What a difference a week makes for this Indianapolis Colts team. After arguably their worst performance of the season, they delivered one of their best of the season. It was far from perfect but they did what they needed to do and that was simply win the game. One key aspect of their success on Sunday was the return of some key players, including Michael Pittman Jr. and Braden Smith.
The team was able to clean up some mistakes from last week but still failed to execute everything they were trying to do. Let’s take a look at the good and the bad.
The bad from Colts win over Raiders
Inconsistency on both sides of the ball
The roller coaster of inconsistency continues with this Colts team on both sides of the ball. On the offensive side of the ball, the offense struggled to get into the end zone and many drives stalled around midfield. The opening drive was terrific, and the other touchdown was a deep pass that Pierce was able to haul in. Great play but still came from midfield where they hardly got past. Credit to Las Vegas and its strong defense for being able to slow Indy down.
On the defensive side of the ball, it was another shaky performance from Indianapolis. Now, was it better this week than last week? Absolutely. Indy cleaned up the missed tackles and were able to make some key stops, especially on third down where Las Vegas was only able to convert 5-of-15 in the game.
This still young and inexperienced secondary allowed their rookie QB Aidan O’Connell to throw for 286 yards and 370 total yards of offense in the game. Zamir White (replacing the injured Josh Jacobs) had a solid game. Star WR Davante Adams torched this secondary for 13 receptions on a whopping 21 targets for 126 yards and 2 TDs. Rookie CB JuJu Brents held his own against Adams holding him to four receptions for 43 yards on eight targets. The rest of the secondary had no answer for him. Adams will always make his presence felt but they cannot continue to allow one player to take over a game like that. The Colts were fortunate to get the win regardless, but it needs to be cleaned up.