Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts, Anthony Richardson's Comeback Falls Short to Los Angeles Rams in OT

Starting point is 00:00:00 Anthony Richardson nearly pulled off a comeback win to cap a Herculean effort, but ultimately the Colts fell short and an overtime loss to the Rams. Let's get to it. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right. All right. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen post game.

Starting point is 00:00:45 I suppose this is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And today's post-game show is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs, which helps you find the qualified candidates that you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedonfl. That's linkedin.com slash lockedonfl to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, hello, everybody. Jake Arthur here from Horseshoe Huddle. I'm reporting to you live from

Starting point is 00:01:12 Lucas Oil Stadium where it was an interesting game. Interesting game to say the least. The Rams got out to a 23-0 lead. The Colts didn't put any points on the board until about five and a half minutes left in the third quarter. Honestly, it seemed by the end of the first quarter that the route was on and that the Colts were not going to have a chance.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Defensively, it didn't seem like they were playing very wisely. They were going up against an offense that had showed you through the first few weeks of the season time and time again what they're good at and the Colts defended it just like every other team had. Offensively, very sluggish, just not hitting where they needed to. A lot of missed opportunities. A lost fumble, some penalties here and there, but an overmatched offensive line that was missing a couple starters that was really showing through.

Starting point is 00:02:09 Ultimately, again, like I mentioned, five and a half minutes left in the third quarter. Anthony Richardson and the Colts really turn it on. They get a couple of touchdown drives put together. Two of their three touchdown drives in that late know late portion of the game they capped them with two-point conversion attempts which are always more difficult than it seems uh ultimately anthony richardson just really put the team on his back uh had a heck of a day i don't it's another game where the box scores really not going to tell you the whole story. 11 to 25 passing, which looks bad on its face, but 200 yards, you know, it's about eight yards for YPA. A couple of passing touchdowns had a rushing

Starting point is 00:02:51 touchdown as well. In the first half, the offense was only him. Like they could not do anything offensively unless he was running the ball, it seemed. In total, he had 10 carries for 56 yards and a touchdown. He's actually the youngest player in NFL history, at least during the Super Bowl era, to have multiple passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the same game. It seems like every week he just becomes the first player to do this, the youngest player to do this. He's pretty much rewriting the Colts' rookie quarterback rushing record books. He's pretty much rewriting the Colts rookie quarterback rushing record books. You know, he's got four rushing touchdowns now through the first three games for its first Colts rookie to

Starting point is 00:03:31 do that. I believe he's also the first NFL rookie quarterback to have three straight games with a rushing touchdown. I believe Jameis Winston was the last one to do that. So, you know, it doesn't look like extravagant and he's not putting up like huge numbers, but you realize just how effective he is running the ball. You don't get this a lot. Like he's really, he's really cashing in on that. But I wanted to talk about, you know, there, there's been a little bit of chatter with some people, you know, Gardner Minshew was two and oh, basically those last two weeks. And maybe you stick with him. That's not the overwhelming tone at all, but I think we have all heard a little bit of it by now. I just think you look at this game and the Colts come back from

Starting point is 00:04:16 23 points down, bring it to overtime 23-23. That does not happen without Anthony Richardson making the plays that he made. There were things that he did out there that were not routine in the least. They were incredibly athletic plays. They require supreme arm talent like he has. You look at the throw to Mo Alleycox for the 35-yard touchdown. He's making that throw on a rope as he's falling to the ground. The two-point conversion to Zach Moss, he has to scramble around and hop and kind of do some sort of tomahawk chop to get that to Moss for the two-point conversion. The Josh Downs

Starting point is 00:04:58 play with the 30 yards up the seam. The Alec Pierce play. There were so many things that Anthony Richardson did today that simply would not have happened if it was Gardner Minshew Minshew. I I've credited him all week. Like I think he did a great job doing his job. He operated the offense well enough to win those games. The defense was doing really, really well those, those last couple of weeks as well.

