactly right. I needed forty eight hours. This time, I got myself in such a you know, kind of an upper kind of a fit that we could win this. I felt like that even going in, you know, that we had them just lined up perfectly on the schedule, with the short week, with the struggles they were having, you know, with us having momentum coming out of there. I felt so good about it, really, and I it wasn't a phony. It wasn't like a make believe, you know, motivate yourself. I totally believe that, you know. And then obviously I think both of us were so let down because you know, they teased us again with that thirteen to three lead. It was a lot like the Commanders, you know, thirteen to three lead going into fourth quarter. You know, in our overall numbers all season, defensively have been good in the fourth quarter, but you know, it just wasn't to be. The Eagles made, you know, some good coaching adjustments, and more importantly, their players made big plays. The guys that had to make big, big plays they made them. So you know, it was a gunt wrencher because man, we had a chance to really not only gain credibility, but going to Thanksgiving, you know, five five and one, which is kind of a big number going in there, five hundred. But I will say this is that I've known teams. There's been several teams that are have been, you know in the old days, seven and seventy Christmas in one World Championships, So you know, always not lost, and we certainly can get well this week, you know, if we play well, no doubt about that. Pittsburgh is up next, they're three and seven. But what conclusions did you draw from the Philadelphia game? Where are the Colts? Who is this team with six games to play? And maybe more importantly, you know, bigger picture, Rick, is anything capable of changing in a big way with this team on off? Well, that's a good question, you know, I thought there maybe would. I think we probably drew a little bit too much praise, a little bit too much, a false conclusion out of the Raiders game. I kind of thought that was fool's goal because I knew they were really really bad on defense. But I thought, you know, that would be some momentum. I think the most disappointing thing for me is the same things are plaguist Matt over eleven weeks now, and we haven't fixed them. I thought maybe we would get them fixed into coaching change. I haven't seen any any any of that right yet. And and it really comes back number one to not being able to run the football. Now, in that first drive, you know, they the Philadelphia came out kind of played flat, they played in that over defense, their base defense, and we just cashed them. I mean, I mean our offensive line blocked. They get so much, they get so much criticism, but that first drive, I mean they blocked, they got up into the second level. Jonathan got it downhill. I mean, we practically ran every play and just gashed him. And it looked like, you know, okay, this is gonna be fine. But then really they made they made an adjustment right now. They said, okay, we're going to the double sync. We're gonna play it all day. You know, these guys have had trouble with it. I was surprised they didn't start with it. And then again we got nothing. I mean, Jonathan got twenty five yards, you know, in fifty four minutes. Fifty four four minutes, he got twenty five yards rushing. And when you can't run the football and we haven't figured out how to run it against that bare defense. And I'm really disappointed because our offensive line and Jonathan are taking all the criticism, and part of that is schematic we just don't do. We don't have a good gap blocking scheme and so and they give you that bare front. I've been talking about it for eleven weeks and I people probably think I'm crazy, But there's a reason that he gets twenty five yards in fifty and it's not all the offensive line. I mean, there's there's numbers there, there's not good angles against that defense. So that's number one. And then I think the second thing that really troubled me from an offensive standpoint is we gotta help Ryman and we know that going in. I mean we got a false sense of security against the Raiders, but you know, going against Philly where they have good rushers up and down, I mean, there's no way you can let your left tackle or your right guard alone on great players. It just in particular the year left tackle, because he's going to be out there on a really good player. He's going to be out there in space, and we do so little to help him. I mean almost never occasional chip, but almost never. And so you know, critical situations, we get sacks, and you know, it's really not his fault. He's just not ready to play. A year for him. Now, you know, he'll be ready to play. He'll grow, he'll get bigger, he'll be experienced, he's got some talent. But at this point in time, it's just you know, Riddick and the red zone came right underneath him. He couldn't handle it. And then at the end of the game, you know, Grahams has crushed him. But on the same play, Hardgraves crust Nelson. So it's not like he owns it totally. But that's a real Those two issues are disappointing to me because I look at the game from a you know, very highly technical standpoint and schematic first, but most people don't. I mean even a lot of the media guys have no idea what's really happening. And to me, it's it's it's not a question of whether he's good enough or not. He's not right now. So you really got to help him into me that it's a real you know, like I said in my world, you know, after eleven weeks, that's really that's really inexcusable in some respects. And I guess maybe you could answer this. The other thing that really troubled me was why JT wasn't in there at the end of the game. You have to explain that because they say it's a coaching decision. It was, Yeah, Jeff Saturday and Scotty Montgomery said that in that in that two minute situation, that Dion Jackson would be the pass catching back in that situation over Jonathan Taylor. So that that was the coaching explanation that Jeff gave on Monday after the game on that got it. Now. Defensively, I feel for them in a sense. I've been that soldier so many times. And the biggest issue that one of the biggest what makes a defensive coordinator's job the toughest, And this is statistically, this has been proven, it's been discussed, it's been studied. A defensive coordinator in the National Footballing is the toughest single position in all of pro sports. And the reason for that is you can play, you can play forty eight minutes fifty eight minutes of really good football and if you can't hold it at the end, you know it's on you. It's just this. Everybody thinks you're bum Hey, you didn't do enough. Well, you know, I know, I think seventeen points of the commander, seventeen points to the to the chief, seventeen points of the Eagles, right, but you don't have a lot to show for it. But you don't have show for it. And in the last four games we didn't. We didn't stop the last drive, I mean, and so you know it, you know, those those things there, I mean, I saw a lot of good things, There's no question about it. In gok Way was felt. Gilmore has been tremendous. I thought Facon had the best game. I thought he had shut down Smith after they went after him. Um, you know, I thought McLeod really good and I thought Dale really improved. So you know, you know, but at the end of the day, my biggest, my biggest concern was the third and seven call. And I can't let that go because you know, I do blame the coaching staff on that. I just felt like, you know, that is a situation where if they beat you with a fade route or a stick route, so be it. You just can't let you know, a great running quarterback who runs it in the red zone, who runs it with the game on the line, you can't let them walk in and so you know, I think that you know, if they tell you that they wouldn't want to have that over again, then they're really lying, you know. But at the end of the day, it really came down to the two and it always does. If you look at over time, you can throw out most statistics in the league. It almost always your success or failure usually comes down to how you do in the red zone on both sides. And really this game uniquely came down in the last six minutes to two red zone sequences. Okay, we've got the ball first in goal after Paris Campbell's catched down there. We got a first in goal, and we just have an atrocious series. We run an inside zomboom nothing, we run that reverse path. You tell me why we do that, and then we are Then we get a sack on third down, so you know, instead of have and instead of just putting them away, which you know would have been twenty to ten game over, you know, we have to kick a field goal, and now it's sixteen to ten and at eight game over with four minutes, and then our ability to stop them, you know, in our inability to stop the quarterback running in for a touchdown really was the game because really, at the end of the day, the game down, the real score was seven to three. In the last six minutes, it was really seven to three. You know, if you look at the you know, if you look at the overall numbers in the game, they're they're really they're really pretty close, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, they won the red zone issue in the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter issue, and the other the other critical one. I haven't really talked about this, and this is really disappointing. They won the penalty issue. Penalties just absolutely killed us. So, you know, again, tremendous football game to watch if you're a fan. Again, boy, I'll tell you what if you got if you got a hard problem, you don't want you can't follow the colt, it's gonna be at that point, that fourth quarter, it's gonna be crazy right down to the last second. So but again, you have to spit that out. I've had to spit it out. It was hard, but you have to. And I do think that good thing is is that, you know, obviously we get a prime time and Monday night football is still Monday night football, and so we got an opportunity and we get a little bit of a deep breath here with an extra day, and you know, to come back from that to fix our mistakes and try to do this on national television. How about this one, rick before we close out here and move ahead to the Steelers. To your point, the Colts have played out of eleven games, They've played eight games decided buy one score right there, four three and one in those games. The NFL put out this week that the average margin a final scorer this season league wide is nine point four points, the lowest in a single season since nineteen thirty two and the second smallest in a season in NFL history. So it's not just the Colts. Everybody's playing close games. That's what this league is. And all of these games are coming down to the last four minutes here. You're exactly right, you know, it kind of resembles the NBA and way. You know, the NBA is the last two minutes. Us as you said, we're the last five to four minutes, you know, And this is what the NFL wanted. This is competitive balance. You know, I look at everybody, you know, I've had a chance. I looked at Dallas this morning I mean, there's just not great differences, you know, particularly on any Sunday. I mean, what was really the difference in the Eagles and the Colts. It's really one play, you know, it's really one player making one play. I mean that's that's how close that is. And so you can't you really cannot. You can't shut it down at four to six and one. You gotta keep fighting up in here, because there's nobody. You've already proved it with the Eagles in the Chiefs, there's really no one you can't play with, doubt. Yeah, and those two teams, heck, they might have even