Rock Ya-Sin Jersey , it was widely accepted that the Indianapolis Colts were in a rebuilding year. Some projected a losing record. Numerous others suggested that a .500 season should be considered a big accomplishment. Neither of those groups could have imagined some of the things that have happened in 2018.Even fans who were confident in Andrew Luck’s return to football after nearly two years away from the game had to admit hesitation. What can you realistically expect from a player who underwent major shoulder surgery, suffered an apparent setback during his recovery, and didn’t officially start the football portion of his throwing program until training camp only a few months ago? If I had to guess, even the most optimistic fan wouldn’t have thought that 13 games into the season Luck would be among the top five quarterbacks in passing yards, have a quarterback rating just under Aaron Rodgers but above Tom Brady, and sit second in the NFL in touchdown passes. Coming into the season, it was expected that a major transition from a 3-4 defense to a 4-3 Tampa 2 style would take time. There is simply no way to acquire all of the players a team needs to effectively run the system in one year. While the Colts defense isn’t where fans or coaches want it to be just yet, there are tremendous first year strides that no one would have predicted. The Colts are currently sitting at 11th in total defense, 18th in point per game, 15th in pass defense, 9th!!! in run defense (the Achilles heel of the Tampa 2), 12th in sacks, and 8th in forced fumbles. Not only is this defense already an average or even above average unit, it has players who are flashing in a much brighter way than could have been imagined.Chris Ballard should be seriously considered for executive of the year. His draft picks and free agent additions on the offensive line have completely changed the face of the organization. Injuries to Jack Doyle and Ryan Kelly have brought the group down to a earth a bit but when veteran Matt Slauson went down, Mark Gowinski somehow upgraded the right guard position. When the floundering attempts at right tackle failed and Joe Haeg suffered an injury, rookie Braden Smith turned into what appears to be a long-term answer at the position. The future looks very bright for the Colts offensive line and just one year ago this unit had huge question marks. An even greater accomplishment has to be the work Ballard has done in just two years at linebacker. No position was a bigger weakness heading into the 2018 NFL Draft. The pledge to bring in a handful of new players at the position signaled a complete “rebuild” at the second level of an entirely new defense. Right now? Darius Leonard, who was an “over-drafted” small school prospect early in the second round, and Anthony Walker, a mid-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft who did very little as a rookie, look very much like the team’s future at the position. Leonard is a front runner for Defensive Rookie of the Year (and is currently underappreciated in discussions for Defensive Player of the Year outright). Leonard leads the NFL in tackles by 17 and he missed a game this season. Walker is 15th in the NFL with 97 tackles and has come on strong in recent weeks.Rookies Matthew Adams, Zaire Franklin, and Skai Moore are all still with the team. Adams has stepped into a prominent role as the starting strong side or SAM linebacker. He has shown speed, range, and strength that seventh round picks aren’t supposed to show. He played a big role in containing Dashaun Watson in the pocket. Even the defensive line has been a breath of fresh air. Free agent acquisition Denico Autry was only kind of exciting for Colts fans. He wasn’t a marquee name in free agency and Ballard didn’t throw away the team’s future trying to pay him. He currently leads the Colts in sacks with 8 on the season, has tallied 5 sacks in the last two weeks Khari Willis Jersey , and has been dominant at 3-tech defensive tackle. Margus Hunt has battled through injuries for the most productive season of his career. Jabaal Sheard has been a dominant edge defender, particularly against the run, and has 5.5 sacks of his own. Rookies Kemoko Turay and Tyquan Lewis have flashed potential as pass rushers. Indianapolis has acquired what many believe is the top group of tight ends in the NFL. Starters Jack Doyle and Eric Ebron have Pro Bowl level talent. Mo Alie-Cox and Erik Swoope have been red zone threats who can easily get lost as defenses focus attention elsewhere. Perhaps the most impressive part of the story here is that the Colts have Ross Travis on injured reserve who many thought would push his way onto the roster this season.Ultimately, these