Indianapolis Colts Recap: Week 11, vs. Green Bay Packers

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Lucas Oil Stadium, which has likely hosted the NFL Combine for the last time in the foreseeable future.

Wikimedia Commons

This fall, the magazine will recap each week of the Colts’ strange, pandemic-hobbled season. This week: digital editor Derek Robertson, with contributors Derek Schultz and Nate Miller are here to sing the praises of a most-likely playoff-bound team after an ugly-but-great win.Derek Robertson: 

My friends! The young Rodrigo just sealed the deal after a very weird, occasionally brilliant, but mostly, well, painful overtime game. If you’d told me the Colts were going to beat the Packers this week, I sure as hell would not have guessed that it would be in a contest where both teams scored more than 30 points, but here we are. That’s two solid wins in a row against playoff contenders following that horrible Ravens loss, and the offense has just looked more and more threatening this week, if not more polished (those holding calls… we’ll discuss that later)—how are we feeling tied atop the AFC South, with another crucial game against the Titans next week?

Derek Schultz: WE feel great! Can’t wait to watch US play next week! (Sorry, I’ve never been able to do the “we” and “us” thing with teams.) To answer your question in a non-asshole way, that was absolutely a fantastic win. I think it legitimizes the Colts in a way that beating the Titans, who they always stuff into a trash can, didn’t. To draw another parallel to the Tennessee game, they once again adjusted and completely dominated in the second half. The Colts have now outscored their last two opponents 37-3 in the second half/OT. That’s usually the sign of a good team.

Nate Miller: The Colts ARE good, Schultz. But that’s not the point right now. Let me say this right off the bat: that was FUN. That’s the most fun I’ve had since, like, April, when IndyCar ran their first video-game race, which was a super-nice break from Korean League Baseball. (I wish I could show that sentence to 2019 me.) Before we get into all the football analysis, I’d just like to highlight the very vague point that the entire game was four hours of pure entertainment, in that it was not-politics. It was four hours of not-the-crumbling-of-American-democracy. Nobody was wearing a mask in our living room and nobody thought to. It was a getaway from real life, if only briefly, and Michael Pittman Jr. is a BOSS.  

DR: That’s an absolutely eye-popping stat regarding the second half, especially against two above-average opponents—but for a moment, can we please take a moment to look at the extremely drunk win probability chart for this game:
 

A competent come-from-behind win by a Rivers-led offense is the thing we have been snarkily pining for this entire season, and yet, and yet… here it is, finally, and it’s ugly. After the way the first half went, I was honestly about ready to check out of this one and chalk it up to another mysteriously quiet Jonathan Taylor game and another inexplicable defensive no-show. But the Colts seriously rallied on both sides of the ball, with Taylor nearing the century mark and so-far-unsung hero Kenny Moore racking up 10 (ten!) solo tackles as the Colts D rattled a visibly annoyed Rodgers and company. The story of the game might have been their three forced fumbles and recoveries, which gave the team the opportunity to hang around when it otherwise looked like Rodgers and Davante Adams were eating their lunch. Even when they were 3-1 I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but to your point, Nate: it can, occasionally, be a lot of fun to watch this team right now.

 

NM: At some point in the second half, my 14-year-old son was showing me all kinds of nerdy sabermetrics-type math that somehow proves Julian Blackmon is the NFL’s rookie Defensive Player of the Year. He doesn’t yet know that I don’t care. What I *do* care about is that he left this in an open Word document on my laptop:

 
For your Colts article talk about this being the first Sunday in a while without traveling to a new continent to watch U13 girls soccer, it consisted of kids asking for things on Fortnite, a three-year-old screaming his head off because we turned off his “Paw Patrol,” and a wife asking to go pick up Mexican food from an unheard-of restaurant in Greenwood because she was “in the mood for it.”
 
WE GOT OURSELVES A SNARKY BLOGGER HERE FOLKS.
 

DS: I think that completely hammered win probability chart is a perfect microcosm of this Colts season. Heck, just think about how the last three games have swung after half:

 
First half against Baltimore: ‘85 Bears have nothing on this Colts defense!
Second half against Baltimore: *puts hand on stove burner* *turns stove burner on*
 
First half against Tennessee: LOL they’re going to lose this stupid division again
Second half against Tennessee: *looks up airfare to Tampa*
 
First half against Green Bay: Whatever, this game doesn’t matter.

Second half/OT against Green Bay: JONATHAN TAYLOR CHOO CHOOOOOO

I’m finally comfortable saying the Colts are good. I don’t think they’re great, but in a single-elimination playoff scenario, you just have to get to the dance and see what happens. (Oh God. That sounded like a Paganoism.)

 
DR: I guess that means we have at least one additional week of doing this recap, which warms my heart. Call me the conductor of the Jonathan Taylor choo-choo, if for no other reason than the fact that he is now a grown man and a professional who was not eligible to terrorize the Northwestern Wildcats this past Sunday. Not to count chickens before they hatch (although we’re definitely way beyond that point), but given a mostly soft schedule with only six weeks to go, how far do we think this team can go, with only the Chiefs and Steelers outpacing them (and, admittedly, the rest of the 7-3 pack) right now?
 
DS: I think they’re sort of like Northwestern. They’re good. I don’t know how far they can get with a terrific defense and a limited, but capable quarterback, but they’ve definitely proven they’re good. I’m comfortable placing the Colts somewhere on Tier 2, although Tier 2 includes seemingly a dozen teams (Bills, Titans, Raiders, Browns, Seahawks, Rams, Cardinals, Ravens, Saints). The Chiefs, Steelers, and Bucs (in that order) are the teams I’d put on Tier 1, but I don’t believe they’re unbeatable. This is a weird year because I think there’s a very small middle (Patriots? Bears? Niners?). 90 percent of the league categorizes as either good or terrible. With where we sit today, I think a proper expectation is what the 2018 team did: 10ish wins, playoff berth, make the Divisional and pray.
 
NM: Before we go, are we going to talk about Rodrigo? We should probably talk about Rodrigo. He is cool as shit; Schultz was right all along. He’s cool not because he fronts a punk-jazz band and is a Michelin 3-star chef, probably, but because he kicks the ball like Rory McIlroy hits a driver. It just LOOKS different than everyone else. Sounds different. It’s so pure. So fluid. I need a kicking expert to confirm this, please. 
 
DR: I am very much not a kicking expert, but I like to think I know a thing or two about things that are cool as shit, and Rodrigo qualifies. Please come on the podcast. I’ll see you all next week, for the all-important second divisional matchup against the Titans.

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