INDIANAPOLIS – It was time for a change to the most important down in football.
After ranking in the bottom third of third-down defense in 2018 and 2019, Matt Eberflus decided the approach needed to be different come the money down.
“Couple things we’ve done differently on third down this year,” Frank Reich explains. “(Eberflus has) continued to add to the pressure package. Flus is really creative. You have to experiment with things and he’s experimented with a lot of things in the training camp reps that we’ve had and what fits us in our scheme, what fits us with our players. I think he’s done a good job there. There’s some coverages that we’ve emphasized more on third down, a few coverages that we didn’t play as much in the past few years that we’ve been here, that have been highlighted a little bit more to date. Now, every game is a new game, but that’s the way I see it so far.”
It was something Eberflus first mentioned following the season opening loss to the Jaguars, when the Colts allowed 5-of-10 on third down, and didn’t play good enough.
Some miscommunication arose in that game, as the Colts first tried their new third-down approach in games, which includes some more man looks and variety in zone schemes.
“We were doing some different things there on third down that we haven’t done in terms of our coverages,” Eberflus said after the 27-20 loss.
Earlier this week, Eberflus expanded on the third-down changes.
“The discussion goes what can we improve on?” the third-year DC says in describing what happened this offseason. “What can our guys do (well)? What makes it harder for the offense to figure out what you’re doing, how you’re doing it?
“We are in the evaluation process all the time. That’s what we do as coaches and we want to look at how we are doing things and if we can do them better.”
The results have been much better on third down the last two weeks.
In consecutive wins—the first time the Colts have done that since Week 7 and 8 last season—the Colts have allowed just 5-of-21 on third down.
Through three weeks, they rank 4th in the NFL on third down (32.3 percent conversion rate).
Of their 6 interceptions the last two games, 3 of those have come on third down.
Stressing the need to disguise coverages better was an off-season goal for the Colts.
And the results have led to the Colts being a much harder team to read from how they line up, and look formationally, to what you see once the ball is snapped.
“The big thing that we work on is pre and post snap reads,” new cornerback T.J. Carrie said after the Colts moved to 2-1 on the season. “That’s something that every quarterback in the National Football League doesn’t like. If you show him something pre-snap and then post-snap giving him a different look, that tick of hesitation gives our D-line a chance to get to the quarterback, force him into making bad decisions.
“I think that’s the biggest thing we harp on all year, pre and post snap reads. What is the quarterback seeing initially? And then as soon as the ball is hiked, what are we giving him? That’s something we continue to harp on ourselves, making sure that we are not one dimensional in showing them one thing and giving them that one thing.”