Starting point is 00:05:23 And they were playing complementary football. But simply put, they didn't lose this game because of Anthony Richardson. They only were able to come back and even make it a competition because of him. So luckily, I think the vast majority of people are still on board with Anthony being the starter. I just don't quite understand how you can watch that and say that, you know, Gardner is the better quarterback for this team right now. I think we're seeing all the time. Anthony is getting better and better.

Starting point is 00:05:55 He's learning. He doesn't typically make the same mistakes twice, but the just spectacular plays that he makes, I feel like they're coming more often. And once the Colts, you know, have played together with everybody in tow for a little longer, I think we're going to see some more consistency offensively. I think things move pretty well when he's back there. I think it's just going to take a little patience from everybody. Like, remember, this is still a young offense with a first-time head coach,

Starting point is 00:06:28 a rookie quarterback. Again, we all knew this was going to be a waiting game, but I think we're seeing a lot of really positive things. I just think it sucks to lose, basically. No matter what happens when you're losing, you kind of lose context a little bit um somehow the Colts are you know every other team in the AFC South won today but the Colts are still technically the top the AFC South um you know it's it's not all bad like this loss really sucked

Starting point is 00:06:58 we could have been sitting here talking about a 40 to 0 loss or something without things were going in the first half so not all all bad. So I'll get my positive vibes out of the way there. Defensively, I think everybody really had a big problem with how things operated defensively. So Matthew Stafford and Puka Nakua have been shredding defenses all throughout this early season, particularly zone defenses. Like we've seen Stafford do this with Cooper Cup the last couple years. Stafford has found another player who is an absolute zone buster and just eats things alive.

Starting point is 00:07:35 And it's not like Nakua has been some secret. Like he was already on pace to set records coming into this game. And now afterwards, his 39 receptions and his 501 yards are both the most by any player in their first four games in NFL history. So it's not like this came out of nowhere. This was not some secret that this is what the Rams were doing. And so the fact that the Colts didn't make it tougher in coverage and get a little more man and get physical.

Starting point is 00:08:06 I don't know how that wasn't the approach. Maybe they were confident in the secondary's ability to cover, and it just bit them. Maybe they thought they were going to get more pressure. I think we all did. I don't know where. The Rams' offensive line is bad. So, and they got sacked six times last week against the Bengals.

Starting point is 00:08:24 I don't know how there was such limited pass rush. I think this whole thing just must have taken the Colts by surprise defensively, because that's the only reason I can think why you allow a team that has showed you what they're capable of doing already for the first three weeks to continue that. The Rams got out to an early, big, a big early lead within the first quarter. It felt like the game was out of reach by then

Starting point is 00:08:52 because of what Stafford and Nakua were doing. You even saw Tyler Higbee had five catches for 63 yards. The passing game was shredding. And ultimately, they called game with it. They won 29, 23 with a big open field, 22 yard catch from Stafford to Nakua. There wasn't anyone in Nakua's neighborhood.

Starting point is 00:09:16 How you lose sight of a guy who has been murdering you all game. I do not know. So we'll, you know, we'll talk about that more on our next show as well. And we'll get into it a little bit more later in the next segment, though, we're going to talk more about the offense, the guys surrounding Anthony Richardson, you know, we obviously got to got to show some attention to QB one initially, but first a word from our sponsors. These days, every new potential hire can feel like

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Starting point is 00:10:33 That's linkedin.com slash locked on NFL to post your job for free terms and conditions apply. And every dayers, man, if you, if you hung with us throughout last week, we pretty much told you the ingredients for a Colts win, and it seemed like everything went wrong. You know, everything we identified as a sensitive point in this matchup

Starting point is 00:10:54 pretty much reared its head. So we'll talk more about that in this Colts next matchup, you know, another AFC South matchup coming up here. Next, you know, Jonathan Taylor is going to start his practice window. So we got a lot of interesting stuff coming for you guys next week. Hopefully, hopefully we can finally hear from Jonathan Taylor at the Colts Complex as he begins practicing, because that will bring us a lot of interesting information because that's a guy who's got a lot of stuff to answer. But moving on, talking about the offense from today,