surprises, these wins at numerous positions in a very short period of time have resulted in the Colts going on an impressive 6-1 run after a slow 1-5 start. Let’s take a look back at the keys to the game and how the Colts came out on top against the Houston Texans.KEEP DESHAUN WATSON UNCOMFORTABLECheck. The Colts defense generated 5 sacks and 7 quarterback hits. They contained Watson in the pocket and held him to 35 yards on 5 carries on the ground. They also knocked down four of his passes. BRACKET HOPKINSCheck. Hopkins caught 4 passes on 10 targets for 36 yards and a touchdown. No Texans player was targeted more than Hopkins on the day and he simply couldn’t get anything going. For big stretches of the game, he wasn’t a factor. MUST MAINTAIN BALANCEMeh. The Colts were able to stay more balanced than they were against the Jacksonville Jaguars a week ago but the running game was entirely ineffective. Andrew Luck led the way, averaging over 6 yards per carry — not counting his kneel downs at the end of the game. Marlon Mack averaged only 2.4 yards per carry and Nyheim Hines averaged .3 yards. BIG PLAYS/TURNOVERSThe officials nearly stole this one. Malik Hooker and Clayton Geathers sniffed out a goal line pass that Geathers was able to pick off. A ridiculous personal foul on Hooker gave the Texans another chance that ended with a touchdown, instead of a goal line turnover.Either way, Indianapolis was unable to win the turnover battle and it kept the game closer than it otherwise would have been.OFFENSIVE LINE MUST GELCheck. While Andrew Luck was sacked twice, he held onto the ball too long on at least one of those plays. The other sack was J.J. Watt doing what he does. Ultimately, Luck was able to pick the Texans defense apart — using a heavy dose of T.Y. Hilton and often had a clean pocket to work from. Jadaveon Clowney was shutout and Braden Smith handled Watt one-on-one for much of the afternoon.There is still work to be done, particularly in the run game, but this was a better effort. For 15 years, the Indianapolis Colts were coached by men who had a conservative approach to offensive decision-making. Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, and Chuck Pagano all preferred to “play it safe” in difficult offensive situations almost as a rule. For Colts fans, it was infuriating. With one of the more dominant offenses in the league, led by two of the most talented quarterbacks in the NFL for most of those years, the coaches would often take the game out of the offense’s hands and ask an outmatched and often bad defense to step up and give the offense another chance. By the way, this happened in nearly every game, against nearly every opponent, in almost every circumstance fans could dream up.In fact, conservative play-calling by Jim Caldwell at the end of the first half against the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV turned the momentum of the game. This conservative play-calling not only came in the Super Bowl, before half time, with the one of the league’s best quarterbacks in the two minute offense at his disposal https://www.coltsfanshop.com/Le_Raven-Clark-Jersey , it came at a time where the Saints had just run their own 7 minute offensive drive that stalled on a 4th-and-1 run call. An offensive score to close out the first half would pushed the Colts to a 10 or 14 point lead. It would have punished New Orleans for failing to convert on fourth down. It would be devastating to the Saints heading into the locker room down 10 or 14 points, only to kick the ball off to Indianapolis in the second half.It didn’t happen. Three straight runs, two by backup running back Mike Hart, forced the Colts to punt the ball away after using only 1:03 of the game clock. Drew Brees and the Saints offense had good field position, remained aggressive and closed out the first half with a field goal, cutting the lead to 4. This momentum emboldened the Saints to start the second half with an onside kick that will be burned into the memories of Colts forever.It didn’t take hindsight to know that three straight run calls in the Super Bowl, against the Saints and its high powered offense, with Peyton Manning and the Colts high powered offense in a two minute situation was a catastrophic coaching failure. It was a conservative decision. Run the ball, force the Saints to use timeouts, try to pickup the first down on the ground, and end halftime with a 7 point lead. It was deferring the option to go for the jugular or otherwise try to cripple the Saints heading into the half. The rest is history.Colts fans have witnessed bad aggressive decisions as well. The 4th-and-2 decision by the New England Patriots in Indianapolis, in their own territory in the fourth