playing the Super Bowl, and the Colts had a chance to beat both of them. Absolutely, you know, there's no one we can't play with, regardless of our issues. So you know, clean it up, clean the penalties up, you know, figure out a little bit better game plan against that double sinking, help that left tackle. Period. All right, let's turn the page. Let's start talking about Monday night football against the Steelers, and Pittsburgh comes in first time since two thousand and seventeen. They're after their worst start since two thousand and three. You talk about franchise stability, three and seven their worst season in almost two decades. They're in last place in the AFC North, and just like the Colts, they've lost four of their last five. Lucas Oil Stadium is gonna be hopping despite the Colts troubles the last couple of home games, losing to the Commanders and the Eagles by identical scores of seventeen to sixteen. First home Monday night game for the Colts since two thousand and fifteen. Steelers come in there twenty eighth and scoring twenty sixth and points allowed, which is not a good recipe when you're got to buy an erratic rookie quarterback and Kenny Pickett. Mike tim won the head coach in his sixteenth year. Is one hundred and fifty seven regular season wins, fourth most among active coaches and third most since he took over at the Helm in two thousand and seven. The offense is bottom third in both rushing and passing twenty seventh and total yards, and they have struggled in one score games. You're talking about the Colts with their woes in that department. Steelers just two and four in tight games. Who are these Steelers? We? You know? I think Colts fans and NFL fans around the league are trying to figure out, you know, who these Steelers are, what they're all about, kind of a new identity at quarterback without Big benback there. So give us the rest of the big picture on the Steelers going into this game on Monday night. Yeah, that is probably the question that everybody's asking in Pittsburgh's who are these Steelers? I have great respect for or Mike Tomlin. I've known him since he came in the league as assistant secondary coach at Tampa. I've known him extremely well at great great respect for him. He's a brilliant guy. He's been steady and resilience. You know, he was a five beta Kappa. People don't realize that at William and Mary. This is a real sharp guy. Uh, he's you know, one of the things that's really impressive to me being a former coach is the fifteen consecutive non losing seasons. I mean, that is the you know, that is It's not going to happen this year, but that is the that that is the pillar really of consistency. Um. You know, they're they're a team. You know, they've been criticized they're one hundred and eight million dollar defense that you know, it's been called one hundred eight million dollar failure and it's hard for me to exactly figure that out because it's pretty talented. You know. Now they lost Watt for a long time. Now he's back and that can change the venue a little bit because obviously he's defensive Player of the Year and twenty one. I mean, his numbers are off the charts, seventy three and a half sacks, twenty two forced fumbles, and you know Highsmith is playing really good on the other side. So they I mean, they've got a couple of guys that can ruin the game. They've really they've really had trouble in the secondary. You know that. I think you mentioned that they're pretty good run defense. I think they're they're like fifth in the league in terms of yards per rushing, so you know, they're pretty good rush defense. But their past defense, particularly the corner position, has just been an absolute mess for him. They ranked thirty second. That's almost hard to come out of my mouth for a Pittsburgh Steeler team, but you know, that's you know, that's what they are. They underachieved on defense. That that's probably the statistic that drives me almost to drink that they would be twenty sixth in points given up because you know, with the great Steeler tradition on defense, I think, you know, the biggest issue is we hit it. I think they've gone with Pickett. I think they basically have said we'll buy the bullet here. Uh you know in two thousand and twenty two, will battle through it. And we like him, we want to go with him, and we want him ready for two twenty three. And that's what happens when you go into that experimental phase. You know, he's been a kid that's had his highs and lows, but you know, erratic is exactly right, you know, and he's you know, he's got three tds and eight interceptions, so that that tells you something. Now, he's talented. You know, he's a kid that can make some things happen. Uh. He's a torque thrower. By that is, I mean he really has to step into it when he's in the pocket. He's got some pretty good zip on it. He's a much better athlete than you think he is. He's a guy that, uh, you know, there's no way that he's a Jalen Hurts, but he's a guy that can move the chains on third down. You know, their their running game has not been Steeler like. Uh, you know, Naji Harris is good. We'll talk about him, but he's at three nine, I think. But they did. Now this is this is the craziness of this season, as you mentioned before, and then they had two hundred and seventeen rushings two hundred and seventeen yards rushing two weeks ago against a good Saints defense. So you know, go figure that. It's not like they can't do it. You know, they've got a good couple outside receivers. Johnson, you know, I think he's got like fifty five catches. I mean, he's you know, he's the top guy. And a guy that's really coming on, the guy that's making I'm gonna make them better is picking as a kid out of Georgia. He's really finding himself deep threat. And then I don't know if I'm gonna say this this word correctly. I should have asked you before Farmuthemuth is really the security blanket. You know, he's the possession guy. The quarterback likes him on those little options, so you know it isn't like they're totally devoid of talent. They've just been so inconsistent and it's really been a lot around the quarterback. The other thing I might add is Danny Smith is there a special teams coach. He's been there with Mike I think a decade, very good special teams coach. And they have a returner in Simms who every time he touches the ball he scares me, I mean just scares me. He's also their gimmick guy on offense. So again that's that's another weapon that we have to make sure we really covered kicks. You know, if you look at my three big barometers, not very good. You know, points giving up twenty sixth QBR. You know, pick is at number twenty five at forty three. But I think I do see a little bit of improvement the last couple of weeks and then their turnover ratio at zero. So you know, that's what we're looking at. Not your father's Steelers, certainly, you know, maybe the most subpar Steeler team that I've seen in a long time. All right, well, let's talk about him on offense. Let's roll out the blueprints for the Colts defense to win this game and get the upper hand. And just like the Colts, they have struggled to score. They are under twenty points in five games on the season, only putting up seventeen per game. The Steelers were the only team in the NFL to draft a quarterback in the first round last year in the spring, and that was Kenny Pickett, twentieth overall out of Pittsburgh. He started the last six games. He's got a record of two and four. He took over back in week number four after the Steelers bench Mitch Trubisky. His touchdown to interception ratio not good. It's eight to three in that regard, or I should say three to eight. Their lead back is na J. Harris. He has over five hundred rushing yards and one hundred and thirty receiving yards. He has the seventh most scrimmage yards in the NFL among running backs. Since the start of last season, They've got three pass catchers on the outside with at least four hundred yards. Deonte Johnson, rookie George Pickens out of Georgia, and then tight end Pat Friar Muth from nearby Penn State. And Pickens with his yards and catches those ranked eighth by a player in their first ten games of the rookie season. Friarmuth is one of four tight ends in the NFL this season with at least three games of at least seventy five receiving yards. So that's kind of the skinny on a sluggish and kind of up and down Steelers offense. Rick, what else stands out to you about the Steelers when they've got the ball with the rookie signal caller back there, No, that's right. As far as the actual players, you know it. You know, it's actually a very representative group. I mean, you know, Harris is a very very good back. I mean, and he does the yeoman work in there. Not big purr, but he's got yards over the years. We know how talented he is. He can really hit those own plays. Now. You also, he's a good edge guy. You know, comes back from Alabama. He's a guy that can bounce the edge. The other kid that goes in and plays and kind of speeds up the game is war and he's their third down back. They picked for him. The other day caught a wheel touchdown coming out of the backfield against the Saints, and the two of them just ran possessed against the Saints and then they've disappeared. Also, um, you know expects some wildcat. They like Naji and the wildcat back in there again. I like the two wideouts. I know Pickens is young, but he's a guy that can get on top of you. He's a fifty fifty guy. I would say that he's a guy that may become in a J. Brown someday. That's who he reminds me of. And you know, his number is pretty good. It's thirteen seven per catch, so you know he's productive when he gets it. Of course, Johnson's the go to guy, Matt and what they do is they try to utilize him. They put him at the X at the split end and try to isolate him on the weak side one on one. But then when they get in like possession downs, they'll go to spread, but he'll be in the slot and pick Hims will be in the other slot, you know, with friar Muth there at number three, and then what they end up doing is creating a triangle with those three top receivers and they'll do a lot of slot issues there to Johnson. I think their offensive line is okay. I don't think it's a great stealer line. They really had trouble against the Bengals their left tackle more he got beat like a drum. I think Dotson is a beatable guy at left guard. The right tackle. I think he plays oh, I would say he plays with lazy feet. I think you can get him lighting it down. I think you can make a lot of money if you get ahead of him from that standpoint. Again, the quarterback now is deceptively athletic. I mean he's a guy that can move. He runs bootlegs. His boots are always to our left. I've not been able to pick up one to our rights, so that tells our left end. He's got to be very aware on the bootleg. They're a right handed bootleg team. But he's a deceptive athlete that throws well on the run. I think like most rookies, he struggles into pocket not because he doesn't have talent, but because he has trouble processing it. Yet he doesn't. He gets unsure of himself. That's where the interceptions come. You know, he has interceptions in DNA. Even though he was drafted in the first round, A lot of people thought that was manufactured. He has turnovers in his DNA, both fumbles and you know, an interceptions, So you've got to make that happen. And then the other thing you always got to be alerted for with the Steeler team. And this goes all the way back to all the way back to cow Or and Mike has kept it. It's kind of a Steeler tradition is they aren't really a big gimmick team, even when they're tough physically in their role. And they have always been a gimmick team. So you always have to plaster