The good, the bad, and the ugly from the Colts’ roller coaster loss to the Browns

The bad from Colts in Week 7

Gardner Minshew

Gardner Minshew needed a bounce back after Week 6’s miserable performance and in some ways, he was better but in the key metric, he was not. That key metric was turnovers. He had another four turnovers on Sunday, giving him that dubious stat for two weeks in a row. His ball security was poor and while the offensive line takes some blame on the protection, we all know it starts and ends with the quarterback.

Eight turnovers in two games does not allow you to win football games. The fact that the Colts were still in the game at the very end even with the turnovers is an achievement. The Colts don’t really have anywhere else to turn in the quarterback department, so Minshew will need to get this aspect of his game cleaned up or the franchise will continue to lose games that they should have won.

Overall defense

After a solid start to the season with the Gus Bradley scheme, the defense was showing some bend this week. The youth movement is starting to show some cracks. There is zero reason that the Colts should allow 30 points with the backup quarterback playing most of the game. Yes, some of the drives were on a short field, but the defenses didn’t play great.

You saw the impact of Grover Stewart’s absence on Sunday, and Indy will need to address that going forward. While the defense did play well on third down, Indy allowed 18 first downs with PJ Walker under center. The linebackers were the one continued bright spot, and it seems that Shaq Leonard’s snap count is increasing each week.