quarter, with the lead, was stupid. He allowed his fear of Peyton Manning to cloud an otherwise brilliant coaching mind. He should have punted the ball away and forced Manning to march the distance of the field for a late-game score. He had a 6 point lead, only a touchdown would beat him and he gave the Colts phenomenal field position. It doesn’t take hindsight to know that it was an epic failure as a coaching decision. In real-time watching the game I felt like it was a gift the moment the Patriots snapped that ball. I was stunned Belichick would do something like that. It was like living in an alternate universe. It was awesome.This season, Frank Reich has made a series of bad aggressive calls. It was an absolutely wrong decision to go for it on 4th-and-4 in Colts territory in overtime. The chances to convert were against him and the likelihood for the Texans to win the game sky-rocketed if he failed — which he was considerably more likely to do. Unsurprisingly, the attempt failed and Houston exploited the Colts’ zone defense to use one play to get into field goal range to win the game.To this day, the Texans point to the Colts victory in Week 4 as the turning point of the season. They earned their first win of the season on the road, against a divisional opponent, and it took a comeback to get it done. It emboldened them as a team and helped to kick start a winning streak that has them one game away from clinching the division.Good coaches don’t make that decision. The consequences of wins and losses, particularly in the division, are drastic every season. Haphazardly throwing away that game wasn’t inspirational to a young team, it was a loss that inspired a divisional opponent. It very well could have been a loss that cost them a chance to make the playoffs or win the division.It has been discussed at length that in another divisional game, Reich had a profoundly negative impact on the outcome. On the road, against the Jacksonville Jaguars T.Y. Hilton Jersey , in a must-win game the Colts were shut out. Not because they were actually never in a position to score, they were in position to score at least three times during the game but aggressive play calls early in the game forced them into a go-for-broke late that failed.Without any hindsight, when the Colts had the ball at the one yard line early in the second quarter I felt like the right decision, clearly, was to kick the field goal. One offensive drive resulted in an interception, the second was a punt, the third stalled at the 11-yard line and forced a field goal. Adam Vinatieri hit that field goal to take a three point lead but a penalty on the Jaguars gave Indianapolis a new set of downs.In three straight plays the Colts managed to get only four yards. They could take the 3 points they just earned by kicking an easy field goal or gamble on the goal line to score a touchdown. The smart decision, the right decision, against this opponent and in this situation was to take the points. The Jaguars offense had a backup starting quarterback, was without its biggest backfield weapon, and even at full strength is not very good. Points would be devastating to Jacksonville.The decision to go for it failed. For those who think it was clearly the right decision statistically or because of analytics, Troy Russell completed a bit of research for me leading up to this story. Jacksonville’s red zone defense is one of the best in the NFL, 9th overall. Their defense with 1 yard to gain on third and fourth downs is the best in the NFL.This was not a no-brainer call. I don’t know what sheet Reich had as a reference but if it had the details it should have told him that it was a very risky call against this defense. Knowing everything else he knew about the game, the team he was facing, the environment, and the importance of the outcome — he needs to make the right decision. He should have taken the early lead, put pressure on the Jaguars to respond, taken early momentum, and could have easily been in a position to tie or win with another field goal later in the game.Either way, Colts fans are learning something that is rather interesting. After years of loathing horribly conservative play-calling a fan base has been desperate for an aggressive leader. Now that they have one, the fan base has found itself wishing less for aggressive or conservative and more for intelligent decision-making.Frank Reich is a first year head coach. He is a former backup quarterback who led the biggest comeback in NFL history. Reich is built to be aggressive. As a coach, he’ll need to be something else. He will need to be smart if the Colts are going to be put in the best position to win football games and make it to the playoffs.