receivers, be really sound in your cupping of the ball. You know you'll see halfback passes or reverses. And right now, Sims eighty two, who I was talking about as a return guy, if he's around that box, he's there for a reason. He's going to run something. And I always say, who can forget the Randol double pass in the Super Bowl. And I'm a big student of history when it comes to teams, for the most part, if you study their history, most of that stuff will come back. So I would say number one, the number one thing must is we must dominate that line of scrimmage on first down, particularly on those zone runs, and we have to turn that line of scrimmage and we have to really stuff Harris. Now when you stuff him though our defensive ends, which I thought did a pretty good job last week, you have to play discipline because he is a bounced runner. He'll take that play up into the like the four hole, and man, if you overclose it, he's out of there. And occasionally they'll pull a guard and run a predetermined bounce to get to the outside. So holding the edge on Naji and Worn is really really important. Make sure we set the edge on our left on the boots, particularly on first down. They will almost all come on first down and they almost always come to his right. You gotta win first down and may and put this quarterback and disadvantage. This is what you want. You want the quarterback and you want their left tackle in disadvantage number two, you gotta take Johnson away. Johnson has the fifty one catches. He's the high volume guy, go to guy, and he's gonna move around again. Sometimes he'll be isolated at X sometimes he'll be in the slot, but he is the go to guy. And then right behind him, the guy that I think is emerging is Pickens, And I would say you wanted to pick as much like a J. Brown, which we did a good job. He caught some underneath stuff early, but he never got loose last week on Gilmore. But you want to defend him deep. You know he's got thirty three catches and they're coming lately. But again it's thirteen seven and he competes for the deep ball. He has length and he can go get it. So stay on top of them and take away the fade. Make sure you play the fade now. I think your linebackers in safeties have to crowd Friarmouth that he's number forty four the tight end, particularly in third down, they get in two by two across the board and they run those little options to firemouth back there because they know you'll push the coverage to other people in the quarterback likes that because they're easy throws. The other thing, they do a lot of matt and this is just something that we have to be ready for fundamentally, particularly in man demand coverage. You really they run a lot of bunches in a lot of stacks, and they run a lot of rub routes and one guy under and one high lows what I call high lows and then they'll rub and run crossing patterns and they'll always have a high with it. So you got to do a real good job. Don't get distorted in those bunches. You have to define how you're going to do it and take it okay. Number three again, expect reverses in gimmicks. It's hard for this team to maintain long drives without creating, and they almost have to create something, and that's where Tomlin is yearning the gimmicks again. The two things that are important there because you never know when they're coming, is discipline on the edge. Don't fly crazy. If eighty two is around the box, be alerted on that that one guy should alert the other side that something could becoming. He's a terrific space athlete. He'll be involved in that. The other guy they try to get some things for is Warren. Number thirty comes in at running back again. They ran a pick for him out of the backfield and hit him for a wheel route on a touchdown. So again, nothing easy. They'll have a tough time sustaining long drives. Don't give him anything easy, and plaster your receivers because of the potential flea flickers and the quarterbacks ability to extend. So don't think you have him at the interval. You know you got him covered. Now they start moving plaster and plaster and plaster him all the way because this kid will move and extend and you may get some kind of razzle dazzle play. But at the end, number four, you got to ruin the quarterbacks day mix and match coverages with him. He is a rookie. Confuse him, close his right handed bootleg, our left edge on the boots, and close off his scramble lanes. Make him sit back in there and throw into dirty pockets. Rush him. I think he'll panic. I think you can force him into panic, and I think he can force him to turn the ball over. As I said, it's three touchdowns and eight picks, and I think we got to make him confirm that stat. And you know, as I said before, turnovers are in his DNA. Even though he was successful in college, there was a lot of turnovers. All right, let's turn the page focus on the Steelers on defense. That's Rick Venturi. I'm Matt Taylor. This is Inside Football before the Colts take on the Pittsburgh Steelers and their stats on that side of the ball. Pretty pedestrian, despite the fact they've got some big time playmakers on that unit. They're twenty six and points allowed, including thirty seven against the Bengals last week. They stopped the run pretty well, but they're horrible against the pass, as you said, dead last giving up two hundred and seventy two passing yards per game. They've allowed twenty two passing touchdowns on the season, that's most in the NFL. They've given up forty three passing plays over twenty which is the second most allowed in the NFL this season, and they're giving up those plays despite having big names in their secondary like Cameron Sutton and Levi Wallace and Minca Fitzpatrick. Pretty good up front. They're not gonna wow you with their sack numbers, but they've got Cameron Heyward, t J. Watt is back, Devin Bush, former Jaguar Miles Jack and then Alex Highsmith. T J. Watt is back. As I said, he missed seven games with a peck and just an absolute stud the reigning NFL defensive Player of the Year. We know about Fitzpatrick. The last time the Colts played the Steelers, he had a pick six in two thy nineteen really kind of changed the game in that contest. His twenty three combined takeaway since two nineteen are the fourth most in the NFL in that time. So, Rick, let me ask you before you get into your musts. Why are the Steelers so disappointing on paper on defense compared to all of that talent they've got on the field. Well, that is the hundred and eight million dollar question. You know, they got a defense that they pay one hundred and eight billion dollars to nine points give it up. Yeah, and that's the surprise of the league. And I'm a little shocked by it. Although their past defense has just been shredded and they don't boots. You know, at one time, you know, obviously the Pittsburgh defense was known as Bootsburgh. It really was because they brought it every single down, and they're not doing that as much. I'm not sure why. You know, the Lebau principles and I'm bringing a name out of the past. This is all the way back to the Chuck Nol days. Le Beau was the guy who installed their under four three defense. It's actually a three to four, but it's played like a four to three, and it's old school it's more under Normally we're looking at over in double seek every single week. That is the NFL trademark defense. They're a throwback in that they're an under meeting that they pushed the defense to the weak side and they keep a defensive end on your tackle. Now most the time he lines up on the tackles inside eye, so it is close to a double sink and they play that a lot. And their base coverage is Cover eight And this is what what cover eight is. Cover eight means it's quarters to the field. In other words, the strong corner has the outside quarter, the strong safety has the inside quarter, and then they roll up week. So it's combination quarters strong and kind of a Cover two look week and very hard match coverage underneath. And that's kind of their basic coverage. Now, if you get into slot, they will check at the three. I know this defense. So while we were in the division way back when with him in Cleveland, and a lot of the principles are still there. If anything, Mike has watered their defense down. He's simplified it over the years. And I don't know if that's been good, because they used to just be a headache every down and don't. I don't see that as much. You know, when you look at their personnel, and I think I think we should overlook their overall sack numbers because you know, what is just coming back. He's just getting to feel I mean, as you said, defensive player. This guy has seventy three and a half sacks. He's got twenty two forced fumbles. I mean on our rights, on our on our right side, he is, you know, he's he's the best player in the league, and hopefully you know, he's kind of easing his way back. He had the big injury, missed a lot of ball. And then Highsmith on their on their right, you know, he's got nine sacks, and then Hayward is he got forty four tackles in four sacks. He's one of the best three techniques. So you know, I think potentially, if you're not careful, if you get behind an account, this is a team that could give you a lot, a lot of problems, particularly Hayward on Fries and high Smith over there on uh you know, on Ryman. I mean that that bothers me a little bit, but they have struggled and they're linebackers, you know, Jack and White and spo. I mean they're not bad. You already talked to you know, a great deal about the free safety. I mean, you know, Fitzpatrick is also a game changer. Edmond's not bad at strong safety. And where they've really struggled. Here's where they've really struggled. And it kind of bears out statistics. And this is going to be in my must is they've really struggled at corner. They started out with Witherspoon, he got toasted so bad by A. J. Brown. They went to Eli Wallace. He's had exactly the same issues. Sutton has played a little bit better, but not great. Sutton plays the right side. Uh you know, Wallace will play their left side, and then mala is there is there nickelback. Edmonds will come down when they go dime. But it is really that's where they've struggled. Again, as I said, this is a under team rather than an over team. They will get double sync. And as you know, copycat league, man, copycat league, they're you know, teams are going to do what hurt us. They will do a lot of five man rush what we call fire zones. They'll bring the safeties up and go. They'll bring the nickel off the edge one of those inside linebackers inside, they will bring it quite a bit. Now, there are some things over the years that you want to do against them. They're so rigid in their system, you can make them predictable. One of the things you want to do is get in slot formation. Their slot formation and their double calls will force them into a cover three and if they're in man to man coverage, they'll bring their corners over and you know exactly what you're getting. I've also liked a lot of when we go into our twelve personnel is get in a balanced ace formation, balanced ace with our two tight ends, and they roll up weak, but they roll up wide, so you can bang that three technique off tackle. We always used to do that Cleveland, just bang it right back up in there. Then I've also you know, like four open in other words, you give them four open with a running back back there, and you know, see if you can make wat walk or Highsmith walk with their coverages on first down, because remember, those two guys are in there to rush the passers. Those they're outside linebackers, but they're there to rush the passer. Anytime you can force them out of the box, you eliminate a rusher, and number two, you've