Indianapolis Colts Recap: Week 11, vs. Green Bay Packers

This fall, the magazine will recap each week of the Colts’ strange, pandemic-hobbled season. This week: digital editor Derek Robertson, with contributors Derek Schultz and Nate Miller are here to sing the praises of a most-likely playoff-bound team after an ugly-but-great win.

Derek Robertson: My friends! The young Rodrigo just sealed the deal after a very weird, occasionally brilliant, but mostly, well, painful overtime game. If you’d told me the Colts were going to beat the Packers this week, I sure as hell would not have guessed that it would be in a contest where both teams scored more than 30 points, but here we are. That’s two solid wins in a row against playoff contenders following that horrible Ravens loss, and the offense has just looked more and more threatening this week, if not more polished (those holding calls… we’ll discuss that later)—how are we feeling tied atop the AFC South, with another crucial game against the Titans next week?

Derek Schultz: WE feel great! Can’t wait to watch US play next week! (Sorry, I’ve never been able to do the “we” and “us” thing with teams.) To answer your question in a non-asshole way, that was absolutely a fantastic win. I think it legitimizes the Colts in a way that beating the Titans, who they always stuff into a trash can, didn’t. To draw another parallel to the Tennessee game, they once again adjusted and completely dominated in the second half. The Colts have now outscored their last two opponents 37-3 in the second half/OT. That’s usually the sign of a good team.

Nate Miller: The Colts ARE good, Schultz. But that’s not the point right now. Let me say this right off the bat: that was FUN. That’s the most fun I’ve had since, like, April, when IndyCar ran their first video-game race, which was a super-nice break from Korean League Baseball. (I wish I could show that sentence to 2019 me.) Before we get into all the football analysis, I’d just like to highlight the very vague point that the entire game was four hours of pure entertainment, in that it was not-politics. It was four hours of not-the-crumbling-of-American-democracy. Nobody was wearing a mask in our living room and nobody thought to. It was a getaway from real life, if only briefly, and Michael Pittman Jr. is a BOSS.  

A competent come-from-behind win by a Rivers-led offense is the thing we have been snarkily pining for this entire season, and yet, and yet… here it is, finally, and it’s ugly. After the way the first half went, I was honestly about ready to check out of this one and chalk it up to another mysteriously quiet Jonathan Taylor game and another inexplicable defensive no-show. But the Colts seriously rallied on both sides of the ball, with Taylor nearing the century mark and so-far-unsung hero Kenny Moore racking up 10 (ten!) solo tackles as the Colts D rattled a visibly annoyed Rodgers and company. The story of the game might have been their three forced fumbles and recoveries, which gave the team the opportunity to hang around when it otherwise looked like Rodgers and Davante Adams were eating their lunch. Even when they were 3-1 I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but to your point, Nate: it can, occasionally, be a lot of fun to watch this team right now.