Colts are protected posers

[PlinytheCenter]

The flop last night by Luck was just ridiculous.

Yea, the idiot bumped him, but the flop afterwards was so dramatic and fake. Can't believe the ref threw the flag on it.

C'mon Luck. :roll:

THIS is why soccer is a friggin joke. LOL

 

[McGruff]

of all the sports in the world football is the easiest to influence with referees. you can totally erase one play due to a call and it will only be called "controversial"
Bill Simmons made a comment about how there have been 10 worse calls than the fail mary since the fail mary and no one has said a peep because these are the real refs.
to the NFL credit they tried to have full time refs with training and that is part of where the strike came from.

Makes sense, since the "fail Mary" was the right call . . .

 

[Evil_Shenanigans]

Yes the flop from Luck was pretty lame and yes the Colts are one of (if not) the least penalized teams. As long as you have human beings governing the calls on the field you will always have controversy.

So what can be done? The one that most perturbs me is the spot of the ball. Why not have something along the lines of an RFID tagged/GPS tracked football at the very least, so that you could get real time telemetry of the ball's position and get rid of the ridiculous "Measurement" for the first downs. Once you know exactly where the ball is in time and 3D space you should be able to cross reference via time stamp from the various camera angles to see exactly where it is in reference to the players extremity hitting the ground, plane of the goal, sideline etc. This would remove the human variable from one of the most controversial decisions in the game. Thus freeing them up for things like holding calls and illegal blacks etc.

Just a thought.

 

[chawx]

Sorry to start a flame war but after watching the colts/broncos game last night I have realized what I hate about the indy and specifically luck.

Luck is a great athlete and genius quarterback, but I challenge any of you to actually watch a Colts game and show me a scoring drive by luck that wasn't accompanied by a timely drive sustaining flag.

I went back and watched the game in full, then the seahawks game, then the niners game and from those three games alone this guy gets an average of 6 downs a drive (6 DOWNS!!) the one game where he went down to the normal 3 - 4? the game against the chargers.

You can always tell when the league has their "chosen ones"
if Luck (who is way taller and heavier than Russ) got hit half as much as Wilson, in or out of the pocket there would be laundry all over the field every play.

Would LOVE to see these posers in the big game in new York (to keep it hawks related). how do you think this game would go down in a rematch?

QFT — the worst part about this though, is that if the Refs (and whoever it is behind this) want a certain team to win a game...they'll win that game (see SBXL*).

I picked two games yesterday on my football picks based solely on the fact that I saw who the refs were and had a feeling they would try and sway the outcome. 1) the Jets over Pats, I knew something would happen on that FG try to give it to the Jets, and sure enough, they call some obscure rule that probably 15 other teams have done this year to give the Jets a second chance at the win. And 2) Colts over Broncos, I knew again the Colts would win this thanks in part to the refs, and sure enough, they gave the Colts just enough to win it and to keep the Broncos from threatening.

This is why the Colts can beat the Seahawks and the Broncos (at Indy) and lose to teams like the Dolphins and the Chargers. The best part about the Chargers game, is Phillip Rivers was getting those drive sustaining calls that Luck usually gets and at one point in the 4th quarter looked stunned (half smiling at his coaches/team) thinking "Really?" you're calling that? The Refs did exactly what they needed to do to give it to SD, they swallowed the whistle on tight coverage/holding calls that would favor the Colts (ie. killing drives) and giving anything close to SD (ie. sustaining drives)

I still believe the replacement refs (as sad as they were at times) were 10x more fair and unbiased than the 'real' refs ever were.

 

[amill87]

I echo the same thoughts as some in this thread, it isn't the mistakes that drive me nuts, its the lack of consistency.

What I don't understand is how the refs can do what they do and there is zero repercussions for them. It happens all the time, ref throws a flag that changes a game. Team sends it to the NFL afterwards and the NFL says yeah, they got it wrong. Well wtf does that do? The NFL just goes "yeah you guys got screwed, sorry".

