[Lotus]

Originally Posted by NLC1054

I'm not saying you're wrong about safeties creeping up. Nor am I saying it's impossible to throw deep on a cover 2 defense.

I'm saying the Colts never dropped a safety into the box the entire game. I'm saying, in this one particular game, of which John Beck is taking criticism for, in which he was instructed by his offensive coordinator to take what the defense gave him, this particular defense dropped seven guys into coverage on nearly every down.

As I said before, their safeties were so deep, they were rarely on the screen. Keeping the defense honest, in this case, in this one particular case, was a moot point, because the safeties were never in the box, and were essentially being "kept honest" the entire game.

When they did bring a safety on a blitz, Beck picked it up and hit Santana Moss on a cross route that went for the first down. They only dropped that safety into the box when the Redskins were on their 20 in the red zone.

The rest of the time, despite the short passes and the running game, the Colts never put a safety in the box. You can't "keep a defense honest" when they've already shown that they have no intention of letting you get deep on them, short passes and run game be damned.

I fully expect the gameplan to be different versus the Ravens. I'm just stating that I don't think it's fair to criticize John for not "taking a shot" to keep a defense honest that was already paying things pretty honest.

I didn't criticize Beck at all. Not once. In fact I mentioned the Steelers game in which Beck did not play. I've been talking about our offensive scheme.

My basic argument has been that it would be helpful to take an occasional shot down the field and we have not done much of that to this point. I have admitted that the sample size is small and things can change. I cannot understand why this argument is so controversial or problematic for you.