got a guy that's really not great in coverage. That's the worst part of his game. And then we used to have a lot of success. I know Belichick over the years has had a lot of success with spreads because again, same kind of idea. Particularly on first down, they're very rigid. They don't go to nickel, even if you put three wides in there. They'll play their base on first down. So if you get in spreads, you can make them walk and reduce their coverages. Now, the only thing I would say is when we go spread, we need to keep the running back close to the back to the box and the tight end close to the box so that we can chip and help those help those tackles. To be honest with you, because you've got again, you got the player of the year on the left and you got a nine sack guy on our left. So those are really important and they're pretty balanced. It's it's either eight or it's three, or it's one on first down. Then on third down they like a lot of two and two man and one lurk. Really old school. I'd say number one must we've got to spread their front. That's what those formation variances I talked about matter and pound them to the weak side. You're always better running weak against them. If they're going to bring stuff, it's usually off your strong side. I like balanced eighth. I like to trade the tight end over there and work the three technique. If they if you get them in nickel and they do play nickel, that's they suffer. On the running game. You can't pound the bubble. And again, somehow, some way, if they jump in at double sync, you're gonna have to run power and you're gonna have to run some gaps or else. We're going to be looking at second ten all day long. But the best thing to do is spread their front. Number two, we've got to block the edges here. Okay, we can't isolate either tackle on what or on Highsmith. Okay, again, I'm not going to get into the numbers. They're very, very good, but both of those guys can ruin your game. They can absolutely ruin your game. So you have to do a really good job. The other thing, because we've had a lot of trouble with it, I think expect a blitz barage. They got nothing to lose at three and seven they put they have. They've done a lot of five man rush, but not a ton of real blitzes. I would expect a blitz barage to tell you the truth. Number three, we want to attack the or left corner. It's going to start out with Wallace. If he struggles, they may go back to Witherspoon. But that's where you got to attack it. And what you want to do is you want to be in a formation. Listen to me on this. You want to be information right from a cult standpoint, you want the formation to be right because understand that on first down that cover eight rolls week and it's quarters to the strong side. So if you want to isolate those guys, you want to isolate them on first down. If you wait till third down, they'll help them. But on first down you're going to be able to get Pierce or Pittman or Paris over there at the Z, not at the X. You don't want to go to the X. You want them at the Z. And you want to work like hell, and I mean work, take your shots. Let's let's go try to score points here. Let's get after him. But you can't wait till second and long you can't wait till third down. Because Mike's old school is as soon as you get set and long, it's two, it's two. Man, it's a much different proposition. On first down it's eight, it's three, or it's one. So if you think about it, just simplify it for a second. That strong side corner is naked and that's where they've been. You know, they're not thirty two by accident, you know. And I just think, you know in the end, and when we do this, we're good, and when we don't, we're a mess. We did it for six minutes or eight minutes Sunday, and then for fifty four minutes we didn't do it. And that's it. Come in first down, just open and stretch their defensive system. You have to have a run pass mix. You're not going to beat them one dimensional. You've got to stretch them and get them out of there, keep them out of advantage situations where whack Hayward and Highsmith can hunt. That's what you gotta do. And again we did that early in the game. You know, we got to be more adaptable than we were last week. I thought Philadelphia coaching staff really really after the first eight minutes they did the adjusting and we did it, and so that's really critical. You've got to be able. The NFL is just all about constant and adaptations in a game, and we got to do that. But win first down, all right, Rick, to close out the Colts have to flush out that disappointment of last week in this game. They've got the extra day like we talked about to do it. But at the end of the day, the Steelers going into this game incredibly beatable, having a difficult season. The Colts are trying to beat them as a franchise for the first time since two thousand and eight. And this is not the Steelers team or the franchise of old. So with six games to play, where are you telling this team or how are you telling this team to draw inspiration? Because it's not a sexy matchup, but it is a primetime game and all eyes are going to be on the Colts and you don't want to look bad on national television when you're trying to breathe some life going into your season. Here down the final month and a half of this two thousand and twenty two campaign, well said, I mean in the end to me, first of all, you have to spit out Sunday, and I think we'll do that. I think the total focus now and it's only one thing. It's the two twenty two beat a bull Steelers. As I said before and I'm gonna say it again to you, this is not your father's Steelers. Do not be in awe of those uniforms. There's no Bradshaw, Franco Swan, Stalwarth. They're not going to score any points this week. Joe Green, Greenwood, Ham, Lambert and Blunt. They're not going to be there to stop you. The only team that can stop you this week is you. The only team that can beat the Colts this week is the Colts if they don't play their A game again. This is a great opportunity, not a good opportunity. This is a great opportunity. You dream of playing that prime time which is Monday Night, that every person who's ever meant anything to you, your family, that high school, everybody in this country that matters to you is watching you and is your co pilot this week. Okay, more importantly to me, this was always my goal. Is every one of your peers is watching you. Everybody's played on Sunday, They're watching coaches and players they're going to be watching. You can create your legacy on Monday Night football. This is a perfect setting, in my opinion, for the Horseshoes to crawl back out of the hole and get back in contention. I know this for history, World championships have been won by teams that were seven and seven by Christmas, and to me, that's our goal. So this is the first step. We've got to get this one. This is a must and we win it by bringing our a game and bringing a clean a game, no doubt about that. That's Rick Surrey and that's this week's Inside Football before the Colts take on the Steelers. Rick as always fantastically done. I got to ask, what are your Thanksgiving plans? What are you God coming up tomorrow? As we take this on Wednesday, going into the holiday. Well that's pretty interesting because I've got a break in the weather, so I actually I haven't winter arrived at the job yet, so you know, I'll be watching on Little Football. We're having a family dinner at six missus Sherry's got them all coming over right, um and uh, we're having dinner at six, so the afternoon is going to be mine. I want to take it. I already started on Dallas. I really want to get a good look at Dallas again tomorrow because they won't play again until we see them. Yeah, that's right, you know, that's a that's a good day. And I've always loved Thanksgiving, always looked at Thanksgiving like you know, this is the stretch. Now, this is obviously my mind is in a fella are It's It's not like it's a thing thankful day. It's just this starts to stretch. You know. It's a line of demarcation in the season, right for you. Yeah, that's the home. Somebody used to ask me when I was coaching, you know, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? I used to say, I'm working on the red zone. What the hell you think I'm doing? It's Thursday. It's blitz pick up, you know, that's what it is. You got to bear with me sometimes because in my twenty seven years in the NFL, and I don't say this arrogantly, but my specialty on every staff became red zone defense. It just, you know, I don't know what just started. I started, and the kind of developed a little bit of a reputation and it carries through in a small world. And so my life really for twenty seven years revolved around that final twenty yards. So I just believe in it. And you know, teams that do well and you know what, I you know more than anything else. And I think this applies to our failures offensively in the red zone. You got to be known for something in the red zone. You can't get cute in the red zone. You have to you have to have your best off tackle run. You have to have a fade stop game on the outside, one receiver that can run an option inside. And then if you have the mobile quarterback like Philadelphia and even Pittsburgh, then the fourth dimension is the running quarterback. But those are the things you can mask them. But all this cuteness just kills you. I mean a reverse path. I mean, you've got to be able when you're on that seven yard line. Those windows are so freaking tight. You've got to be able to execute with your best play. And so anyway, so much for that rant. It was a fantastic rant, and it's it's so true. I mean, it's it's so indicative of where this Colts team is on the season. Here. I want to know, though, are you making the salad. Are you making your patent insal I am the your agamn good point. I'm the salad and Sunday maker. I can do the salads. I do the opener, and I do the closer. I do Sunday's at the end, and everything else is miss Sharon. So now, God, she's got the ball game. Well what you were we were broadcasting remotely, and you did bring in that salad last year for one of those games on the remote broadcast, and that was a damn good salad. That was really good. I wanted to give Propstacy. You gotta make that again. You're too kind. Well, Rick, enjoy the day. If you're going to be out in the chopper on the cycle, be safe, have a great time with family, and we will indeed talk to you later this week for Monday night football against the Steelers. Can't wait for it. Man, all right, Matt, you and your family have a great day tomorrow. I appreciate that. We'll do again. That's Rick Ventury. That's it for Insight Football Week number twelve. As always, for the latest on the Colts, check us out Colts dot com, the Colts Mobile app, and be sure to subscribe to everything on the Colts Audio Network. We've got plenty more coming your way all week long going into this Monday Night or first home Monday Night game for the Colts since twenty fifteen. Again for Rick Ventury. I'm Matt Taylor and we will talk to you next week on another installment of Insight Football, getting you ready for Colts and Cowboys. You're on the Colts Audio Network. So long,