Why are there no penalties for when they mess up? There isn't a job in this world that has zero consequences when you make mistakes but it sure seems like there is for the NFL refs.

 

[volsunghawk]

2. Unbelievable fortune that after years of Peyton Manning, the one year he gets injured they end up with Andrew Luck in return

We all know they tanked it on purpose to get Luck that is why I can never root for them and I don't respect that franchise.

This is wrong.

 

[Polaris]

2. Unbelievable fortune that after years of Peyton Manning, the one year he gets injured they end up with Andrew Luck in return

We all know they tanked it on purpose to get Luck that is why I can never root for them and I don't respect that franchise.

This is wrong.

Is it? Going from a string of about 10 straight 10 win seasons, to have a single 2 win season and then 'rebound' to an 11 win season (and likely to repeat this) doesn't seem at all suspicious to you?

 

[volsunghawk]

2. Unbelievable fortune that after years of Peyton Manning, the one year he gets injured they end up with Andrew Luck in return

We all know they tanked it on purpose to get Luck that is why I can never root for them and I don't respect that franchise.

This is wrong.

Is it? Going from a string of about 10 straight 10 win seasons, to have a single 2 win season and then 'rebound' to an 11 win season (and likely to repeat this) doesn't seem at all suspicious to you?

Not at all if you're at all familiar with the Colts (which I am, having married into a family of Colts fans).

Ask yourself what made those Colts teams work. Why did Dungy turn from a defensive mastermind in Tampa into the guy who coached teams that consistently ranked high offensively and poorly defensively. Why did the Colts value pass rushers, but seemingly never invest in run-stopping D-linemen? Why did they ALWAYS let linebackers leave in free agency?

It's because as soon as Manning was drafted, that team was built completely around his skills and his excellence. The defense was built around holding a lead and teeing off on teams who were forced to pass to catch up once Manning and the Colts offense put them in a hole. WRs like Harrison and Wayne would get big contracts while RBs were shuffled in and out and defenders (outside of the pass rushers) were routinely allowed to walk in free agency. The team invested so much into Manning and the passing game that it had to skimp on everything else. And suddenly, when the cog that made everything go broke down, everything else fell apart.

And it ended up costing the coaches, the front office, and several veteran players their jobs. All those people who were in on the "suck for Luck" idea (according to the conspiracy theorists) ended up losing their livelihoods over it. There wasn't anything suspicious going on... it was a simple case of the team relying too heavily on one generational talent at QB and sacrificing too many other aspects of the team to keep him propped up for the decade and more that they did. And none of this is news... people had been predicting a Colts collapse if Manning got injured for YEARS.

 

[SeaTown81]

I want to echo everything those have said here on consistency. That is what drives me insane when it comes to NFL refs.

Our game vs the Colts is the prime example. Sherman, Browner, and Tate were called for 3 horrible PI calls where the Colts were flopping more than anything. And in the same game, the Colts' db's were allowed to come over the top of Seattle receivers the entire game. Refs can't allow home field to cause them to call one penalty two entirely different ways during the same game. That's just ridiculous. Cris Colinsworth noted last night about how the Indy db's play physical and are allowed to get away with a lot. As a Seattle fan, I got no problem with that. But if you are a ref and are going to let them get away with playing rough, you can't go and hold Seattle to an entirely different set of rules just because you got the home crowd and players are freaking out, calling for flags. That's just bush league.

 

[kearly]

I hate teams that are more lucky than good. Ergo, I'm not the biggest fan of the Chiefs or Colts. That said, are the Chiefs and Colts contenders? I think they are.

The Chiefs remind me of the 2011 49ers: Every team they play seems to have an off week when they face them. Part of that is their defense. Part of it.

The Colts remind me a little of the 2012 Falcons. It's built on the passing offense, specifically the deep ball, with a RB who isn't as physical as he should be. The Colts play in a powder puff division, similar to last year's Falcons.