Starting point is 00:11:28 I don't think anyone was surprised that the offensive line had its struggles. They were down Ryan Kelly, the center. They were down Bernard Ryman at left tackle, both those guys with concussions. Ryman, unfortunately, just developed concussion symptoms late in the week, popped up on the injury report on Friday, and that is obviously far too late in the week in order to progress through the concussion symptoms late in the week, popped up on the injury report on Friday, and that is obviously far too late in the week in order to progress through the concussion protocol. So he was out, which gave Blake Freeland an opportunity to meet Aaron Donald,

Starting point is 00:11:54 and it did not go well. Donald, I think, was credited with... His stat sheet does not reflect as well as his actual game was. So he had one sack and two tackles for loss officially, but he lived in the Colts' backfield. He flushed Richardson out repeatedly. He was there in the trenches to meet Zach Moss several times. He played like a menace.

Starting point is 00:12:19 We know he is, and we should not be surprised of how that all went. So even Quentin Nelson, the Colts' best offensive lineman, is and that's we should not be surprised of how that all went so uh even you know quentin nelson the colts best offensive lineman nelson had some wins but donald you know took him for a ride multiple times as well that's just a guy you you know what it is like you just got to survive the game essentially so shouldn't really be too surprised by that. Ultimately, the Colts did have some progress rushing the ball, though. It was really ugly early on. They finished with 133 yards and a touchdown on 31 carries. It's a 4.3 average.

Starting point is 00:12:55 Again, it was going really rough early on, and it was pretty much all Anthony Richardson. But Zach Moss once again stepped up. He was one of the first players that I noticed in the second half came out and just played like they were tired of getting it handed to them. I think he had five carries for 10 yards in the first half, ultimately comes out in the second half, winds up with 18 total carries for 70 yards. So once again, that's another guy that's been a stud. Seven consecutive games now for the Colts that he's had at least 70 yards from So once again, that's another guy that's been a stud seven consecutive games now for the Colts that he's had at least 70 yards from scrimmage, really solid player for them

Starting point is 00:13:31 allows the Colts to not have to rush any decisions with Jonathan Taylor either. So that guy really, you know, wore his hard hat today. It wasn't an extravagant game, but he had in the second half, he had two carries. He had two seven yard carries had a 20 yard carry he had the two-point conversion so Anthony Richardson yes was very very critical to the Colts coming back but Zach Moss really helped extend those drives and keep the chains moving and he kind of feels like an unsung hero of this game even though they did lose they're probably not in position to make things as interesting as they did or even get it to overtime without Moss' contributions.

Starting point is 00:14:11 It was a decent day for the tight ends. Drew Ogletree scored his first touchdown of his career. Really good to see because, you know, he missed his rookie year with a torn ACL after having that awesome training camp in preseason. Came back this year and then promptly had to leave his first game with a concussion, missed the subsequent game, and has really been productive since. He had three catches for 48 yards, and again, that touchdown today looked really good doing it.

Starting point is 00:14:38 He's been a downfield threat. I think he's giving you right now what you're missing in Jelani Woods, just like a physical freak who's a mismatch and can do a little bit downfield and after the catch, and he's just not the normal tight end, and I think Richardson and him are really starting to come along. So Moe Alleycox, there finally was a Moe Alleycox signing. He basically did his Moe thing that randomly pops up for a long 35 yard touchdown again i mentioned that was like a really really good play from richardson rolling out buying time and just delivering a dart to mo uh he did the rest he fought for like

Starting point is 00:15:17 five or ten yards to get into the end zone so that was a really good play by both players uh good to see them get some contributions from moe because he's the type of player he needs that. It's been a while. It's been a rocky couple seasons for him. Kyler Granson, a couple catches for 24 yards. Had one that went for 17. Not his best day. He had a couple plays out there that he probably could have come down with.

