[ad_1]
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck (12) celebrates the Marlon Mack (25) lander in the second half of the season. The Oakland Raiders hosted the Indianapolis Colts at the Coliseum in Oakland, California on Sunday, October 28, 2018. The Colts won 42 to 28.(Photo: Matt Kryger / IndyStar)
OAKLAND – For such a long day on Sunday, they had the impression that it was their most ruinous defeat, worse than the fourth quarter collapse against Cincinnati, the flops of the red zone at Philly, the fourth and fourth defeats against Houston, even embarrassment in New York. The Colts found a new way to lose – playing almost no defense – and almost let the modest Raiders double their total wins for the season.
So much for that. An hour later, they roared in the locker room.
In many ways, that was what Frank Reich wanted, games like this one that would test his young team's determination and measure its value. The Colts first-year coach preaches "an obsession to finish" on a daily basis. Yet, so many Sundays this fall, his team has not done it yet. It's their Achilles Heel, the story of their 2018.
They did not arrive at 2-5 choking. They arrived at 2-5 by striking each other.
That's why Sunday seemed so different and felt so different, both in terms of finishing the Colts and what it means for the rest of their unpredictable season. At the end of the fourth quarter in Oakland, the Reich team closed the match with a 21-zip run, burying Jon Gruden's Raiders with a match that would not stop, an offensive line that would not would not bend, a quarter who could not. Not to miss and a star rookie who saved a disastrous day for the defense.
Doyel: Adam Vinatieri Could Hold NFL Record Record Forever
insider: Behind Marlon Mack and a powerful offensive line, these Colts are murderers
More: Adam Vinatieri of the Colts sets a record in the NFL: "One of the best"
Forget 42-28. Forget the third win of the season. This victory gave the Colts something more important, something they have been chasing for months: the conviction of doing things right.
"We prove it's a winning formula," said the star quarterback.
Andrew Luck is right, and his Colts needed this one, for several reasons, and they understood it by finishing the first half of their program with their best quarter of the season. It was more than going from the 3rd to the 3rd week, waiting for three winners at home in November after that. As Reich told his team in the locker room: "I hope we all feel the same about our situation."
Mo Alie-Cox (81) celebrates his first touchdown in the NFL, a 26-yard touchdown pass. (Photo: Matt Kryger / IndyStar)
No doubt the arrow points to Indianapolis. Why? Their names are Marlon Mack and Nyheim Hines, Eric Ebron and Mo Alie-Cox, Nelson Quenton and Braden Smith and, of course, Darius Leonard. The younger generation of talent that Chris Ballard, General Manager of Talent, has acquired is starting to become the backbone of a franchise that needs to be revamped for years. And it starts to win football games.
What is striking is how foreign is this new formula, particularly in these regions. The Colts played Sunday in one of the real NFL stadiums, driven by a ground offensive and the pound, relieved by an offensive line that has not played so well for a decade. The statistics are amazing, especially if you have watched this team in recent seasons. Weigh this:
Luck was not fired in three straight games, a 156 relegation sequence, arguably the longest in his career.
The team has accumulated over 200 yards in consecutive weeks for the first time in 33 years. "I was not even born yet," Eric Ebron says when he hears that.
On their three wins, Luck averaged 28 pass attempts per game. Their five defeats? Nearly 50.
This is the balance the Colts have been looking for for a long time with luck in the center, but they have never managed to reach. When Ballard took office in January 2017, he had stressed at his very first press conference that there should not be more than the quarterback.
Twenty months later, he begins to see more than a quarter.
In the middle of a tumultuous cloakroom on Sunday, the star receiver T.Y. is delighted with the historic success of Adam Vinatieri. Hilton was asked if he had ever seen the Colts play a better game in seven seasons in Indianapolis. He thinks a good moment. Then he shook his head.
"It does it so a lot easier on the quarterback, "said Reich of that found balance.
Mack's recent blast – 255 yards rushing in two weeks – ignited a unit that nearly scored Sunday at will. As for the Luck-Reich wedding, just look at their work in the last five weeks. The Colts averaged more than 34 points per game.
But Luck and Mack, as well as the group of the most restricted players in football, were not going to win this game alone on Sunday. The Colts' 10-0 lead was quickly disbanded as the Raiders had four touchdowns, moving to 28-21 early in the fourth quarter. Derek Carr was dealing; Luck was just trying to keep up.
"We just begged the defense to stop," said Ebron. "We knew we had the advantage over their defense. All we needed was a one-stop shop to change the game, and they were effective. "
Carr missed for the first time of the day, toppled his catcher by 3 and 3 with 9:34 to go, and the Raiders responded for the first time since their first match.
Then the foals closed.
Luck hit his faithful target, Jack Doyle, four times on the hit, and Doyle scored the last goal in the end zone to score the goal. Oakland's next attack died after a play, when Leonard managed to pull the ball off his back, Doug Martin. "A ball-to-sponge champion," Ebron told the new rookie.
It was over, just like that. The Colts have gone from a touchdown to total control to total control in four and a half minutes.
Mack added five players later to the touchdown of the breathing room and the Colts expired.
"Wow," said Reich later, "what a game."
But what his team can not excuse, is how much the defense has been invisible for three quarters. The Colts could not cover themselves, could not get out of the block, could not stop the Raiders. Leonardo 's forced escapees camouflaged the unit' s worst exit in 2018. They hit Carr only once and never fired him. They allowed four separate games of 25 meters or more. And they left one of football's worst offenses, a team that sent their best receiver to Dallas earlier in the week, to score 28 easy points.
Reggie Wayne: "The offensive line is the best position of the team"
blog: Fabulous fourth quarter leads to 42-28 win over Raiders
So reinvigorated by the victory and the arrival of his team, as well as by the game of his offensive line, Reich resisted any attempt to fight the defense.
"It's just football," he said. "Sometimes that's how it happens. You go back and forth, they take a few breaks and they have good players. "
Good or bad players, if the Colts play less well in defense in the second half of the season, they will suffer many more defeats than victories.
Sunday, however, was about how the Colts reversed their own story, dominated the decisive moments of the game and lifted life in a season that is starting to change. In better health than ever, with a first victory in two years, more balanced than it was never at the time of luck.
The most ruinous loss of the season? Forget that. With all that remains to be done, all that remains possible, the Colts could well make their most important victory.
Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.
Source link
