A decade. 10 years. That’s how long it has been since the Indianapolis Colts won on the road against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Colts mounted a late comeback thanks to several explosive plays from Alec Pierce, but ultimately, the defense couldn’t come up with the late stop, allowing the Jaguars into field goal range in the final seconds of the game.
Defensively, the Colts were without a number of key starters including DeForest Buckner, Tyquan Lewis, Kwity Paye, and Kenny Moore. Also on injured reserve is JuJu Brents and Samson Ebukam.
This, of course, undoubtedly had a huge impact on Sunday’s performance.
Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence basically did whatever he wanted in the passing game, completing 28-of-34 attempts for 371 yards with two touchdowns and one interception–which appeared to be more so a product of a bad decision on Lawrence’s part than anything else.
A key contributor to Lawrence’s success through the air was the time that he had in the pocket. According to ESPN, the Colts didn’t record a sack or a quarterback hit.
Again, that in part goes back to the injuries along the defensive front, but the Jaguars game plan appeared to be centered around mitigating the Colts’ pass rush with quick passes, screens, and play-action.
For a team that is built defensively to win upfront, if that isn’t happening, then the overall performance probably isn’t going to look all that great.
And while the final offensive numbers for the Colts look great, for much of the game, moving the ball didn’t come easy. Of Joe Flacco’s 359 passing yards, 134 came on those two late scoring possessions.
That means on Flacco’s other 41 attempts, he averaged just 5.4 yards per pass attempt. Against a Jaguars pass defense that came into the game allowing the third-most yards per pass at 7.7, it was a bit of a conservative approach from the Colts passing offense for much of the game.
It goes without saying, but the past performances on the road against the Jaguars had zero bearing on what happened yesterday. These are all independent results. However, much like in those previous games, too many miscues from the Colts proved to be just too much to overcome.
“I don’t have a great answer for you,” said Shane Steichen about the losing streak. “I’ve been here two years, I know some of the guys in the locker room have been around it, but we gotta get that fixed going forward.”