Speaker 1: Football is about the jimmies and joes and exes and oh's check New York plenty. Ain't thank you, Bruce. It's time to get out the chopboard and diagram some plays. Here's what all starts right, Here's what jam money Chris. This is Inside Football with former Colts and NFL coach Rick Venturi. Hello again, Welcome to Week twelve. This is Inside Football with Rick Venturry. I'm Matt Taylor and the Colts are trying to shake off that heartbreaking seventeen sixteen loss to the Eagles last time out at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts were up ten points going into the fourth quarter, couldn't close the deal, and they're now four and six and one. They've lost four of their last five games. And Rica, I know you're glad the Colts play on a Monday night this week to have that extra day to get over that tough loss to Philadelphia, one of the best teams in the NFL. I know that one got you pretty good. I know you're still kind of heartbroken over that one. Well, yeah, and I'm finally you know, I'm finally onto Pittsburgh. But you're exactly right. I needed forty eight hours. This time, I got myself in such a you know, kind of an upper kind of a fit that we could win this. I felt like that even going in, you know, that we had them just lined up perfectly on the schedule, with the short week, with the struggles they were having, you know, with us having momentum coming out of there. I felt so good about it, really, and I it wasn't a phony. It wasn't like a make believe, you know, motivate yourself. I totally believe that, you know. And then obviously I think both of us were so let down because you know, they teased us again with that thirteen to three lead. It was a lot like the Commanders, you know, thirteen to three lead going into fourth quarter. You know, in our overall numbers all season, defensively have been good in the fourth quarter, but you know, it just wasn't to be. The Eagles made, you know, some good coaching adjustments, and more importantly, their players made big plays. The guys that had to make big, big plays they made them. So you know, it was a gunt wrencher because man, we had a chance to really not only gain credibility, but going to Thanksgiving, you know, five five and one, which is kind of a big number going in there, five hundred. But I will say this is that I've known teams. There's been several teams that are have been, you know in the old days, seven and seventy Christmas in one World Championships, So you know, always not lost, and we certainly can get well this week, you know, if we play well, no doubt about that. Pittsburgh is up next, they're three and seven. But what conclusions did you draw from the Philadelphia game? Where are the Colts? Who is this team with six games to play? And maybe more importantly, you know, bigger picture, Rick, is anything capable of changing in a big way with this team on off? Well, that's a good question, you know, I thought there maybe would. I think we probably drew a little bit too much praise, a little bit too much, a false conclusion out of the Raiders game. I kind of thought that was fool's goal because I knew they were really really bad on defense. But I thought, you know, that would be some momentum. I think the most disappointing thing for me is the same things are plaguist Matt over eleven weeks now, and we haven't fixed them. I thought maybe we would get them fixed into coaching change. I haven't seen any any any of that right yet. And and it really comes back number one to not being able to run the football. Now, in that first drive, you know, they the Philadelphia came out kind of played flat, they played in that over defense, their base defense, and we just cashed them. I mean, I mean our offensive line blocked. They get so much, they get so much criticism, but that first drive, I mean they blocked, they got up into the second level. Jonathan got it downhill. I mean, we practically ran every play and just gashed him. And it looked like, you know, okay, this is gonna be fine. But then really they made they made an adjustment right now. They said, okay, we're going to the double sync. We're gonna play it all day. You know, these guys have had trouble with it. I was surprised they didn't start with it. And then again we got nothing. I mean, Jonathan got twenty five yards, you know, in fifty four minutes. Fifty four four minutes, he got twenty five yards rushing. And when you can't run the football and we haven't figured out how to run it against that bare defense. And I'm really disappointed because our offensive line and Jonathan are taking all the criticism, and part of that is schematic we just don't do. We don't have a good gap blocking scheme and so and they give you that bare front. I've been talking about it for eleven weeks and I people probably think I'm crazy, But there's a reason that he gets twenty five yards in fifty and it's not all the offensive line. I mean, there's there's numbers there, there's not good angles against that defense. So that's number one. And then I think the second thing that really troubled me from an offensive standpoint is we gotta help Ryman and we know that going in. I mean we got a false sense of security against the Raiders, but you know, going against Philly where they have good rushers up and down, I mean, there's no way you can let your left tackle or your right guard alone on great players. It just in particular the year left tackle, because he's going to be out there on a really good player. He's going to be out there in space, and we do so little to help him. I mean almost never occasional chip, but almost never. And so you know, critical situations, we get sacks, and you know, it's really not his fault. He's just not ready to play. A year for him. Now, you know, he'll be ready to play. He'll grow, he'll get bigger, he'll be experienced, he's got some talent. But at this point in time, it's just you know, Riddick and the red zone came right underneath him. He couldn't handle it. And then at the end of the game, you know, Grahams has crushed him. But on the same play, Hardgraves crust Nelson. So it's not like he owns it totally. But that's a real Those two issues are disappointing to me because I look at the game from a you know, very highly technical standpoint and schematic first, but most people don't. I mean even a lot of the media guys have no idea what's really happening. And to me, it's it's it's not a question of whether he's good enough or not. He's not right now. So you really got to help him into me that it's a real you know, like I said in my world, you know, after eleven weeks, that's really that's really inexcusable in some respects. And I guess maybe you could answer this. The other thing that really troubled me was why JT wasn't in there at the end of the game. You have to explain that because they say it's a coaching decision. It was, Yeah, Jeff Saturday and Scotty Montgomery said that in that in that two minute situation, that Dion Jackson would be the pass catching back in that situation over Jonathan Taylor. So that that was the coaching explanation that Jeff gave on Monday after the game on that got it. Now. Defensively, I feel for them in a sense. I've been that soldier so many times. And the biggest issue that one of the biggest what makes a defensive coordinator's job the toughest, And this is statistically, this has been proven, it's been discussed, it's been studied. A defensive coordinator in the National Footballing is the toughest single position in all of pro sports. And the reason for that is you can play, you can play forty eight minutes fifty eight minutes of really good football and if you can't hold it at the end, you know it's on you. It's just this. Everybody thinks you're bum Hey, you didn't do enough. Well, you know, I know, I think seventeen points of the commander, seventeen points to the to the chief, seventeen points of the Eagles, right, but you don't have a lot to show for it. But you don't have show for it. And in the last four games we didn't. We didn't stop the last drive, I mean, and so you know it, you know, those those things there, I mean, I saw a lot of good things, There's no question about it. In gok Way was felt. Gilmore has been tremendous. I thought Facon had the best game. I thought he had shut down Smith after they went after him. Um, you know, I thought McLeod really good and I thought Dale really improved. So you know, you know, but at the end of the day, my biggest, my biggest concern was the third and seven call. And I can't let that go because you know, I do blame the coaching staff on that. I just felt like, you know, that is a situation where if they beat you with a fade route or a stick route, so be it. You just can't let you know, a great running quarterback who runs it in the red zone, who runs it with the game on the line, you can't let them walk in and so you know, I think that you know, if they tell you that they wouldn't want to have that over again, then they're really lying, you know. But at the end of the day, it really came down to the two and it always does. If you look at over time, you can throw out most statistics in the league. It almost always your success or failure usually comes down to how you do in the red zone on both sides. And really this game uniquely came down in the last six minutes to two red zone sequences. Okay, we've got the ball first in goal after Paris Campbell's catched down there. We got a first in goal, and we just have an atrocious series. We run an inside zomboom nothing, we run that reverse path. You tell me why we do that, and then we are Then we get a sack on third down, so you know, instead of have and instead of just putting them away, which you know would have been twenty to ten game over, you know, we have to kick a field goal, and now it's sixteen to ten and at eight game over with four minutes, and then our ability to stop them, you know, in our inability to stop the quarterback running in for a touchdown really was the game because really, at the end of the day, the game down, the real score was seven to three. In the last six minutes, it was really seven to three. You know, if you look at the you know, if you look at the overall numbers in the game, they're they're really they're really pretty close, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, they won the red zone issue in the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter issue, and the other the other critical one. I haven't really talked about this, and this is really disappointing. They won the penalty issue. Penalties just absolutely killed us. So, you know, again, tremendous football game to watch if you're a fan. Again, boy, I'll tell you what if you got if you got a hard problem, you don't want you can't follow the colt, it's gonna be at that point, that fourth quarter, it's gonna be crazy right down to the last second. So but again, you have to spit that out. I've had to spit it out. It was hard, but you have to. And I do think that good thing is is that, you know, obviously we get a prime time and Monday night football is still Monday night football, and so we got an opportunity and we get a little bit of a deep breath here with an extra day, and you know, to come back from that to fix our mistakes and try to do this on national television. How about this one, rick before we close out here and move ahead to the Steelers. To your point, the Colts have played out of eleven games, They've played eight games decided buy one score right there, four three and one in those games. The NFL put out this week that the average margin a final scorer this season league wide is nine point four points, the lowest in a single season since nineteen thirty two and the second smallest in a season in NFL history. So it's not just the Colts. Everybody's playing close games. That's what this league is. And all of these games are coming down to the last four minutes here. You're exactly right, you know, it kind of resembles the NBA and way. You know, the NBA is the last two minutes. Us as you said, we're the last five to four minutes, you know, And this is what the NFL wanted. This is competitive balance. You know, I look at everybody, you know, I've had a chance. I looked at Dallas this morning I mean, there's just not great