It was a game that ended up much closer than it probably should have, but the Indianapolis Colts came away with a Week 16 win over the Tennessee Titans.
Of course, leading the charge in this victory was a dominant performance on the ground that was also paired with some timely interceptions by the defense, helping the Colts jump out to a massive lead at one point.
But now that the dust has settled on Sunday’s game, let’s take a look back at the Colts’ performance with the good, bad, and ugly of it all.
The Good
Colts’ run game: Naturally, when you set a new franchise single-game rushing record, that’s going to end up in the good category. Leading the way was Jonathan Taylor who totaled 218 yards on the ground, which included touchdown runs of 65 and 70 yards. Anthony Richardson also rushed for 70 yards of his own. The trickle-down effect when the run game is rolling is that it opens up opportunities in the passing game. It’s not a coincidence that after a rocky start for the passing game, Richardson finished with an efficient performance. A steady run game also keeps the offense ahead of the sticks and in manageable down and distances. So again, it’s not a coincidence that the Colts were also extremely efficient on third downs.
DeForest Buckner and the run defense: Taylor stole the show with his performance, but Buckner was a one-man wrecking crew. Buckner finished the game with a team-high three pressures and ranked 11th among all defensive tackles in Week 16 in run stop rate. That quick push that he generated up the middle disrupted a number of Tennessee’s plays. As a unit, the Colts would hold Tennessee’s running backs to only 62 yards and fewer than 4.0 yards per rush.
Turning turnovers into points: The Colts’ defense continues to generate turnovers at a fairly high rate, coming away with three against Tennessee. If step one is forcing a turnover, then step two falls on the offense, and it’s up to them to convert those opportunities into points–which the Colts did. Indianapolis’ offense converted two of the interceptions from the defense into 14 points, and that obviously proved quite valuable in a game decided by just eight points.
Colts’ offensive line: Obviously, if the team rushes for over 300 yards, the offensive line did it’s job as blockers. But in addition to that, this has been a unit that’s struggled to give Richardson time since he returned to the starting lineup, however, that wasn’t the case this Sunday. While Richardson had just 14 dropbacks, he was pressured on only three of them.
The Bad
Missed tackles: According to PFF’s metrics, the Colts missed 18 tackles in this game. That’s right, 18–a massive amount. This was a big issue in the second half as the Titans routinely plotted their way down the field as they attempted to and got close to pulling off the comeback. These missed tackles turned short to moderate completions into several chunk gains.
Not a lot of pressure: The Colts’ defensive front, against a Titans’ offensive line that has given up a lot of pressure this season, failed to get after Mason Rudolph Regularly. PFF had Rudolph under duress on only 25% of his dropbacks. Typically, anything below 30% isn’t a great performance. Now, not helping the Colts’ pass rush was how quickly Rudolph got the ball out of his hands, but the inability to pressure him sparked the second-half charge from the Tennessee offense.
The Ugly
Too conservative on defense: Every team does it when they get up by several scores in the second half–they guard against the big play in an effort to prevent any explosive plays and quick scores. However, the Colts went into that mode a bit early and didn’t seem willing to break free from it, even as the Titans continued to move the ball. This approach played right into Rudolph’s hands with him very willing to take the underneath throws and that was then magnified by the Colts’ inability to tackle and generate pressure. A win is a win, but it shouldn’t have been this close, particularly against an offense that came into the game averaging 18.0 points per contest.