Colts vs Bills: Darius Leonard’s big hit on Josh Allen was awesome

Colts LB Darius Leonard shoving Josh Allen backwards was awesome.

Indianapolis Colts LB Darius Leonard is an extremely strong man who still holds a grudge against the Buffalo Bills — and Josh Allen, apparently.

First, Buffalo didn’t draft him in 2018, letting him slip all the way to Indy, which has swiftly become his home base for proving his doubters wrong.

Then, the Bills danced all over their practice field this week, and Leonard’s Twitter likes proved that he noticed their brashness.

Based on the early returns from Saturday’s game, it doesn’t seem like Leonard is all that impressed with potential MVP candidate Josh Allen. With only the linebacker standing between him and a first-down run on third down, Allen found himself upended by Leonard’s impressive strength, shoved backward like he’d encountered a force field.

Seriously, when’s the last time you’ve seen somebody stop Allen in his tracks like that? He backtracked like he was quickly deleting old tweets from high school.

Shortly thereafter, as so often seems to be the case, the Colts’ momentum ignited on offense, too. Philip Rivers found Michael Pittman downfield for a chunk play, and Jonathan Taylor polished off a touchdown drive.

Then, of course, it was the Colts’ chance to celebrate.

Reductive, sure, but none of this would’ve happened without Leonard’s display of strength, which is what he’s trained for for days, months, and years.

He goes out to prove the opponent wrong about him every single week, with a special spot in his angry heart reserved for the Bills.

Unfortunately, Josh Allen learned that the hard way.

This second half will be a struggle, and if Indy’s defense can embody Leonard’s hard-charging power rather than the “Ole!” style they exhibited on Buffalo’s first touchdown drive, we might have something here. Jonathan Taylor’s case of the dropsies and early-game jitters appear to have been shrugged off, like Leonard shedding a star opposing QB.

Darius Leonard sums up Colts’ playoff expectations with perfect quote

Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard summed up the team's minimal playoff expectations with a perfect quote while speaking to reporters.