Well the football gods were once again shining their alcohol-induced light onto our beloved Indianapolis Colts once more. Back to back wins, hell yea! First we got to welcome back Coach Eberflus and hand an “L” to da Bears. Next we took out the owners of the Terrible Tampons, er…I mean the Terrible Towels, the Pittsburgh Steelers. But even with the two wins, there was grumbling to be heard in Little Lucas Village.
Despite the win, there were some rather loud fans voicing their, uh…uh…”professional opinions” about how football operations on 56th Street should commence. When the history books are written the W’s and L’s will pretty much still be W’s and L’s. We lost Anthony Richardson in the first half after orchestrating two scoring drives right off the jump due to a hip injury. Joe Flacco dutifully came in and played well. Joe threw for two touchdowns and finished the day with a QB rating of 105.9. Not bad for an old white dude. He did a good job of game management and finished out the day with the Colts in the W column. Just what a good backup is supposed to do. NOT TO LOSE THE DAMN GAME!
Well the keyboard GMs came out full throated after the game about our QBs and what the Colts HAD to do. See what Flacco did? They need to bench AR and start Flacco! I saw what Joe did. He came in, managed the game, made some throws, minimized stupidity and handed the Colts their second win of the season. Just what a competent backup is supposed to do. The operative word in all of this is “backup.” Joe Flacco the 2023 Comeback Player of the Year who was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by the Browns after he led them to the playoffs just a few months prior. Flacco was on the practice squad and got called up due to Watson’s massage technique and team injuries. In that backup roll he was asked to not “F” things up and he did what the job required. The 39 year old, which is kind of long in the tooth for QBs, was asked and he stepped up and did what was asked of him. Surprisingly after saving the Browns 2023 season, the phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with job offers. Hell, the Browns never even reached out to him. That is some stone cold, major league B.S. right there folks. Fortunately, Chris Ballard had been playing poker with a bunch of NFL muckety mucks and he had lost a big hand to Bill Belichick. Part of the pot was a dare from Coach Bill. Having a few too many beers, Belichick gave Chris the option of going to a Taylor Swift concert in full Swifty gear or offering Joe Flacco a contract with the Colts. Joe was on a plane the next morning to Indy. True story.
I was impressed with Flacco’s performance Sunday, but not to the point of throwing the baby (AR) out with the bath water. If you want to get worked up about something, look at our RBs. Jonathon Taylor was kicking ass and taking names against the Steelers. He averaged 4.2 yards per carry and had one run for 21 yards and scored a rushing TD as well before being knocked out with a high ankle sprain. His relief? Trey Sermon. Trey mounted a blistering rushing attack averaging 1.6 yards per carry. With that kind of power and spee…uh, wait..what? ONE POINT SIX YARDS PER CARRY? NFL average YPC is 4.1 and he couldn’t muster even half of that. Where’s Zach Moss? No, not the kid from Saved By the Bell. Zach is averaging almost four yards per carry this year wearing that gawd awful orange just off I-74 for the Bengals. You’re welcome Cincinnati. We should be much more concerned about the lack of RB play after JT. That is one giant arse drop off after 28 goes down. It seems he has a mild high ankle sprain this week. No word on what time frame there is on his return to the field, but it can’t be too soon.
O-line did a great job without Ryan Kelly leading them. Rookie Tanor Bortilini came in and it was almost seamless. D came to play and did not disappoint. Those guys get better and better every week. Even with key players missing, Zaire Franklin, Nick Cross and EJ Speed continue to impress me. Despite all his detractors, Chris Ballard has built a pretty good roster that has withstood a lot of adversity. We lose a QB, a quality backup steps in and we will the game. Miami loses a QB and it is chaos. We didn’t chase DeShaun Watson with a dump truck full of money and we didn’t draft Will Levis. Gardner Minshew stepped up for us last year and earned a nice fat raise this year for doing his job. Anthony Richardson needs the reps and the time to develop. Peyton Manning went 3-13 his first year, threw 28 interceptions and look what that kid developed into! At his current pace AR would notch 26 INTs all things being equal. I say let the kid play. Let him learn the lessons and take the knocks. Well, not too many knocks. At least not like the one he took from Minkah Fitzpatrick, that was not even flagged by the zebras. The Bears just got smacked with a $16,883 fine for another unflagged tackle against JT last week. Nice officiating NFL. You need to do better.
Well, this week it is off to usually sunny Florida and the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars. This team for some reason always seems to have our number. The Colts have lost the last 9 meetings against the Jaguars in Jacksonville. The last time the Colts won in the Tarp Covered Palace was back in 2014. Let that sink in. Despite them being 0-4, Vegas has the Colts as the underdog and getting 2.5 points. This is going to be a challenge for sure for the Horseshoe. But I believe Chris and Shane will have the boys ready for the test. As the great Tony Dungy used to say, “Next man up!”
The Forged Truth from the Meanie
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