INDIANAPOLIS -- It was almost seven months ago that Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay sat inside his air conditioned suite at the NFL’s owners meetings in Phoenix and rattled some numbers off the top of his head that were alarming, but not truly surprising.
“It’s concerning, obviously, when you have 657 yards in three games,” he said that March afternoon. “You have 219 yards a game against you on the ground, and that doesn’t bode well.”
You think of the New England Patriots, and quarterback Tom Brady is the first person that usually comes to mind. That hasn’t been the case in the past three meetings between the Colts and New England.
The 657 yards Irsay mentioned are in reference to how many yards the Patriots have rushed for in the previous three meetings, all losses for the Colts. The message from Irsay to general manager Ryan Grigson and coach Chuck Pagano in the offseason was that they had to get tougher up front.
“We either get it fixed or it will be somebody else getting it fixed,” Pagano said during the offseason.
The message was relayed to free agents the Colts met with during the offseason.
“Me and [defensive coordinator Greg] Manusky, we were talking about some of the things that were coming up, and that was one of the things where they felt like we needed to improve on the run defense and a few other things defensively as a whole,” defensive end Kendall Langford said.
What’s been even more embarrassing for the Colts is that it’s not like Brady has been handing the ball off to Adrian Peterson in the backfield. It’s been journeymen LeGarrette Blount and Jonas Gray who have hurt Indianapolis. Gray rushed for 201 yards and four touchdowns against the Colts in Week 11 last season. He was cut by the Patriots at the end of training camp. Blount has rushed for 314 yards and seven touchdowns in the past two playoff meetings against the Colts. Dion Lewis, who was with the Colts briefly last season, is averaging 5.0 yards a carry this season. It's more of the system the Patriots use than the running backs they have on the roster.
“They do a nice job based on matchups,” Pagano said. “Got guys blocking that are good players for them. It’s one of those things where based on what we give them from a defensive standpoint look-wise, you go big people out there; they might spread you out with displaced personnel getting empty, throw it around. You go small ball on them, you try to match up from a coverage standpoint, as well as run standpoint, and they run it on you.”
The Colts thought they would have one of their main run-stoppers this season, but defensive tackle Art Jones was lost for the season on Aug. 29 because of an ankle injury. The Colts then cut 2014 starting nose tackle Josh Chapman. That meant the starting defensive line featured three players -- Langford and rookies David Parry and Henry Anderson -- who weren’t part of the unit that was run over by the Patriots in the past, to go along with the linebacker group of Jerrell Freeman, D’Qwell Jackson, Erik Walden and Trent Cole.
“When we’re not playing well, it’s because somebody is out the gap or somebody is trying to do too much,” Walden said. “We can’t panic when things start getting bad. We have to be disciplined all the time. Not just a half or quarter, either. The entire game.”
It turns out the line has been the strong suit of the defensive unit this season. They’re coming off a game where they held Houston Texans running back Arian Foster to only 41 yards on 19 carries. Pagano said this is the best he has felt about his run defense during his time as coach of the Colts.
“This team has not faced their team,” Pagano said. “We’re different up front. So we’ve got a heck of a challenge in front of us, obviously. I think everybody knows that.”