differences, you know, particularly on any Sunday. I mean, what was really the difference in the Eagles and the Colts. It's really one play, you know, it's really one player making one play. I mean that's that's how close that is. And so you can't you really cannot. You can't shut it down at four to six and one. You gotta keep fighting up in here, because there's nobody. You've already proved it with the Eagles in the Chiefs, there's really no one you can't play with, doubt. Yeah, and those two teams, heck, they might have even playing the Super Bowl, and the Colts had a chance to beat both of them. Absolutely, you know, there's no one we can't play with, regardless of our issues. So you know, clean it up, clean the penalties up, you know, figure out a little bit better game plan against that double sinking, help that left tackle. Period. All right, let's turn the page. Let's start talking about Monday night football against the Steelers, and Pittsburgh comes in first time since two thousand and seventeen. They're after their worst start since two thousand and three. You talk about franchise stability, three and seven their worst season in almost two decades. They're in last place in the AFC North, and just like the Colts, they've lost four of their last five. Lucas Oil Stadium is gonna be hopping despite the Colts troubles the last couple of home games, losing to the Commanders and the Eagles by identical scores of seventeen to sixteen. First home Monday night game for the Colts since two thousand and fifteen. Steelers come in there twenty eighth and scoring twenty sixth and points allowed, which is not a good recipe when you're got to buy an erratic rookie quarterback and Kenny Pickett. Mike tim won the head coach in his sixteenth year. Is one hundred and fifty seven regular season wins, fourth most among active coaches and third most since he took over at the Helm in two thousand and seven. The offense is bottom third in both rushing and passing twenty seventh and total yards, and they have struggled in one score games. You're talking about the Colts with their woes in that department. Steelers just two and four in tight games. Who are these Steelers? We? You know? I think Colts fans and NFL fans around the league are trying to figure out, you know, who these Steelers are, what they're all about, kind of a new identity at quarterback without Big benback there. So give us the rest of the big picture on the Steelers going into this game on Monday night. Yeah, that is probably the question that everybody's asking in Pittsburgh's who are these Steelers? I have great respect for or Mike Tomlin. I've known him since he came in the league as assistant secondary coach at Tampa. I've known him extremely well at great great respect for him. He's a brilliant guy. He's been steady and resilience. You know, he was a five beta Kappa. People don't realize that at William and Mary. This is a real sharp guy. Uh, he's you know, one of the things that's really impressive to me being a former coach is the fifteen consecutive non losing seasons. I mean, that is the you know, that is It's not going to happen this year, but that is the that that is the pillar really of consistency. Um. You know, they're they're a team. You know, they've been criticized they're one hundred and eight million dollar defense that you know, it's been called one hundred eight million dollar failure and it's hard for me to exactly figure that out because it's pretty talented. You know. Now they lost Watt for a long time. Now he's back and that can change the venue a little bit because obviously he's defensive Player of the Year and twenty one. I mean, his numbers are off the charts, seventy three and a half sacks, twenty two forced fumbles, and you know Highsmith is playing really good on the other side. So they I mean, they've got a couple of guys that can ruin the game. They've really they've really had trouble in the secondary. You know that. I think you mentioned that they're pretty good run defense. I think they're they're like fifth in the league in terms of yards per rushing, so you know, they're pretty good rush defense. But their past defense, particularly the corner position, has just been an absolute mess for him. They ranked thirty second. That's almost hard to come out of my mouth for a Pittsburgh Steeler team, but you know, that's you know, that's what they are. They underachieved on defense. That that's probably the statistic that drives me almost to drink that they would be twenty sixth in points given up because you know, with the great Steeler tradition on defense, I think, you know, the biggest issue is we hit it. I think they've gone with Pickett. I think they basically have said we'll buy the bullet here. Uh you know in two thousand and twenty two, will battle through it. And we like him, we want to go with him, and we want him ready for two twenty three. And that's what happens when you go into that experimental phase. You know, he's been a kid that's had his highs and lows, but you know, erratic is exactly right, you know, and he's you know, he's got three tds and eight interceptions, so that that tells you something. Now, he's talented. You know, he's a kid that can make some things happen. Uh. He's a torque thrower. By that is, I mean he really has to step into it when he's in the pocket. He's got some pretty good zip on it. He's a much better athlete than you think he is. He's a guy that, uh, you know, there's no way that he's a Jalen Hurts, but he's a guy that can move the chains on third down. You know, their their running game has not been Steeler like. Uh, you know, Naji Harris is good. We'll talk about him, but he's at three nine, I think. But they did. Now this is this is the craziness of this season, as you mentioned before, and then they had two hundred and seventeen rushings two hundred and seventeen yards rushing two weeks ago against a good Saints defense. So you know, go figure that. It's not like they can't do it. You know, they've got a good couple outside receivers. Johnson, you know, I think he's got like fifty five catches. I mean, he's you know, he's the top guy. And a guy that's really coming on, the guy that's making I'm gonna make them better is picking as a kid out of Georgia. He's really finding himself deep threat. And then I don't know if I'm gonna say this this word correctly. I should have asked you before Farmuthemuth is really the security blanket. You know, he's the possession guy. The quarterback likes him on those little options, so you know it isn't like they're totally devoid of talent. They've just been so inconsistent and it's really been a lot around the quarterback. The other thing I might add is Danny Smith is there a special teams coach. He's been there with Mike I think a decade, very good special teams coach. And they have a returner in Simms who every time he touches the ball he scares me, I mean just scares me. He's also their gimmick guy on offense. So again that's that's another weapon that we have to make sure we really covered kicks. You know, if you look at my three big barometers, not very good. You know, points giving up twenty sixth QBR. You know, pick is at number twenty five at forty three. But I think I do see a little bit of improvement the last couple of weeks and then their turnover ratio at zero. So you know, that's what we're looking at. Not your father's Steelers, certainly, you know, maybe the most subpar Steeler team that I've seen in a long time. All right, well, let's talk about him on offense. Let's roll out the blueprints for the Colts defense to win this game and get the upper hand. And just like the Colts, they have struggled to score. They are under twenty points in five games on the season, only putting up seventeen per game. The Steelers were the only team in the NFL to draft a quarterback in the first round last year in the spring, and that was Kenny Pickett, twentieth overall out of Pittsburgh. He started the last six games. He's got a record of two and four. He took over back in week number four after the Steelers bench Mitch Trubisky. His touchdown to interception ratio not good. It's eight to three in that regard, or I should say three to eight. Their lead back is na J. Harris. He has over five hundred rushing yards and one hundred and thirty receiving yards. He has the seventh most scrimmage yards in the NFL among running backs. Since the start of last season, They've got three pass catchers on the outside with at least four hundred yards. Deonte Johnson, rookie George Pickens out of Georgia, and then tight end Pat Friar Muth from nearby Penn State. And Pickens with his yards and catches those ranked eighth by a player in their first ten games of the rookie season. Friarmuth is one of four tight ends in the NFL this season with at least three games of at least seventy five receiving yards. So that's kind of the skinny on a sluggish and kind of up and down Steelers offense. Rick, what else stands out to you about the Steelers when they've got the ball with the rookie signal caller back there, No, that's right. As far as the actual players, you know it. You know, it's actually a very representative group. I mean, you know, Harris is a very very good back. I mean, and he does the yeoman work in there. Not big purr, but he's got yards over the years. We know how talented he is. He can really hit those own plays. Now. You also, he's a good edge guy. You know, comes back from Alabama. He's a guy that can bounce the edge. The other kid that goes in and plays and kind of speeds up the game is war and he's their third down back. They picked for him. The other day caught a wheel touchdown coming out of the backfield against the Saints, and the two of them just ran possessed against the Saints and then they've disappeared. Also, um, you know expects some wildcat. They like Naji and the wildcat back in there again. I like the two wideouts. I know Pickens is young, but he's a guy that can get on top of you. He's a fifty fifty guy. I would say that he's a guy that may become in a J. Brown someday. That's who he reminds me of. And you know, his number is pretty good. It's thirteen seven per catch, so you know he's productive when he gets it. Of course, Johnson's the go to guy, Matt and what they do is they try to utilize him. They put him at the X at the split end and try to isolate him on the weak side one on one. But then when they get in like possession downs, they'll go to spread, but he'll be in the slot and pick Hims will be in the other slot, you know, with friar Muth there at number three, and then what they end up doing is creating a triangle with those three top receivers and they'll do a lot of slot issues there to Johnson. I think their offensive line is okay. I don't think it's a great stealer line. They really had trouble against the Bengals their left tackle more he got beat like a drum. I think Dotson is a beatable guy at left guard. The right tackle. I think he plays oh, I would say he plays with lazy feet. I think you can get him lighting it down. I think you can make a lot of money if you get ahead of him from that standpoint. Again, the quarterback now is deceptively athletic. I mean he's a guy that can move. He runs bootlegs. His boots are always to our left. I've not been able to pick up one to our rights, so that tells our left end. He's got to be very aware on the bootleg. They're a right handed bootleg team. But he's a deceptive athlete that throws well on the run. I think like most rookies, he struggles into pocket not because he doesn't have talent, but because he has trouble processing it. Yet he doesn't. He gets unsure of himself. That's where the interceptions come. You know, he has interceptions in DNA. Even though he was drafted