During Sunday’s 38-31 loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there was a stretch during the third quarter when the Indianapolis Colts threw the ball 26 consecutive times.
With the run game getting nowhere during the first half averaging 3.1 yards per carry against stacked box after stacked box, the Colts rolled with the air attack that helped get them 24 points in the first half. Then it got to the point where fans and media noticed that running back Jonathan Taylor hadn’t gotten a carry for an entire quarter.
Head coach Frank Reich told the media following the game that the offense was in a rhythm and while there were some RPOs that Carson Wentz decided to keep, they felt strongly about the passing attack enough to keep sticking with it.
“We were rolling. We were rolling. We scored 21 points. We tried to run it in the first quarter, this is the number one run defense, and we weren’t getting anything. We tried throwing in the second quarter and started having a lot of success. Carson (Wentz) was hot. Called a bunch of RPOs that got to throws because they were throw reads,” Reich said.
There is something to be said about the physicality of the run game and its impact on an opposing defense. It’s a necessary part of the game, especially when the Colts have a weapon like Taylor. But it was clear the Bucs were going to stack the box with as many players as they could to stop Taylor and force Wentz to beat them through the air.
For the first three quarters, that worked for the Colts. Wentz was humming while Taylor averaged 3.1 yards per carry. It was a rare sight to see a defense bottle up Taylor like they did, especially when it came to his work after contact. There was just nothing there. It was like repeatedly running into a brick wall.
So Reich stuck with what worked while sprinkling in some RPOs. But when the box is stacked pre-snap and the entire front seven (and some) is penetrating against the run, Wentz is going to pull the ball and throw every time. That’s what he’s taught with RPOs. It’s a numbers game.
It comes down to how many blockers the Colts have versus how many defenders are in the box. The Colts were heavily outnumbered in the run game for the majority of the game so it was like running into a brick wall with an extra person waiting to go unblocked.
Thus, the Colts went on a stretch of 26 straight pass attempts, and the RTDB truthers had major gripes with the lack of usage in that stretch.
Even looking back, Reich is comfortable with the play-calling that happened.
We come out in the third quarter, we move the ball well in the third quarter. We moved down there twice, we’re moving it well. So, I’ll go back and look at it. Felt comfortable that we were executing and moving the ball. We had a few mistakes here and there. Respect to their defense,” Reich said. “They stopped us in the run early and then we were able to get it going late. Each drive we were looking at trying to mix it up where we could. Call a couple RPOs early then you get a couple situations where you’re behind the sticks and then thirdly, like I said, Carson was hot. Felt like we were playing well there. That’s just the way it’s going to be sometimes.”
Reich even mentioned that when a stretch like that happens, someone will say something about during the game. But because the passing game was working so well—outside of a few turnovers—no one said anything.
“Normally someone will say something to me. Nothing was said to me during that stretch but sometimes something like that will be said,” Reich said. “The reason probably no one was saying anything was because a lot of the things we were calling were working. A lot of them were working against a really good defense. So, I think that’s probably why.”
Thanks to a fourth-quarter drive that saw Taylor take eight carries for 58 yards and a rushing touchdown, the second-year back finished the day with 16 carries for 83 rushing yards and a touchdown while adding four receptions (five targets) for 14 receiving yards. There was nothing different about Taylor’s usage compared to the rest of the season outside of two drives in the third quarter when the Colts faced stacked boxes.
“We tried to throw it to [Taylor]. I don’t know how many targets he had but we tried to throw it to him some like we always do,” Reich said. “Still trying to keep him involved that way but like you said, when we struggle so bad in the first quarter and you’re just out of sync. We couldn’t get anything in the run game, just couldn’t get one run to hit in the first quarter.”
The discourse surrounding this topic will be fun and level-headed but it makes sense that Reich will defend his play-calling when his offense was just the third team this season to score at least 30 points against the Bucs.
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