Coming into Week 5, the Indianapolis Colts had a chance to move to 3-2. Along with that, their divisional rival, the Jacksonville Jaguars, had the chance to lose to the Philadelphia Eagles, which would have dropped them to a 3-2 record as well.
The Eagles may have been a last-second field goal away from defeating Jacksonville, but the Jaguars escaped with another notch in the win column, moving to 4-1. Still, the weekend would have been salvageable had the Colts been able to take care of business against a Steelers team that appeared to be very beatable.
Unfortunately, the Colts did not salvage the week. They were thrown on and ran all over by an ancient Aaron Rodgers and company, and the offense's consistent settling for field goals didn't match Pittsburgh's offensive fireworks.
2 Indianapolis Colts players who let the team down in Week 5
There was a world entering Week 5 where the Colts could have moved to a tie for the divisional lead. That world did not come to fruition. Here are two Colts players who disappointed most in their Week 5 loss.
No. 1: DT Grover Stewart
Grover Stewart didn't play the worst game of his life against Pittsburgh. In fact, he didn't even stick out amongst the rest of the defensive line for having more bad plays than anyone else. This spot could just as easily have gone to anybody on the run defense, and, for that matter, anyone on the defense as a whole.
Stewart is a placeholder for the Colts run defense, and that run defense was putrid. Jaylen Warren was allowed to trample on Indy to the tune of 101 rushing yards and a touchdown. The focus on run defense here is not to absolve the pass defense by any means.
Coincidentally, Warren was also Pittsburgh's leading receiver with 87 receiving yards and a touchdown. The vast majority of that was an 80-yard catch-and-run touchdown, but allowing a play like that is inexcusable.
The Colts offense wasn't up to snuff today, but their defense was downright atrocious. Grover Stewart could be replaced with just about anybody on the defense, and it could be easily justified. The defense simply has to be better if the Colts want to compete with the best of the best this year.
No. 2: QB Daniel Jones
It's unfortunate to have to harp on the same situation after seemingly every loss, but the common denominator in every game that the Colts have come up short in this year is that Daniel Jones can't rise to the moment when it really counts.
Again, he had a fine stat line by the end of the game. He did throw for 267 yards through the air. The main problem, though, the problem that plagued Indy all day, is that he didn't produce any touchdowns. The sole trip to the end zone for Indy came on a 1-yard rush from Tyler Warren.
22 points is nothing to sneeze at, but on a day when the opponent puts up 34, some of those field goals have to become touchdowns. It's not all on Jones, but the problems go deeper than the lack of touchdowns.
Indy has had one blowout loss, and now two that have been fairly close, and the common denominator in the close ones is that Jones can't sustain a scoring drive when the team really needs it in the fourth quarter.
Jones is a fine quarterback, even a slightly above-average one. When they're winning, his issues don't seem too apparent at all. Still, he has proven week after week that he doesn't belong in the top echelon of quarterbacks in this league, and it's very hard to win consistently in the National Football League without a game-changer at the sport's most important position.
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