Laiatu Latu five pressures on the day
The Colts missed Latu greatly against the Broncos last week, as right now he seems to be the only Colts’ edge-rusher that can win consistently off the edge. Tyquan Lewis has not been bad, and he is really great at actually finishing the sacks, but simply put the defense needs a guy that can win one-on-ones and make opposing quarterbacks uncomfortable in the pocket. Ebukam and Paye have been plainly bad rushing the passer, so watching Latu finally emerge into what the Colts envisioned when they drafted him is a welcome sight.
Three wins against AFC rivals
Winning against conference rivals is really important thinking about the playoffs (look at us, talking about playoffs). The Colts are now 3-0 versus the AFC, with the win against the Broncos the most important one. Not only that, but the Colts managed to beat a divisional rival playing away from home, which is never an easy task. Tennessee has not been a hard place to play for the Colts in recent history, like some other certain rival’s home turf.
2/4 on red zone attempts
The Colts’ red zone struggles continue, this time settling for field goals on half of their four trips. One of the two is a bit misleading because it was with time expiring in the second quarter, but the other one came after two questionable inside zone calls by Shane Steichen. It seems like the offense gets too conservative once they reach the red zone, an issue that, if solved, could propel the Colts offense to the next level. Daniel Jones getting more and more comfortable inside the offense could do wonders to unlock this area of the game. Steichen getting more creative with the amount of weapons he has at his disposal would also be great, especially taking into account he has big-bodied receivers like Warren, Pittman Jr., and Pierce. Constantly running inside zones to Jonathan Taylor is not a true red zone strategy.
No turnovers through three games
In the past, the Colts’ offense really struggled with turnovers. Anthony Richardson had a tendency to be somewhat careless with the football, throwing 13 interceptions and fumbling the ball another 12 times over just fifteen starts with the team. According to PFF.com, Daniel Jones has just a 1.0% turnover-worthy play, good for third in the NFL for starting quarterbacks, only behind Justin Herbert and Josh Allen. For the sake of comparison, Richardson had a 4.7% rate last season, good for 39th among 44 qualified quarterbacks. I said it in the offseason that this offense was much better built for a quarterback that took much better care of the football, even though it meant sacrificing the upside and big-plays that Richardson sometimes made out of nothing. With Jones, so far we are not only getting the “takes care of the football” part, but also the big plays, so it seems like a win-win.
Five-game winning streak over Titans
From complete domination with Andrew Luck at quarterback, then a 1-6 stretch, struggling against Mike Vrabel, to now a five-game winning streak versus the Titans. The head to head record is now 40-22 in favour of the Colts, reaffirming that the “rivalry” with our little brothers is not truly such. Perhaps Cam Ward will make things more interesting in the near future, as hearing the announcers talk about him during the game made me immediately trade every single player in my fantasy team for him. Seriously, they were talking about Ward like he was the second coming of Peyton Manning, a guy that is 0-3, completes under 55% of his passes, and has just thrown 2 touchdowns to his team and one to the other.
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