in the first round, A lot of people thought that was manufactured. He has turnovers in his DNA, both fumbles and you know, an interceptions, So you've got to make that happen. And then the other thing you always got to be alerted for with the Steeler team. And this goes all the way back to all the way back to cow Or and Mike has kept it. It's kind of a Steeler tradition is they aren't really a big gimmick team, even when they're tough physically in their role. And they have always been a gimmick team. So you always have to plaster receivers, be really sound in your cupping of the ball. You know you'll see halfback passes or reverses. And right now, Sims eighty two, who I was talking about as a return guy, if he's around that box, he's there for a reason. He's going to run something. And I always say, who can forget the Randol double pass in the Super Bowl. And I'm a big student of history when it comes to teams, for the most part, if you study their history, most of that stuff will come back. So I would say number one, the number one thing must is we must dominate that line of scrimmage on first down, particularly on those zone runs, and we have to turn that line of scrimmage and we have to really stuff Harris. Now when you stuff him though our defensive ends, which I thought did a pretty good job last week, you have to play discipline because he is a bounced runner. He'll take that play up into the like the four hole, and man, if you overclose it, he's out of there. And occasionally they'll pull a guard and run a predetermined bounce to get to the outside. So holding the edge on Naji and Worn is really really important. Make sure we set the edge on our left on the boots, particularly on first down. They will almost all come on first down and they almost always come to his right. You gotta win first down and may and put this quarterback and disadvantage. This is what you want. You want the quarterback and you want their left tackle in disadvantage number two, you gotta take Johnson away. Johnson has the fifty one catches. He's the high volume guy, go to guy, and he's gonna move around again. Sometimes he'll be isolated at X sometimes he'll be in the slot, but he is the go to guy. And then right behind him, the guy that I think is emerging is Pickens, And I would say you wanted to pick as much like a J. Brown, which we did a good job. He caught some underneath stuff early, but he never got loose last week on Gilmore. But you want to defend him deep. You know he's got thirty three catches and they're coming lately. But again it's thirteen seven and he competes for the deep ball. He has length and he can go get it. So stay on top of them and take away the fade. Make sure you play the fade now. I think your linebackers in safeties have to crowd Friarmouth that he's number forty four the tight end, particularly in third down, they get in two by two across the board and they run those little options to firemouth back there because they know you'll push the coverage to other people in the quarterback likes that because they're easy throws. The other thing, they do a lot of matt and this is just something that we have to be ready for fundamentally, particularly in man demand coverage. You really they run a lot of bunches in a lot of stacks, and they run a lot of rub routes and one guy under and one high lows what I call high lows and then they'll rub and run crossing patterns and they'll always have a high with it. So you got to do a real good job. Don't get distorted in those bunches. You have to define how you're going to do it and take it okay. Number three again, expect reverses in gimmicks. It's hard for this team to maintain long drives without creating, and they almost have to create something, and that's where Tomlin is yearning the gimmicks again. The two things that are important there because you never know when they're coming, is discipline on the edge. Don't fly crazy. If eighty two is around the box, be alerted on that that one guy should alert the other side that something could becoming. He's a terrific space athlete. He'll be involved in that. The other guy they try to get some things for is Warren. Number thirty comes in at running back again. They ran a pick for him out of the backfield and hit him for a wheel route on a touchdown. So again, nothing easy. They'll have a tough time sustaining long drives. Don't give him anything easy, and plaster your receivers because of the potential flea flickers and the quarterbacks ability to extend. So don't think you have him at the interval. You know you got him covered. Now they start moving plaster and plaster and plaster him all the way because this kid will move and extend and you may get some kind of razzle dazzle play. But at the end, number four, you got to ruin the quarterbacks day mix and match coverages with him. He is a rookie. Confuse him, close his right handed bootleg, our left edge on the boots, and close off his scramble lanes. Make him sit back in there and throw into dirty pockets. Rush him. I think he'll panic. I think you can force him into panic, and I think he can force him to turn the ball over. As I said, it's three touchdowns and eight picks, and I think we got to make him confirm that stat. And you know, as I said before, turnovers are in his DNA. Even though he was successful in college, there was a lot of turnovers. All right, let's turn the page focus on the Steelers on defense. That's Rick Venturi. I'm Matt Taylor. This is Inside Football before the Colts take on the Pittsburgh Steelers and their stats on that side of the ball. Pretty pedestrian, despite the fact they've got some big time playmakers on that unit. They're twenty six and points allowed, including thirty seven against the Bengals last week. They stopped the run pretty well, but they're horrible against the pass, as you said, dead last giving up two hundred and seventy two passing yards per game. They've allowed twenty two passing touchdowns on the season, that's most in the NFL. They've given up forty three passing plays over twenty which is the second most allowed in the NFL this season, and they're giving up those plays despite having big names in their secondary like Cameron Sutton and Levi Wallace and Minca Fitzpatrick. Pretty good up front. They're not gonna wow you with their sack numbers, but they've got Cameron Heyward, t J. Watt is back, Devin Bush, former Jaguar Miles Jack and then Alex Highsmith. T J. Watt is back. As I said, he missed seven games with a peck and just an absolute stud the reigning NFL defensive Player of the Year. We know about Fitzpatrick. The last time the Colts played the Steelers, he had a pick six in two thy nineteen really kind of changed the game in that contest. His twenty three combined takeaway since two nineteen are the fourth most in the NFL in that time. So, Rick, let me ask you before you get into your musts. Why are the Steelers so disappointing on paper on defense compared to all of that talent they've got on the field. Well, that is the hundred and eight million dollar question. You know, they got a defense that they pay one hundred and eight billion dollars to nine points give it up. Yeah, and that's the surprise of the league. And I'm a little shocked by it. Although their past defense has just been shredded and they don't boots. You know, at one time, you know, obviously the Pittsburgh defense was known as Bootsburgh. It really was because they brought it every single down, and they're not doing that as much. I'm not sure why. You know, the Lebau principles and I'm bringing a name out of the past. This is all the way back to the Chuck Nol days. Le Beau was the guy who installed their under four three defense. It's actually a three to four, but it's played like a four to three, and it's old school it's more under Normally we're looking at over in double seek every single week. That is the NFL trademark defense. They're a throwback in that they're an under meeting that they pushed the defense to the weak side and they keep a defensive end on your tackle. Now most the time he lines up on the tackles inside eye, so it is close to a double sink and they play that a lot. And their base coverage is Cover eight And this is what what cover eight is. Cover eight means it's quarters to the field. In other words, the strong corner has the outside quarter, the strong safety has the inside quarter, and then they roll up week. So it's combination quarters strong and kind of a Cover two look week and very hard match coverage underneath. And that's kind of their basic coverage. Now, if you get into slot, they will check at the three. I know this defense. So while we were in the division way back when with him in Cleveland, and a lot of the principles are still there. If anything, Mike has watered their defense down. He's simplified it over the years. And I don't know if that's been good, because they used to just be a headache every down and don't. I don't see that as much. You know, when you look at their personnel, and I think I think we should overlook their overall sack numbers because you know, what is just coming back. He's just getting to feel I mean, as you said, defensive player. This guy has seventy three and a half sacks. He's got twenty two forced fumbles. I mean on our rights, on our on our right side, he is, you know, he's he's the best player in the league, and hopefully you know, he's kind of easing his way back. He had the big injury, missed a lot of ball. And then Highsmith on their on their right, you know, he's got nine sacks, and then Hayward is he got forty four tackles in four sacks. He's one of the best three techniques. So you know, I think potentially, if you're not careful, if you get behind an account, this is a team that could give you a lot, a lot of problems, particularly Hayward on Fries and high Smith over there on uh you know, on Ryman. I mean that that bothers me a little bit, but they have struggled and they're linebackers, you know, Jack and White and spo. I mean they're not bad. You already talked to you know, a great deal about the free safety. I mean, you know, Fitzpatrick is also a game changer. Edmond's not bad at strong safety. And where they've really struggled. Here's where they've really struggled. And it kind of bears out statistics. And this is going to be in my must is they've really struggled at corner. They started out with Witherspoon, he got toasted so bad by A. J. Brown. They went to Eli Wallace. He's had exactly the same issues. Sutton has played a little bit better, but not great. Sutton plays the right side. Uh you know, Wallace will play their left side, and then mala is there is there nickelback. Edmonds will come down when they go dime. But it is really that's where they've struggled. Again, as I said, this is a under team rather than an over team. They will get double sync. And as you know, copycat league, man, copycat league, they're you know, teams are going to do what hurt us. They will do a lot of five man rush what we call fire zones. They'll bring the safeties up and go. They'll bring the nickel off the edge one of those inside linebackers inside, they will bring it quite a bit. Now, there are some things over the years that you want to do against them. They're so rigid in their system, you can make them predictable. One of the things you want to do is get in slot formation. Their slot formation and their double calls will force them into a cover three and if they're in man to man coverage, they'll bring their corners over and you know exactly what you're getting. I've also liked a lot of when we go into our twelve personnel is get in a balanced ace formation, balanced ace with our two tight ends, and they roll up weak, but they roll up wide, so you can bang that three