The Joe Flacco experiment is looking worn out

by Junna Base November 11, 2024

INDIANAPOLIS – Seven quick thoughts on the Colts’ 30-20 loss to the Bills at Lucas Oil Stadium:

1. This game should be a test of some truths about the Colts’ offense with a new quarterback:

With Joe Flacco heading into his second week with full starter reps, could it be ready and methodical with a return home in a match that wasn’t a nightmare?

And could it lethally run the ball with Jonathan Taylor but without mobile quarterback Anthony Richardson?

The responses were mixed but mostly disappointing. Taylor rushed for 114 yards on 21 carries, but a great outside run added 58 yards. Of course you take that. But that’s all the Colts really had.

The passing game had no explosiveness, as Flacco lived from short and intermediate passes. And the danger of ball losses could not be avoided as there were four of them; or sacks at inopportune times, like on fourth down.

This was a playoff-worthy team that beat a team that doesn’t play at that level in fairly predictable fashion. But with the Colts falling to 4-6 after benching Richardson to make the playoffs, there are a few things we need to discuss.

Colts QB Joe Flacco throws three interceptions

2. Flacco’s very first pass was intercepted when he appeared to be holding on to a receiver and didn’t see Taron Johnson, who took it to the house. He threw two more picks, including one on a covered screen pass and another on one of his few deeper attempts that Alec Pierce had to get used to and bounced off his hands.

He had a few other drop interceptions in the red zone, one of which should have been a pick-six. He also had the strip sack, but that’s mostly done to a rookie left tackle like Matt Goncalves who has to block a former first-round pick in Gregory Rousseau.

This just looks like an older backup quarterback who is just past the depths of his role. He can step in and finish a game by playing largely error-free, like he did against the Steelers. He can pull off a low-scoring win against a bad team by not imploding like he did against the Titans.

But when asked to beat three rookies on offense, no No. 1 wide receiver and a lack of receiving options at tight end and running back, he’s likely to look like his stat line from time to time.

3. If the Colts want to play with a pass-catching running back as often as it seems, that’s what they’ll do – as a pass protector for explosive shots, as a check-down against zone coverage, and as a designed wheel route against linebackers who do The coverage isn’t that good – they had to bring one last offseason.

We saw the limitations in these areas with Tyler Goodson and Trey Sermon last season. We knew Evan Hull had a torn meniscus. And we knew that this was not the strength of Jonathan Taylor’s game.

Options in free agency aren’t plentiful here, but the options were there in the draft to at least take a few bites at the apple and see who can develop further in training camp.

The Colts defense is now dictating changes on offense

4. This was another game where the Colts defense gave the offense every chance to realistically win.

It wasn’t going to be easy for Allen, and he showed off some of his superhuman plays, like the scramble and deep pass to Khalil Shakir that set up the field goal at the end of the first half, and the 13-yard touchdown rumble on a reverse course , which the Colts had suppressed up until that moment.

But it was able to do what other teams haven’t been able to do, which is force turnovers. Allen came into the game with just two interceptions and the Colts scored twice thanks to EJ Speed and Kenny Moore II. They only gave up 16 total points and one touchdown drive.

5. Allen is a superman, and one of his attributes is the ability to line up under center, win the ball at the drop of a hat, find a crease in the body pile, and drive his 6-foot, 250-pound body forward with positive momentum. The play is so impossible to defend that the Bills made it on 4th-and-1 in the fourth quarter when a shorter field goal would have given them a two-point lead.

They knew the Colts couldn’t stop it.

It makes you wonder why we haven’t seen the Colts try the same thing since Richardson’s bench move. It’s one thing to suspect he doesn’t handle all the responsibilities of a starting player or isn’t a good enough fit to be the starter right now. But if he’s the only other active quarterback outside of Flacco, it seems like some running packages could achieve a similar goal with his 6-4, 250-pound skillset.

6. And the Colts experienced one of those 4th-and-1 situations late in the third quarter, immediately after Kenny Moore II’s interception. A field goal would have made it a one-possession game, even if the Colts had the next one Drive would have allowed a field goal, which they did.

But Steichen wanted to take a chance. He sent Flacco out with a shotgun and Flacco seemed to change the game. He ran a standard dropback but couldn’t find anyone open, so he just held the ball and held it until it was knocked to the ground for a 13-yard sack.

7. It’s money games like this that are just too tough for this team right now. There is no need for Michael Pittman Jr. to go up and just play in tight coverage. With all the quarterback shuffling, great connections aren’t being made. There is no tight end or running back to open up the scheme and be sure it will work. And the defense is starting to attack Josh Downs on those must-have short passes.

Because of this, the skills need to be better matched, something a mobile quarterback with a rocket arm can do even when he’s not efficient. He can make sure a defense can’t just throw math at Taylor to slow his 100-yard game, and they can’t live in two-high security shells without the running game being a consistent force when deployed.

Is it time to return to Anthony Richardson?

8. After the game, Steichen said that Flacco was still his starting quarterback and that at no point had he considered switching to Richardson.

Six days earlier, he justified this stance by saying that Flacco had just had a bad game. After Sunday’s performance, he said that there have already been a few tough games.

By the numbers, it’s been three in a row: The Colts have scored 20 or fewer points in Flacco’s last three starts against the Titans, Vikings and Bills; The first two achieved the fewest yards of the season and the third had the most turnovers in a game.

“We look at everything every week,” Steichen said. “I’ll go back and look at the tape, but right now Joe’s our guy.”

Boos are a regular occurrence at Lucas Oil Stadium

9. Colts fans booed at Lucas Oil Stadium, at least those who managed to get out among the Bills fans. What started with a few nervous and restless boos on the first series turned into complete frustration as turnovers and the fourth-down sack occurred.

“I heard it and I was like, ‘Damn, they’re booing?'” Taylor said. “…Hopefully it wasn’t our fault, because that would be something. My goodness.”

I think the presence of Bills fans has dampened some of those fears, but if things continue like this and the Colts are playing against fan bases that don’t travel well, the resentment will become more of a focus.

10. That’s why Kenny Moore II said what he did today. He knows this is a turning point in the season where things can turn to 4-6 in a crowded AFC and with a second-year coach, but that won’t happen by simply repeating the same approach.

And it has to happen now.

“I don’t think everyone works as hard as they can and it obviously shows,” Moore said. “I’m not the type to sugarcoat it. I don’t think the urgency is there. I don’t think the details are there. I don’t think the effort is there.”

“…We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves how bad we want it.”

To their credit, the Colts have some great leaders this season trying to take control of the situation like Moore, Quenton Nelson, Michael Pittman Jr. and Deforest Buckner. But time is running out and they know it.

See you next week in New York City, where this team should beat the Jets if the right changes happen. And if not, we know exactly where things are.

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