With their playoff hopes still alive, the Colts found themselves in a must-win game against the Denver Broncos on Sunday.
The game couldn’t have started much better, with the Colts offense scoring on their first two possessions, along with the defense forcing an interception, to give them the early 10-0 lead.
However, a massive second-half collapse from the offense erased all of that early success, as well as the Colts’ playoff hopes.
If you’re up for it, let’s take a look back at this performance with the good, bad, and ugly from it all.
The Good
Colts defense: This group really did just about all they could in this one, and even after holding Denver to only 10 points through three quarters, a huge punt return by the Broncos set their offense up at the 15-yard line and led to a touchdown. That was then followed up by the pick-six thrown by AD Mitchell, resulting in another Denver touchdown. Just like that, through really no fault of the defense, the Colts were down 24-13.
Overall, the Bronco’s offense totaled 193 yards, turned the ball over three times, and was held to just 3.2 yards per play–all exceptional numbers from the Colts’ defensive perspective. While the pass rush didn’t generate steady pressure, the Colts’ ability to slow the Broncos run game left the offense often behind the sticks and in predictable passing situations. From front to back, it was a very good performance.
The run game: The massive fumble by Jonathan Taylor aside, the Colts’ ability to move the ball on the ground at least gave their offense some sort of ability to move the ball. As should be the case each week, this was a run-heavy gameplan from the Colts, with Taylor and Anthony Richardson carrying the ball 29 times and totaling 153 yards at over 5.5 yards per rush.
The issue for the offense was the lack-luster passing game, so on the instances where the run game didn’t pick up a positive gain on early downs, the passing had to overcome long down-and-distance situations, which it just isn’t good enough to do consistently.
The Bad
A disjointed passing game: Outside of a few completions on the first couple of possessions, the passing game was completely disjointed. Richardson was off-target and threw two interceptions. The offensive line struggled in pass protection and were penalized, while drops from the pass-catchers and an overall lack of separation didn’t make things easier on the young quarterback either.
Punt coverage unit: Marvin Mims had three returns in this game for Denver, totaling 97 yards including a long of 61 yards that put the Broncos deep within Colts territory, resulting in a touchdown. The Colts’ certainly missed Ashton Dulin and his coverage ability in this game.
Turnovers: Your defense forces three takeaways and you still lose the turnover battle by two? That’s rough and to state the obvious, you’re not going to win games being that careless.
The Ugly
Second half offensive performance: We will just lump all of this together. In big, must-win games, teams need their best players to make plays. However, in the second half for the Colts, we saw Taylor have a costly fumble that took a touchdown off the board and Michael Pittman fumble the ball away two possessions later.
Then in the fourth quarter, still down just four and in Denver territory, Shane Steichen made the decision to call a trick play and put a monumental decision–whether to throw the ball away or back to Richardson–in the hands of rookie receiver AD Mitchell, who’s played roughly 12 snaps per game this season when the receiver room is healthy due to his inconsistent play.
In addition to those massive blunders, the offensive line was penalized, gave up way too much pressure, and Richardson struggled.
When the game was on the line, when it mattered most, when plays needed to be made, the offense collapsed. From the coaching to the play calls to the execution on the field. The Colts fell apart.