technique off tackle. We always used to do that Cleveland, just bang it right back up in there. Then I've also you know, like four open in other words, you give them four open with a running back back there, and you know, see if you can make wat walk or Highsmith walk with their coverages on first down, because remember, those two guys are in there to rush the passers. Those they're outside linebackers, but they're there to rush the passer. Anytime you can force them out of the box, you eliminate a rusher, and number two, you've got a guy that's really not great in coverage. That's the worst part of his game. And then we used to have a lot of success. I know Belichick over the years has had a lot of success with spreads because again, same kind of idea. Particularly on first down, they're very rigid. They don't go to nickel, even if you put three wides in there. They'll play their base on first down. So if you get in spreads, you can make them walk and reduce their coverages. Now, the only thing I would say is when we go spread, we need to keep the running back close to the back to the box and the tight end close to the box so that we can chip and help those help those tackles. To be honest with you, because you've got again, you got the player of the year on the left and you got a nine sack guy on our left. So those are really important and they're pretty balanced. It's it's either eight or it's three, or it's one on first down. Then on third down they like a lot of two and two man and one lurk. Really old school. I'd say number one must we've got to spread their front. That's what those formation variances I talked about matter and pound them to the weak side. You're always better running weak against them. If they're going to bring stuff, it's usually off your strong side. I like balanced eighth. I like to trade the tight end over there and work the three technique. If they if you get them in nickel and they do play nickel, that's they suffer. On the running game. You can't pound the bubble. And again, somehow, some way, if they jump in at double sync, you're gonna have to run power and you're gonna have to run some gaps or else. We're going to be looking at second ten all day long. But the best thing to do is spread their front. Number two, we've got to block the edges here. Okay, we can't isolate either tackle on what or on Highsmith. Okay, again, I'm not going to get into the numbers. They're very, very good, but both of those guys can ruin your game. They can absolutely ruin your game. So you have to do a really good job. The other thing, because we've had a lot of trouble with it, I think expect a blitz barage. They got nothing to lose at three and seven they put they have. They've done a lot of five man rush, but not a ton of real blitzes. I would expect a blitz barage to tell you the truth. Number three, we want to attack the or left corner. It's going to start out with Wallace. If he struggles, they may go back to Witherspoon. But that's where you got to attack it. And what you want to do is you want to be in a formation. Listen to me on this. You want to be information right from a cult standpoint, you want the formation to be right because understand that on first down that cover eight rolls week and it's quarters to the strong side. So if you want to isolate those guys, you want to isolate them on first down. If you wait till third down, they'll help them. But on first down you're going to be able to get Pierce or Pittman or Paris over there at the Z, not at the X. You don't want to go to the X. You want them at the Z. And you want to work like hell, and I mean work, take your shots. Let's let's go try to score points here. Let's get after him. But you can't wait till second and long you can't wait till third down. Because Mike's old school is as soon as you get set and long, it's two, it's two. Man, it's a much different proposition. On first down it's eight, it's three, or it's one. So if you think about it, just simplify it for a second. That strong side corner is naked and that's where they've been. You know, they're not thirty two by accident, you know. And I just think, you know in the end, and when we do this, we're good, and when we don't, we're a mess. We did it for six minutes or eight minutes Sunday, and then for fifty four minutes we didn't do it. And that's it. Come in first down, just open and stretch their defensive system. You have to have a run pass mix. You're not going to beat them one dimensional. You've got to stretch them and get them out of there, keep them out of advantage situations where whack Hayward and Highsmith can hunt. That's what you gotta do. And again we did that early in the game. You know, we got to be more adaptable than we were last week. I thought Philadelphia coaching staff really really after the first eight minutes they did the adjusting and we did it, and so that's really critical. You've got to be able. The NFL is just all about constant and adaptations in a game, and we got to do that. But win first down, all right, Rick, to close out the Colts have to flush out that disappointment of last week in this game. They've got the extra day like we talked about to do it. But at the end of the day, the Steelers going into this game incredibly beatable, having a difficult season. The Colts are trying to beat them as a franchise for the first time since two thousand and eight. And this is not the Steelers team or the franchise of old. So with six games to play, where are you telling this team or how are you telling this team to draw inspiration? Because it's not a sexy matchup, but it is a primetime game and all eyes are going to be on the Colts and you don't want to look bad on national television when you're trying to breathe some life going into your season. Here down the final month and a half of this two thousand and twenty two campaign, well said, I mean in the end to me, first of all, you have to spit out Sunday, and I think we'll do that. I think the total focus now and it's only one thing. It's the two twenty two beat a bull Steelers. As I said before and I'm gonna say it again to you, this is not your father's Steelers. Do not be in awe of those uniforms. There's no Bradshaw, Franco Swan, Stalwarth. They're not going to score any points this week. Joe Green, Greenwood, Ham, Lambert and Blunt. They're not going to be there to stop you. The only team that can stop you this week is you. The only team that can beat the Colts this week is the Colts if they don't play their A game again. This is a great opportunity, not a good opportunity. This is a great opportunity. You dream of playing that prime time which is Monday Night, that every person who's ever meant anything to you, your family, that high school, everybody in this country that matters to you is watching you and is your co pilot this week. Okay, more importantly to me, this was always my goal. Is every one of your peers is watching you. Everybody's played on Sunday, They're watching coaches and players they're going to be watching. You can create your legacy on Monday Night football. This is a perfect setting, in my opinion, for the Horseshoes to crawl back out of the hole and get back in contention. I know this for history, World championships have been won by teams that were seven and seven by Christmas, and to me, that's our goal. So this is the first step. We've got to get this one. This is a must and we win it by bringing our a game and bringing a clean a game, no doubt about that. That's Rick Surrey and that's this week's Inside Football before the Colts take on the Steelers. Rick as always fantastically done. I got to ask, what are your Thanksgiving plans? What are you God coming up tomorrow? As we take this on Wednesday, going into the holiday. Well that's pretty interesting because I've got a break in the weather, so I actually I haven't winter arrived at the job yet, so you know, I'll be watching on Little Football. We're having a family dinner at six missus Sherry's got them all coming over right, um and uh, we're having dinner at six, so the afternoon is going to be mine. I want to take it. I already started on Dallas. I really want to get a good look at Dallas again tomorrow because they won't play again until we see them. Yeah, that's right, you know, that's a that's a good day. And I've always loved Thanksgiving, always looked at Thanksgiving like you know, this is the stretch. Now, this is obviously my mind is in a fella are It's It's not like it's a thing thankful day. It's just this starts to stretch. You know. It's a line of demarcation in the season, right for you. Yeah, that's the home. Somebody used to ask me when I was coaching, you know, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? I used to say, I'm working on the red zone. What the hell you think I'm doing? It's Thursday. It's blitz pick up, you know, that's what it is. You got to bear with me sometimes because in my twenty seven years in the NFL, and I don't say this arrogantly, but my specialty on every staff became red zone defense. It just, you know, I don't know what just started. I started, and the kind of developed a little bit of a reputation and it carries through in a small world. And so my life really for twenty seven years revolved around that final twenty yards. So I just believe in it. And you know, teams that do well and you know what, I you know more than anything else. And I think this applies to our failures offensively in the red zone. You got to be known for something in the red zone. You can't get cute in the red zone. You have to you have to have your best off tackle run. You have to have a fade stop game on the outside, one receiver that can run an option inside. And then if you have the mobile quarterback like Philadelphia and even Pittsburgh, then the fourth dimension is the running quarterback. But those are the things you can mask them. But all this cuteness just kills you. I mean a reverse path. I mean, you've got to be able when you're on that seven yard line. Those windows are so freaking tight. You've got to be able to execute with your best play. And so anyway, so much for that rant. It was a fantastic rant, and it's it's so true. I mean, it's it's so indicative of where this Colts team is on the season. Here. I want to know, though, are you making the salad. Are you making your patent insal I am the your agamn good point. I'm the salad and Sunday maker. I can do the salads. I do the opener, and I do the closer. I do Sunday's at the end, and everything else is miss Sharon. So now, God, she's got the ball game. Well what you were we were broadcasting remotely, and you did bring in that salad last year for one of those games on the remote broadcast, and that was a damn good salad. That was really good. I wanted to give Propstacy. You gotta make that again. You're too kind. Well, Rick, enjoy the day. If you're going to be out in the chopper on the cycle, be safe, have a great time with family, and we will indeed talk to you later this week for Monday night football against the Steelers. Can't wait for it. Man, all right, Matt, you and your family have a great day tomorrow. I appreciate that. We'll do again. That's Rick Ventury. That's it for Insight Football Week number twelve. As always, for the latest on the Colts, check us out Colts dot com, the Colts Mobile app, and be sure to subscribe to everything on the Colts Audio Network. We've got plenty more coming your way all week long going into this Monday Night or first home Monday Night game for the Colts since twenty fifteen. Again for Rick Ventury. I'm Matt Taylor and we will talk to you next week on another installment of Insight Football, getting you ready for Colts and Cowboys. You're on the Colts Audio Network. So long,
