One of the pleasant surprises for me yesterday was the judicious use of the blitz by the Colts. I had publicly worried that the Horse would blitz too much and at the wrong times last week, but the end result was much to my liking. I had planned to track the Colts’ blitzes but found the CBS coverage problematically for getting an accurate count. Fortunately, Paul Kuharsky has a great quote by Gary Brackett today.
Monday after he talked with one columnist before the crowd arrived in the Colts locker room, the linebacker fielded the same set of questions with a larger group.
How many times did you blitz against the Jaguars?
Brackett: Ten times, I believe, somewhere in that range.
How much more was that than last year?
Brackett: That’s about 10 more than we did in the past.
Now, I realize that GB was joking here. And I’m not sure how literally we can take his assertion that the Colts blitzed about ten times. But let’s assume he’s right for the time being. The Jags had 55 offensive plays yesterday. If the Colts did in fact blitz 10 times, that would mean the Colts rushed extra men about 18% of the time. Last year, Indy led the league in rushing just three or four men a stunning 90% of the time. This means that yesterday they almost doubled the number of actual blitzes, but would still rank the Colts near the bottom of the league in blitzing.
I can live with that. More blitzing, ok. Just not too much more…
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