Colts vs Patriots: What to Watch For

The Indianapolis Colts host the New England Patriots on Sunday Night Football this week. This was supposed to be a highly anticipated game, but due to a slow start this season and injuries to Andrew Luck, the game has lost a bit of luster.

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The Patriots (4-0) are taking their opponents apart, but they’ve also been the beneficiaries of a fairly easy road this season. The Pats are a very good team, but with Tom Brady playing it would have been more surprising if they’d lost one of these early games given the circumstances. The Patriots would likely be 4-0 even if they played these team’s at their best, but the margin of victory would have been much smaller. Here’s the Patriots schedule so far:

Week 1 vs Steelers. No Le’Veon Bell or Martavis Bryant for the Steelers as well as a distinct lack of a defense.
Week 2 at Bills. Despite all the bluster, the Patriots own the Bills and Rex Ryan. The Bills lost their composure early and by the time they got it together, they had run out of time.
Week 3 vs Jaguars. Does this even need an explanation?
Week 5 at Cowboys. No Dez Bryant or Tony Romo, no hope for Dallas.

The Patriots are very, very good but with the exception of the Bills they’ve caught other opponents at very fortunate times this season. I’m not buying the “mad at the league for Deflategate so we’re going to obliterate everyone” theme. The Patriots could do this without motivation because they have the best coach in the NFL, one of the best QBs in history, and don’t care how they win.

Even if Luck and the entire roster were healthy, this would still be an incredibly tough game for the Colts to win just based on history alone. There is some mental hurdle that Chuck Pagano, his staff, and Luck simply cannot get over when it comes to the Patriots. The overall talent on the roster certainly doesn’t help either.

Here’s what fans should be on the lookout for:

Health. Luck has been limited in practice most of the week, but his workload has increased each day. Fans will hold their breath that he is going to play, and the team didn’t sign another quarterback to the roster, but we’ve heard a lot of the same rhetoric from Pagano over the past few weeks. Even if he does play, we have no idea what Luck will look like. He had a brilliant fourth quarter against the Titans, but the 11 quarters of football that preceded it were pretty bad. It remains to be seen if we’ll get the turnover prone Luck or the one who threw 40 touchdowns last season.
A Drop in Talent. The Patriots defense was gutted after last season. They lost both starting corners in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner as well as nose tackle Vince Wilfork. The defense has played very well, but their number of elite players dropped drastically since the last meeting. The Colts, frankly, have more weapons than the Patriots can adequately cover. Their prime corner is Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler, who hasn’t played well this season. Simply put, the Pats lack the lockdown, isolation corners they had in the past two meetings.
Heavy Runs. Expect the Patriots to try and pound the ball like they have in the past, but the Colts defensive line is much more effective than it has been in past meetings. The Colts currently rank 12th in run defense efficiency. Conversely, the Colts also have a much more effective rushing attack on their offense, courtesy of Frank Gore (and likely Ahmad Bradshaw). The Patriots have excelled against the pass (thanks mostly to Blake Bortles and Brandon Weeden) but struggle to defend the run, ranking 25th in run defense efficiency. The Pats like to make opponents one dimensional, but with so much talent on offense that shouldn’t happen this time around for the Colts.
Pick Plays. A growing trend in the NFL is the use of pick plays in the passing games. This is where two receivers run a cross with one essentially blocking a cornerback to free up the other for a moderate gain over the middle. They have the likes of Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski, and Danny Amendola to run these plays to perfection. This sort of play can be completely legal, but if the receiver on the pick starts blocking before the ball is caught, it is offensive pass interference. This is another instance of the Pats pushing the limits of the rule book, especially since no referee is going to call every illegal instance. That said, no one runs these plays as well as the Pats and considering the coverage skills of the Colts linebackers, Indy fans might watch the Brady and company dink and dunk their way down the field.

Any game in the NFL is winnable, but this one is decidedly in the Patriots favor. The Colts can win if they play a near flawless game and finally reach their full potential on offense. They can win if Robert Mathis goes off against Brady like he did two years ago versus Peyton Manning when he returned to Indy. The Colts can also win if Brady is struck with a congenital heart defect before the games starts.

There are simply too many “ifs” for the Colts to be favored on Sunday. The Patriots win, but not by the blowout it has been in their past two meetings.

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