Starting point is 00:15:41 I thought that one downfield, the back shoulder left side, you guys who watch the TV broadcast could probably tell better, but it looked like it hit the defender. It would have been a tough, tough play for him regardless. But there was one or two opportunities there for, for Granson to do a little something, but he's been the steadiest tight end since the summer. So I'm not gonna, I'm not'm not gonna you know burn him too much for that one somewhat surprisingly michael pittman who's had eight catches throughout each of the the first few games held pretty quiet in this one just one catch for 15 yards uh there were some opportunities here there i don't think it was a bad game for him. He just wasn't like heavily used today. Alec Pierce, we've been waiting on that downfield shot and it couldn't have come at a better time. Richardson hung tough and just delivered a weird short arm strike

Starting point is 00:16:35 that flew down the field. I think it was like 38 yards on the reception. And then a 15 yard penalty by the defense tacked 15 more onto it. So wound up being a 53-yard play for the Colts. That was very beneficial. Again, Pierce had another one or two plays where it kind of makes you a little frustrated that he didn't come down with it, but at least they got that first downfield shot out of the way. We've been waiting on that for a really long time. So finally got that one. Josh Downs, I don't know about you guys, but I am ready to see more Josh Downs up the seam. He had that, him and Richardson had that great play earlier. I think it was in the preseason where they connected for like that 20 yard shot up the seam. They did it for 30 yards today. It

Starting point is 00:17:22 was a beautiful throw by Richardson. Downs just has really strong hands. He catches pretty much dang near everything Richardson sends his way. Those two have spots, even in the middle of the field. So I'm ready for that to be more of a staple to offense because just like we've seen with the tight ends, in terms of route running and stuff, they have a lot of similar assignments to the slot receivers. And obviously downs is going to be the shiftiest of that group. So I think he's going to be the one to be able to cash in on those type of things more often. So a decent day for those guys overall, looking to see some more consistency in certain areas though.

Starting point is 00:18:15 But in the second half, they really turned things on. It looked a lot better than it did in the first half when they, they couldn't string anything together to save their lives. So we'll go ahead and begrudgingly talk about the defense here in a minute. But first another word from our sponsors. Snap into action this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now,

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Starting point is 00:19:08 So visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. Okay, so the defense. We got the zone defense part of it out of the way the matthew stafford pukinakua stuff i said leading up to this game and i even said in the pregame show if you watched uh andrew moore and i speaking at nevermore i was not worried about the rams run game uh however the rams had other plans and they made me look like an idiot because DeForest Buckner was banged up this week, and he was on a pitch count, but he did play.

Starting point is 00:19:49 When he left the field, they smelled blood in the water, man. Kyron Williams had a really, really good game. He wound up running 25 times for 103 yards and two touchdowns. The blocking was just really good by the Rams' offensive line. Again, a line where they really should have been overmatched. The Colts defensive line is better than the Rams offensive line is. I really don't know how this all happened. Just a defense that had been riding high and I guess was due for a down performance.

Starting point is 00:20:18 But man, the Rams coming into this rank 25th and rushing. They're right around 85 yards per game. They finished this one 36 carries for 164 yards and two touchdowns. So they basically doubled their normal rushing output against a Colts defense that's pretty good against the run. So, yes, Buckner was in and out of the lineup, but it's like why should that matter that much? Grover Stewart's still there.

Starting point is 00:20:49 Quidipe, Samson, Abukam, Zaire Franklin, who's leading the league in tackles, all those guys were still there. So the Rams just really had their number today, it seems. I have no explanation for that. I'm sure we'll hear more from that. We'll hear from Gus Bradley, offensive coordinator Jim Bobcuder. We hear from the assistants on Tuesday. So that'll be interesting to kind of get their perspective on how they saw things after watching the film. I definitely want to shout out a few players in particular. So Dayo Dangbo, very bright spot for a defensive front that did not do a whole lot in this one. This guy played out of his mind at seven tackles with one for loss, one and a half sacks, a forced fumble, a pass breakup, and four quarterback hits. So statistically, he rivaled Aaron Donald in this one.

Starting point is 00:21:39 I mean, Donald was a constant, basically, terrorist against the Colts offensive front. But Dio had himself a game, one of the best games of his career. You might be able to say his best in terms of consistency and not just like lucking into the plays that he sometimes does. But it just goes to show you when you play with like such a high motor and you're relentless and you never quit, like good things happen. And Dio is a big example of that.

