The defense held their own, but the Colts have no one to blame but themselves after playing low I.Q. football in the 2nd half during their biggest game of the season.
At first, the Indianapolis Colts looked like a poised prized fighter against the Denver Broncos in a hostile environment, and a team that was ready to make their playoff hopes come to realistic fruition—in a must-win road game, with seemingly everything on the line.
The Horseshoe came out with a convincing 10 play, 70 yard drive opening drive touchdown—which was capped off by starting quarterback Anthony Richardson going 23 yards untouched to the end zone. (To their credit, the Colts have been great as of late regarding opening script drives).
The Colts defense was playing great, holding Denver to just 7 points at halftime and making Broncos starting quarterback Bo Nix look every bit of a rattled rookie and not the NFL’s Rookie of the Year frontrunner—with two interceptions already into the early 3rd quarter.
The Colts entered halftime with a 13-7 lead.
Hey, we’ll take it!
Then star workhorse Jonathan Taylor made the biggest bonehead play of the entire season and likely of his potential future Hall of Fame career.
With 12:43 left in the 3rd quarter, Taylor seemingly took the ball 41-yards to the House, but upon review, dropped the football in celebration short of crossing the goal line. The play was overturned, and it was ruled a touchback, with the ball going back to the Broncos.
The Colts would’ve gone up 20-7, which would’ve been a two-score game, but instead it remained less than a one score lead—and totally changed the complexion of the game.
That was the beginning of the end for Indianapolis.
All momentum had seemingly shifted on the road in the biggest game of 2024.
However, not to be outdone in their block-headedness, Colts head coach Shane Steichen, with Indianapolis down 24-13 on 2nd and 7 on the Denver 40-yard line with 12:29 left in the 4th quarter, dialed up a trick play with wideout Adonai Mitchell on a WR screen tossing the ball cross-midfield to quarterback Anthony Richardson—which was essentially picked off by Broncos linebacker Nik Bonitto 50-yards all the way to paydirt (although it was actually ruled a fumble recovery because Mitchell’s pass attempt to Richardson was backwards).
For Indianapolis, it added further insult to injury, and was truly ‘Dumb and Dumber.’
Taylor’s inexcusable fumble resulted in 24 unanswered points for the Broncos—en route to another soul-crushing loss for the Colts, although much of it turned out to be self-inflicted.
The Colts have shown flashes, but against the NFL’s better competition this year, can’t seem to string together consistent smart, winning football—always seemingly in their own way.
The Colts defense held the Broncos to 193 total yards of offense and generated 3 takeaways and still lost because of major offensive (and even some special teams) gaffes.
The loss against Denver effectively places the Colts’ playoff hopes on clear life support (at just a 6% chance of making the postseason) and short of a Christmas or New Year’s miracle, Indianapolis will once again miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season (and having not won the AFC South since 2014, being the longest drought of any member of their division).
