The Colts need to do a lot of soul-searching after consecutive losses to begin the 2024 campaign.
Entering Sunday’s game, the Indianapolis Colts knew what the Green Bay Packers offensive game plan would assuredly be after the Colts surrendered 150+ rushing yards to the Houston Texans in the opener, and with the Packers starting mobile backup Malik Willis in relief of injured starter Jordan Love.
Running the damn ball.
However, for a Colts team that’s purportedly built to “win in the trenches,” the Colts couldn’t stop what they had to know was coming. Heck, it was what we all knew was coming!
In the first half, the Packers, led by former Pro Bowl veteran running back Josh Jacobs, seemingly ran wild on the Indianapolis run defense:
The Green Bay Packers have 237 rushing yards at halftime, which is the third-most rushing yards at the half of any game this century, per @ESPNStatsInfo
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 15, 2024
The Packers finished with 261 total rushing yards, which is the 3rd most allowed in the Indianapolis era, and once again, an opponent essentially doubled the Colts time of possession, 40:11 to 19:49, for a consecutive week.
It was reminiscent of when the Jacksonville Jaguars in December of 2006 ran for a single-game franchise record of 375 total rushing yards against the Colts suspect run defense or maybe even some of the baseline play of those early Peyton Manning career putrid run defenses, but Indianapolis was completely dominated up front on that side of the ball.
It shouldn’t be blamed on any individual Colts defender, as collectively, it has to be better across the board from man-to-man. I do question some of the defensive play-calling though, and why the Colts weren’t loading the box with 8-men each and every early down snap until Willis could prove he could consistently make completions past 12 yards (and I’ll even ask further why backup veteran defensive tackle Taven Bryan continues to play on run downs. He was a sieve on run defense last year, and that hasn’t changed at all).
However, it wasn’t just the Colts defense.
Colts 2nd-year starter Anthony Richardson very much looked like the redshirt rookie he essentially is with just his 6th career NFL start (*and only 13 starts at Florida) after throwing 3 interceptions on the afternoon (although the last one was really more a longshot hail mary attempt more than anything). However, his receivers didn’t do him any favors, as a pretty humorous bloopers reel could be made with all of their drops from Sunday’s loss.
(Except we’re not laughing!):
Lotta blame to go around for the #Colts in week two, but here’s 52 seconds of pass catching disappointment from #INDvsGB pic.twitter.com/med8HHBcTQ
— Chris Shepherd (@NFLscheme) September 15, 2024
If there was a silver lining regarding the Colts offense, star workhorse Jonathan Taylor got loose after a very quiet performance in the opener, rushing 12 times for 103 total rushing yards for a whopping 8.6 yards per carry average. However, it was too little, too late.
Even special teams let the Colts down on Sunday, as Matt Gay missed a 50-yarder wide left early in the 4th quarter. Those points proved to be very big when the Colts had to go the entire length of the field to score a touchdown in the game’s closing seconds—with no timeouts, rather than potentially kick a long field goal to tie it—sending it to overtime.
Instead, Richardson’s final hail mary heave fell well short of the goal line, and as we stated earlier, into the hands of a Packers defensive back for his third interception on the day.
It was just a poor performance by the Colts overall—in a matchup against a backup QB, and after two straight losses, it’s a fair question of what exactly the identity of this team really is?