Starting point is 00:22:06 Quidipe normally is a big example of that. He had a pretty quiet day today. But, man, really big performance from him. Zaire Franklin continued his historic march towards not only the Colts record books, but kind of making his imprint in NFL record books as well. A little bit, another dozen tackles a day. He's had over 10 tackles every game this year. I think he's now fifth all time and Colts franchise history and 10 tackle

Starting point is 00:22:35 games. They gave him half a sack. He had another quarterback hit as well. So he was all over the place. Easily been the Colts most consistent linebacker, EJ speed overall. I thought thought had a pretty decent game he had that really boneheaded penalty where he hit matt stafford late uh in the that first drive which really inexcusable when you're going up against a quarterback who is not looking to gain extra yards when he's running uh but he made up for it he had some nice plays you know he had a um he popped the ball out from Tyler Higbee on a pass breakup that was

Starting point is 00:23:11 critical late in the game uh really big play by him I think he made another play down by the goal line that was that was big so that guy is really really coming into his own um speaking of the linebacker so i'm sure everyone noticed shaquille leonard was not very involved today um from what i observed he sat out a lot of the second half we saw saguna luby go in there uh when zire franklin had to briefly leave to be evaluated for a back injury so that's that's going to be something to monitor moving forward after the game shane steichen said it wasn't injury related. They were just rotating those guys. So it's strategic.

Starting point is 00:23:48 Like it must seem like other guys are giving them better chances to win, or at least within the scheme that they're employing. So that'll be interesting to see what they do with Leonard moving forward because it's very heavily been Zyra Franklin and EJ Speed as the primary linebackers. And to see Alubi out there was pretty interesting as well. We'll keep an eye on that. But moving beyond that, Andrew Moore, if you guys watch the pregame show, he said he spoke very highly of Kenny and kind of called on him to make a big play. And he did just the second interception of the season for the Colts, believe it or not. But he came up with that undercut the route by

Starting point is 00:24:31 Matt Stafford on a, it would have been a chunk play over the middle with how things were going. It would not have been surprising if they would have converted, but Kenny went low and grabbed the interception, which again, came at a really good time. It was in the second half when the Colts were looking to make a statement. They had just scored their first points, got a two-point conversion. They didn't score on the drive that Kenny gave them, but they did again on the drive afterward. So that was a big play. It was taking the ball away from the Rams and not allowing them to answer the Colts' first touchdown. So really big play by Kinney. This defense, man, I mean, they're going to have some growing pains, but schematic or performance-based, whatever it was, for my money,

Starting point is 00:25:18 I think it was more about communication. It wasn't necessarily like executioner guys, just dropping the ball. Like, I just don't think they should have played so much zone against an offense and quarterback that has shown that they can absolutely shred that. So I'm not getting paid the big bucks to make those decisions. So, I mean, we'll, we'll hear more throughout the week on why they elected to do that. But yeah, that's about all I got for this game. I know Zach will be back.

Starting point is 00:25:54 We'll discuss more in depth about what we see when we rewatch the games, watch the all 22 things like that throughout the week. And then we'll move on to the Titans because it's going to be a big matchup. Another AFC South matchup. Again, every AFC South team just won. It's a four-way tie at 2-2. The Colts are technically still atop that. But we'll really want to look into that. And again, it's perhaps Jonathan Taylor week as well.

Starting point is 00:26:15 So if you guys don't already, follow at LockedOnColts, at JakeArthurNFL, and at ZachX2 on Twitter. Subscribe to us on YouTube, wherever you get your listen to your podcast. We're of course free. Ratings and reviews as well. We would love more of those. You know, we're getting more and more audio listens, but not necessarily reflecting in the ratings and reviews.

Starting point is 00:26:40 If you guys do that for us, it sends us up the charts. More people can start hearing what we have to say, good or bad about that. But yeah, we would definitely appreciate that from you guys. And with that, we will see you guys on Tuesday morning.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts, Anthony Richardson's Comeback Falls Short to Los Angeles Rams in OT

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