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    • 10 thoughts on Colts loss in Jacksonville
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    10 thoughts on Colts loss in Jacksonville

    Vaseline Posted on

    JACKSONVILLE – Ten thoughts on the Colts’ 37-34 loss to the Jaguars at Everbank Stadium:

    1. Another trip to Jacksonville, another loss. But this one was entertaining, competitive and quite wild.

    The Colts found a counterpunch within them as their plan to live methodically unraveled and they were faced with a two-score deficit.

    They cut despite a barrage of injuries to key players, although that’s not much of an excuse against a winless team.

    Ultimately, the Colts fell short because they didn’t have enough depth on defense to do much of anything against a Jaguars offense that desperately needed a game like this.

    The game gave us plenty to dissect, though, from that cornerback depth to the pass-rush reliance to Alec Pierce’s explosive plays and Joe Flacco’s moxie to Anthony Richardson’s absence and lingering health questions.

    2. Although Richardson practiced on a limited basis each day this week, he never really seemed able to play. In the practice time we were allowed to see, he put almost no physical effort into his throws, just using his arms and wrists to throw a few steps here and there. The Colts seemed aware of that all the time, with Joe Flacco taking the majority of the reps.

    It wasn’t physically impossible for Richardson to play through the oblique injury, but it would mean playing without the downfield passing or rushing, and he’s just not built to succeed that way. The Colts were in a better position to win with a healthy Flacco, and keeping Richardson healthy and fresh for the long haul is more important than any game this season.

    From Joel A. Erickson: Late Jaguars FG ends Colts’ 14-point comeback attempt, extending curse

    Another injury: Colts left guard Will Fries was discharged with a lower right leg injury

    3. I thought Flacco played quite well as a backup quarterback, and that’s exactly what he is and will continue to be.

    He controlled the game well with a number of short passes, which worked early but faltered halfway through the game.

    He was caught on one bad turnover when he held the ball in the pocket too long and Braden Smith was worked by Travon Walker.

    He threw up a few prayers, one of which Mo Alie-Cox landed for an acrobatic touchdown.

    And he made a few shots late to Alec Pierce to give the Colts a chance to come back. But ultimately, he couldn’t get this team past an offense that the Colts refused to stop.

    No, he’s not going to start if and when Richardson is healthy enough to be himself. He’s just here to bring a good baseline if Richardson can’t go.

    4. I don’t understand why it took until late in the fourth quarter for the Colts to take a shot at Alec Pierce on a day when they had zero explosiveness in the backfield without Jonathan Taylor or Richardson. Not only is Pierce a dangerous receiver, but he is also reliable at aiming the ball high, keeping his balance and keeping track of the details, which doesn’t come from their starting receiver.

    Pierce went without a catch in the first half, but exploded down the stretch with three catches for 134 yards – an insane average of 44.7 per reception. He exposed a Jaguars defense that likes to live in men with bad cornerbacks, and he’s the only reason the Colts were able to claw their way back into this and avoid a blowout once the Jaguars offense got going.

    5. Brian Thomas Jr. can really fly, and we saw that during his 85-yard track-meet touchdown in the second quarter.

    But what we also saw was the problem with playing Dallis Flowers in range at this point.

    He is just 12 months removed from an Achilles tendon injury, and the general rule is that a player needs two years to regain his athletic ability, if he can fully recover at all. The players you see succeed in a shorter amount of time usually don’t rely on their athleticism, like Kirk Cousins ​​on Thursday night against the Buccaneers.

    Flowers’ entire game is athletic. It has helped that Samuel Womack has stepped up and provided solid enough No. 2 outside cornerback play so far, but this group has been a ticking time bomb since the loss of JuJu Brents as Flowers is still a timeshare at best No. 2 was. 3 option.

    6. In the Colts’ recent losses to the Jaguars — a streak that now stretches to ten straight on the road — one of the most obvious problems was the inability to get Trevor Lawrence to throw or do anything out of his reach . He came into this one completing over 77% of his passes against the Colts in their past five meetings combined.

    Well, it was the same situation again here. A Colts pass rush that missed DeForest Buckner, Samson Ebukam, Kwity Paye and Tyquan Lewis from the original plan failed to hit Lawrence once.

    In reality, he attempted 34 passes, and the Colts didn’t register a single hit on him.

    The reasons are understandable, but it shows how limited the plan to win is this season when it’s all built on the pass rush. Without that effect, Lawrence did what he normally does with this team and more. He finished 28 of 34 for 371 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a gaudy 10.9 yards per attempt.

    And that allowed the Jaguars to finish with 10.9 yards per play on offense – or an average of a first down on every play they ran. That’s hard to beat.

    7. It felt like Adonai Mitchell played a lot more in this game than in recent games. The Colts sent him outside in two-receiver sets, with Michael Pittman Jr. and Pierce were eliminated.

    And they made an early effort to get him the ball, scoring three on the first two drives, then using him on the return throw to Tyler Goodson for 24 yards.

    It’s an example of how explosive his lead is, despite the lack of production and efficiency thus far. Mitchell entered this game with just three catches on 14 targets, but he has the best separation rating in the league due to his ability to fly and break open routes late.

    8. However, the biggest problem with Mitchell at the moment is his refusal to go for the ball in contested situations.

    Flacco targeted him on a second-down throw early in the third quarter, and as two defenders closed in, Mitchell extended one arm and barely moved his body. That had the feel of a business decision.

    He dropped a pass later in the half that would have been a tougher catch on the sideline, but it appeared to be another moment where he stared at the incoming goal instead of securing the pass.

    Some of Mitchell’s issues could be corrected with reps and time on the field. However, that part will be an obstacle he wants to overcome. The game won’t work for him until he does that.

    9. That trick was a lot of fun.

    The Colts threw what they wanted to look like a wide receiver screen to Mitchell, relying on the defense biting on a player heavily used in their game script. Mitchell then looked downfield toward Alec Pierce to move the scrambling defenders vertically and to the right, but then threw back left to Tyler Goodson, who caught the ball right as Quenton Nelson blocked a panicked defender into the Atlantic.

    Goodson then ran 24 yards through the open field before lowering his shoulder and putting down the wood to finish the run.

    10. Will Fries was carted off in the third quarter with an ankle injury, which is the latest blow to a team dealing with all kinds of injuries and basically just brute luck for him.

    Fries stepped in as a fill-in at right guard as a seventh-round pick in 2022 when nothing the Colts tried to help up front worked. And I’d say no player on the roster has gotten better faster than him in that time. He has become such a solid pass protector that I thought he would be worth a nice extension for this team after his contract year was up after this season.

    Now he’s looking at a potentially major upset, and it adds a crack to the strongest unit on the Colts roster so far this season.

    See you next week from Nashville, where the Colts need a win to show they are a team worth rooting for for something this season.

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