If you go by Pro Football Focus (subscription required) grades, Indianapolis Colts guard Jalen Farmer was the worst offensive player on the field in Indy’s Week 8 loss to Jacksonville. On either team. His 36.4 overall grade would suggest he was routinely beaten all game long and failed to win most of his individual battles.
When I rewatched the game, that’s not exactly what I saw. I will not try to claim that Farmer had a great game. He didn’t. Quite frankly no one on the Colts offense did. Especially on the offensive line. This was the dawning of a new era for the Indianapolis offensive line. It was the first game since 2021 that did not feature All Pro Quenton Nelson at left guard and it showed.
Farmer is the rookie tasked with stepping into Nelson’s shoes. He was going up against a formidable defensive front on the road. It was a divisional game and the AFC South-leading Jaguars smelled blood. It did not figure to be an easy game. And it was not.
Still, I find it hard to grade Farmer quite as harshly as PFF did. He certainly wasn’t all that good. But it was far from a trainwreck, as that 36.4 might suggest.
Colts' Jalen Farmer makes an up-and-down debut as the successor to Quenton Nelson
Let’s establish a few things right up front. Farmer was a fourth-round pick in last April’s draft. He is 22 years old, and prior to Sunday, he had logged a grand total of three offensive snaps in his NFL career.
Add to that equation the fact that he was playing on the left side. He had never played there in college. Every snap he took at Kentucky came at right guard.
Farmer did catch a bit of a break when the Jags’ best interior defender, DaVon Hamilton, suffered a season-ending quad tear in the second quarter. For much of the rest of the game, if he had one-on-one battles, they tended to be against Ruke Orhorhoro, the Jags' young veteran tackle. Orhorhoro is a middle-tier interior defender, but he still gave Farmer trouble.
Late in the game, during garbage time, Farmer had a few battles with Jags’ reserve Matt Dickerson, and the Colts rookie acquitted himself rather well. That would appear to be where he stands right now – he can play well against NFL reserves but may struggle with mid-level starters.
Granted, that is not a rave review, but it at least suggests Farmer has the tools to play in the NFL. It was his first action. If he improves, he could grow into a quality player.
As for what we saw on Sunday, I was surprised by how well he moved. Farmer is a big athlete. He has long arms and a powerful base. What I expected to see was a straight-ahead mauler. But he actually got on linebackers and reached the edge on pulls surprisingly well.
The flip side is that he rarely established much push against interior linemen. In college, he had been able to use his raw athleticism to overpower most of his opponents. What we saw on Sunday is that he will need to work on technique and leverage in order to achieve success in the NFL.
The other part of his game that needs work is pass protection. But that is to be expected. I really didn’t see him get soundly defeated in any one-on-one pass-protection sets, but I did see him look lost when reacting to twists and stunts up front.
To be fair, that was always going to be a problem without Nelson on the field. Pass protection is such a team endeavor, relying on cohesion and communication, and there was simply no way the Colts were going to handle that with an untested rookie playing in place of Nelson.
In the coming weeks, look for opposing defenses to test that cohesion with more games up front and look to see if Farmer grows more comfortable in his assignments.
I have confidence he will. I don’t really have much to go on in making that claim, but there is this. Jalen Farmer did not commit a penalty on Sunday.
That’s more than you can say for his three veteran teammates. Bernhard Raimann, Matt Goncalves, and Tanor Bortolini were all flagged for pre-snap penalties, and Bortolini was called for a second infraction, being illegally downfield on what would have been an Anthony Richardson first-down conversion.
Farmer didn’t do any of that. Nor did he give up a sack, as his other linemate, Jalen Travis, did.
So it may not have been a great debut, but I find it hard to say it was all that bad either. And for context, let’s remember that another rookie guard, drafted one round ahead of Farmer, was playing for the Jags. Emmanuel Pregnon was a Day 1 starter for Jacksonville at left guard this year. His PFF grade on Sunday?
36.6 That’s two-tenths ahead of Farmer making his debut. Maybe playing guard in the NFL requires a little adjustment period. Jalen Farmer is going to get time for that for the rest of this season, and let’s hope he grows into the role.
Add us as a preferred source on Google