Week 14 GDT: Indianapolis Colts vs Houston Texans

[ET80]

59 minutes ago, Apollo Stallion said:

I get the Clowney frustration, but one dumb false start on 3rd and 1 in 4 down territory didn't cost us the game. 

My take as well. Outside of the first 10 minutes of this game, the Colts were clearly the better team. No answers for TY (which we've known since day one) Ebron operating with wide open gaps and a defense that was bracketing Hopkins all day long. That Colts front seven took Lamar Miller out of the game early and we had no counterpunch.

This was losing to a better team, period. You may not want to hear it, but were better in every aspect of the game today.

[Pastor Dillon]

1 hour ago, Apollo Stallion said:

I get the Clowney frustration, but one dumb false start on 3rd and 1 in 4 down territory didn't cost us the game.  Total team loss that shows we have plenty of weeks 1-3 probs still in us.   Watson was awful - 4 of the 5 sacks were on HIM either staring at an obvious blitz and doing nothing to check out of it or find the hot read or holding the ball an absurd amount of time especially in situations where a sack simply can't happen.   Receivers didn't separate all day - Nuk seemed checked out and again watched TY Hilton dominate his home turf.  O-line couldn't run block and usual pre-snap penalties in red zone.  D-line got virtually no pressure, crap tackling, and nobody could cover TY Hilton.   O'Brien burned needed timeouts in each half that burned us (gave the Colts a free play in the 1st to hand them 3 points that was the difference) and some old lack of urgency down 2 scores inside 8 minutes, not to mention going away from the TEs which was all that was working especially with us having a QB playing in the slot.  RAC somehow managed to be too conservative to generate a pass rush yet still leave the corners on islands.  Gaine even gets the L for inexplicably cutting Bruce Ellington and Tyler Ervin leaving us with Joe Webb III playing in the slot with Keke Coutee made of glass. 

That all being said, this is not an end of the world loss.  Shows we have plenty of work to do and if we want respect we have to step up our game against the good teams.  Should have everyone's full attention in practice this week instead of reading press clippings or worrying about new contracts.  Would have been nice to get the bye, but we still have a shot.  Final 3 are all winnable, but ideally we break with tradition and win next 2 on the road and rest up week 17. 

Come on, you watch every week as every announce team in the world talks non stop about him while he remains invisible for entire games at a time. 

He lost us a game earlier with a penalty and he wasn’t even playing. 

Its not that he’s not a decent player but he’s so overated and over hyped that’s its frustrating 

 

[Apollo Stallion]

Don't disagree on Clowney needing to step up his game and that he "looks" better than he performs.  Reality is that right now he may be the least valuable of our front 7.  Covington has been outproducing him since he came back, Reader is our best run stopper and JJ converts sacks despite being doubled every play without penalties.  McKinney and Mercilus do all the dirty work as complete LBs and Cunningham/Cole are critical to controlling the TE/RB pass game which has been rock solid since week 3.  Clowney HAS to do more than just look scary a few times a game largely by trying to time snap counts which clearly is being nullified by hard counts.  The dude is the most athletic player on the field every week by a long shot and it isn't even close.  I can't even quite put my finger on why he can't produce more as it's not like when Mario Williams would just abuse the low hanging fruit to pads stats and go thru the motions the rest of the time.  Clowney's motor has been fine and I suspect he's got plenty of "pressures" as he's always in the backfield, but he seems to whiff alot and overpursue especially outside (most of his sacks seem to come on stunts up the gut).   

However, we're still a far better team with him, he's stayed healthy, and we're in an envious cap situation for the next 3 years and production or not, Clowney is still going to be in massive demand as pass rushers that have to be accounted for on every play are still incredibly rare with only about a dozen or so with a few more added each draft class.  Also, to be fair, for all the MVP hype Mack has gotten, he's sitting with the same # of tackles and 2 more sacks than Clowney.  But no, Clowney is not Von Miller and he keeps getting passed by elite pass rushers in each class like Garrett, Chubb, TJ Watt and he's dropping well behind FA competition like Lawrence, Frank Clark, and Dee Ford is having a monster season.  The one blessing is that if he put up 15 sacks this year, he would command well into $100m, so it could work to our benefit to lock him up for a Danielle Hunter-ish $70m or maybe as low as a Melvin Ingrim-ish $64.  I don't see any logic in franchising a 25 year old in an era where guys like JPP, Wake, Calais, Bennett and of course Peppers and Suggs are still effective 32-38 years old. He's in a "contract year" this year, so it's not like franchising him would yield some motivational bump, but rather  I fear that could turn into an ugly Bell/D.Brown situation after which we end up getting nothing.  Given our cap and window of opportunity situation that  would be far worse than Gruden tanking without Mack but getting 2 first rounders.   The Chiefs survived overpaying Justin Houston after a monster season, so we can survive probably overpaying Clowney after an underwhelming, but healthy one.