The Jacksonville Jaguars have an enigmatic opponent ahead of them Sunday in the Indianapolis Colts.
While much of the roster resembles the one that the Jaguars split the season series with a year ago, there’s a new head coach in Shane Steichen and a new quarterback in fourth overall pick Anthony Richardson.
Buy Jaguars TicketsThose two additions promise to turn the Colts into a significantly different looking squad on the offensive side of the ball.
So what should the Jaguars expect to see in Week 1? We asked Kevin Hickey from Colts Wire to answer five questions about the 2023 Colts and the Sunday matchup in Indianapolis:
Aside from Anthony Richardson at QB, what's the biggest difference between the roster of the 2023 Colts vs. what the Jaguars saw last year?
The offensive coaching staff for one. Shane Steichen takes over as the head coach, and a familiar name for Jags fans is Jim Bob Cooter, who was hired as the offensive coordinator. That change alone is going to make a huge difference from the culture to the schematics every week.
The biggest difference roster-wise is the cornerback room. Kenny Moore II is the only player with more than four career starts. Darrell Baker Jr. and Dallis Flowers project to be the starting boundary corners, and they both are second-year undrafted free agents with one career start combined. It’s a very young and inexperienced group, which may cause issues going against the Jags passing attack.
What does a successful rookie year for Richardson look like?
This is a bit of a cop-out answer, but he really just needs to show growth. With 13 career starts in college, he’s going to make mistakes. But how he learns from those mistakes will be key. He’s already impressing his teammates with the command he has in the huddle, and we know he’s electric with his legs.
His accuracy and touch will be big areas of focus. There isn’t some magical number or stat he needs to get to. But if he’s making the same mistakes late in the year that he was at the beginning, that will be a bit discouraging.
Behind a veteran defensive front seems to be an inexperienced secondary in Indianapolis. Where's the confidence level in the defensive backfield?
On a 1-5 scale, I’d probably say around a 2.5. The safety room is solid with Rodney Thomas II and Julian Blackmon as the starters. As we talked about earlier, the cornerback room will be the X-factor. With such inexperience, there are going to be growing pains, and they likely will happen early in the season.
This is probably the best defensive front the Colts have had in Chris Ballard’s tenure as general manager so maybe that inexperience can be masked somewhat, but it’s going to be a true trial by fire for Gus Bradley’s secondary.
How likely does it seem that Zack Moss will start, and if he doesn't, what's the drop off to Deon Jackson?
It seems to be a 50/50 chance. Moss was limited at practice all week and probably will be a game-time decision. If he’s active, we should expect him to be the starter in theory.
The drop off from Moss to Jackson isn’t a big one. Moss is probably a better between-the-tackles runner while Jackson is much better as the receiver. Though Jackson brings a bit more juice so he’ll be a part of the game plan regardless. Expect rookie Evan Hull to see a small share of the snaps as well.
Prediction and final score?
The Colts made the right decision to rebuild this offseason, and I’m very excited to see how Richardson grows throughout his rookie campaign. But if we’re being realistic, it’s unwise to bet against reigning division champs, especially when they made some key additions to the offense.
The Jaguars haven’t won at Lucas Oil Stadium since 2017, but the Colts haven’t won a season opener since 2013. The latter trend will continue in my eyes.
Jaguars 24, Colts 17
