When you produce one touchdown to your opponent's four, you're supposed to come out on the losing end. The Indianapolis Colts needed more than one touchdown to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers this past weekend, but Spender Shrader can only get three points per field goal, and it wasn't enough.
Once again, as this season's theme has been, the Colts' passing attack has fallen short time and time again, while relying on the run game has either kept them afloat or helped them win the two games they've won. In Pittsburgh, where Indianapolis hasn't won since 2008, neither performed well, and the result was Aaron Rodgers's three passing touchdowns to Daniel Jones's zero.
So far this season, Jonathan Taylor has been the Colts' only upside to the offense, and if the Colts' offense focused more on him rather than Jones's 44 pass attempts, perhaps the game could have been more competitive and even winnable. However, the Colts went away from what should have been the key to the game, and Quenton Nelson knows it.
Indianapolis Colts' Quenton Nelson believes the run game should be the focal point on offense
Through five games this season, Taylor has run the ball like the elite rusher he is, though he hasn't yet surpassed the 100-yard mark in any game. Still, he's one of the league leaders in rushing touchdowns and has proven to be the only thing working properly in the Colts’ offense, until now.
In fact, the Colts' entire run game fell well below expectations against the Steelers. Taylor ran for just 45 yards, with one carry going for almost half of that (20 yards) and the remaining carries totaling 25 yards on 15 attempts.
Indianapolis's other back, Seth McGowan, picked up 16 yards on five carries, while Jones and Colts tight end Tyler Warren combined for five yards on the ground together. Suffice it to say, the Steelers' defense shut everything down, keeping the Colts from averaging more than 2.8 yards per carry and totaling just 66 yards.
With Jones struggling this year, it would have been prudent for the Colts to lean on Taylor more. After the 34-22 loss, Nelson called for a better run game and, more specifically, better execution.
"I feel like we're capable of so much more than what we have been doing," Nelson said to the Colts media. "We want to be rushing the ball well, and we gotta start fast. We had some good rushes in the second half; against Washington we had some good rushes in the second half. We gotta start fast and execute from the start, from the jump; you can't dip your toe in the water, you gotta be ready to go from play one, and I think that's what we gotta do.
"We gotta have a better mindset; we're coming into this place, and we're running the ball and having our way, and we're gonna execute the basic fundamentals that we need to."
The key to the game couldn't have been said better than Nelson broke it down. The Colts moved away from the only thing that had been working for them over the previous few weeks, and two of those weeks ended in wins.
Granted, Rodgers and the Steelers’ offense were scoring touchdowns while the Colts were kicking field goals, so it makes sense to have to change the game plan to keep up offensively.
That said, Nelson started his comments by focusing on execution early, not later. When Jones and the 'Colts' passing attack kick into gear is another conversation, but without the run game, Indianapolis doesn't have much of a chance right now. As Nelson said, starting fast is the key. Getting Taylor going early should be the propeller.
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