Colts vs. Texans: Week 7 offensive grades

The Colts won a big game today at home, beating Houston 30-23. The offense was a massive part of that win. Here is how each unit played.

This game was for first place in the AFC South. Both the Colts and the Texans were coming off of wins against the Chiefs. The Colts showed that they were the better team though and won 30-23 on the strength of their offense, and specifically Jacoby Brissett.

Brissett played truly great today. He threw for a career-high in yards with 325. He also had a career-high in touchdowns with 4. The only reason why this isn’t an A+ is because of his fumble on the dropped snap that gave the Texans great field position.

Overall, Brissett had to play this well for the Colts to win. He was clearly the focal point in the gameplan for Frank Reich this week. He trusted Brissett to play well, and he did. It’s very clear now that the team is in great hands with him as their starter.

Part of the reason Brissett needed to be so good in this one is because of how bad the running game was. Marlon Mack was shut down, only gaining 44 yards on 18 carries. The entire team only mustered 62 yards on 26 carries. But all three running backs contributed in the passing game and caught passes.

As noted above, the running game wasn’t very effective. Part of that has to be laid at the feet of the offensive line. They didn’t do a good job opening up holes. They were much better in pass protection though, only allowing one sack. Brissett had time to find his open guys, and that was crucial.

Eric Ebron had by far his best game of the season today, catching four balls for 70 yards and a great one-handed touchdown. Better yet, he had no drops. Jack Doyle added three catches for 21 yards. Doyle did get called for a holding penalty though, which hurt the Colts a bit.

T.Y. Hilton typically owns Houston in these matchups. Today he was contained just a little bit. He had to settle for six catches for 74 yards and a touchdown. Zach Pascal was the big guy today, catching 6 passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns.

Chester Rogers added a couple of catches as well. But this group was fantastic all day and were wide open for a fair amount of their catches. It was a great gameplan put together by Frank Reich to get his receivers open in space.

This is the type of performance that should scare the rest of the league. This Colts team has multiple ways to hurt you on offense and is extremely hard to stop.