I think both teams finish 13-3, then fail to make the Super Bowl. But that said, the 2011 49ers were extremely close to a SB berth, and the 2012 Falcons narrowly beat the 2012 Seahawks at 10am. With enough help, either of those teams could be giant slayers come playoff time.

 

[gulliver]

Colts are one of the best teams in the NFL this year.

That said, they owe their wins to a combination of home field advantage and, as the OP says, maddening, drive-sustaining referee interference. If they play all 3 (Hawks, Niners, Broncs) on the road, they lose 2 of 3. They're the real deal but they've had a lot of help too.

 

[loafoftatupu]

Yes the flop from Luck was pretty lame and yes the Colts are one of (if not) the least penalized teams. As long as you have human beings governing the calls on the field you will always have controversy.

So what can be done? The one that most perturbs me is the spot of the ball. Why not have something along the lines of an RFID tagged/GPS tracked football at the very least, so that you could get real time telemetry of the ball's position and get rid of the ridiculous "Measurement" for the first downs. Once you know exactly where the ball is in time and 3D space you should be able to cross reference via time stamp from the various camera angles to see exactly where it is in reference to the players extremity hitting the ground, plane of the goal, sideline etc. This would remove the human variable from one of the most controversial decisions in the game. Thus freeing them up for things like holding calls and illegal blacks etc.

Just a thought.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. It wouldn't even be hard nor costly to setup properly, well not to the NFL. It would not have to be used all the time, just in the tough situations like forward progress, checking for first downs and at the goal line.

Really, they could have sensors at each end of the ball. They could have a transmitter like GPS satellite, except it would be located center of the field and have the field mapped out perfectly to give the exact location of the ball in relation to the center. Every kickoff the calibration could be verified from the 35. As the ball crossed the location of the chains a notification would take place of first down. The zebras AND the coaches could have a mini display with the reading so they all were provided similar info.

It would also be able to identify a FG that went over the top of the upright.

Im on it.

 

[hawk45]

All fans have their threshold where they cross over from "yes we had penalties but good teams overcome them" to "those penalties gave the game to the other team." The refs crossed that line for me in the Colts game. I think Luck is fantastic, I think the Colts are a playoff team. I do not think they deserve the W they got against us, I don't think they get that W if the game is called in anything approaching a consistent fashion.

If that's how the Colts have been treated against other opponents, then I think the OP has a point. It doesn't mean they aren't solid. But it does mean that there's a little bit of help thrown in there with their victories against the top teams in the NFL.

Now if the refs continue to baby them the rest of Luck's career I guess it won't matter. Effectively, they'll remain that good and they'll continue to have such outcomes. I admire Luck, but I want that franchise to fail in the most painful humiliating way possible for tanking to get him. They had their decade of having the best (regular season) QB in the NFL. Getting Luck after that makes me sick. I'd be rooting for Luck like crazy if he was on a team that I didn't feel flushed their season on purpose to get him.

 

[253hawk]

This was my favorite: '12 men in the huddle' as an immediate make up call for the previous play when Clemons sack-stripped Luck (glancing his helmet in the process.) It's one thing to miss a call on a penalty, but to straight up make them up out of thin air is inexcusable.

12 men in the huddle? Really? Get your eyes checked, Ron Winter.

 

[scutterhawk]

What annoys me about the Colts:

1. Massively irritating owner

2. Unbelievable fortune that after years of Peyton Manning, the one year he gets injured they end up with Andrew Luck in return

3. Just seem like a really half arsed fan base

I don't believe for one split second that when Peyton was shipped off, that the owner of the DOLTS saw Andrew Luck on the horizon, and told his Coaching staff to "Tank IT".
The Colts still had a lot of the same players in place, to take the team back up to par, and all they were missing is their center piece.
That's why, when I hear the buffoons schpiel their crap about taking a 2 & 14 team ,and bring it back to respectability SHFH.
Luck was the Grand Phoobah in that draft, and the Officials have taken special notice, and has given special exemptions where he's concerned ,and it's disgusting.