Opinion: Prayer answered as Colts beat the loathsome Patriots
INDIANAPOLIS – Jonathan Taylor is sprinting down the field, turning around and looking at the New England defense, wondering where the hell they are. The crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium is roaring, and soon it will be chanting: MVP, MVP, MVP. On the sideline, Indianapolis Colts coach Frank Reich is just glad he didn’t tell his guys about church mode.
Ever heard of church mode? Me neither, but as Reich was telling us afterward, that’s when the game is over. Nothing left to do but kneel – church mode, see? – by taking a knee two or three times until the clock runs out. The Colts were in church mode, or would have been, had Reich gotten the word to his players on the field.
Alas, Jonathan Taylor was moving too fast. This is what you call a good problem. And after Taylor reached the end zone, sealing the Colts’ 27-17 victory on Saturday night at delirious Lucas Oil Stadium, this is what you call a good team.
For weeks, we’ve been wondering, right? The Colts were terrible earlier this season, losing four of their first five games, and then they started to win, but it was hard to know what to believe. Yeah, they were winning, but they were beating mostly bad teams. Then they beat the Bills. Then lost to the Bucs. What were we watching, anyway?
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But now they’ve done something irrevocably impressive. There’s no going back from this game, this 27-17 victory against the hated New England Patriots and the loathsome Bill Belichick and the ludicrous Josh McDaniels. The Colts beat up the Patriots with their offensive line and their running game, and they blocked a punt for a touchdown, and they held the Patriots' offense in check until it was almost too late.
And then, just when you started to wonder again – What are we watching? – the Colts gave us the answer. They led 20-17 and it was almost church time, and someone on the Colts staff was trying to tell Frank Reich that they were one first down away from being able to start kneeling. In other words, no need to score a touchdown here. In fact, the staffer was trying to tell Reich, it’s better not to score. Stop at the 1-yard line, if necessary. Just don’t score.
As if that would happen now, right? It was second-and-8, way back on the Colts’ 33, and Reich was thinking about calling a pass play. He wanted that final first down, see, and the Patriots were loading up against the run. Reich talked it over with his staff, specifically offensive coordinator Marcus Brady, and decided to call one more running play for Jonathan Taylor.
He didn’t tell anyone on the field it was church time.
What’s Taylor going to do, anyway? Run 67 yards for a touchdown?
Well, what do you know.
Colts RB Jonathan Taylor for MVP
The crowd was chanting MVP because it’s true. Or it could be true. There are other candidates for MVP – let’s not be ridiculous and pretend the guy in our city is the only legit candidate in the whole league – but Taylor’s case is compelling. He has run for 100 yards in eight games. The Colts are 8-0 in those games. He has failed to run for 100 yards in six games. Yes, the Colts are 0-6 in those games.
Taylor ran for 170 yards on 29 carries Saturday, doing it to the nastiest run defense, coached by the best (if still detestable) coach in the league. The Colts led 20-10 when they got the ball with 8:52 left, just trying to hang on after scoring the game’s first 20 points. The Patriots knew the Colts would run the ball to eat clock, and still the Colts ran it eight times for 38 yards. Two were Wentz runs of 2 yards, total. The rest was Taylor, chewing up the clock, helping the Colts get two first downs and use more than five minutes of game time.
And then, after the Patriots got the ball back and scored again to make it 20-17, the Colts had the ball at their 31 with 2:16 left. They needed one more first down, just one, and it was church time. Second down, Taylor gets the ball and he’s gone, using the final 50 yards to look over his shoulder at Patriots cornerback J.C. Jackson.
On the Patriots' sideline, Belichick has a nauseated look on his face. You know, the way we feel every time we see him on television. In a few minutes, the game is over and Frank Reich is walking toward midfield, and he’s trying hard not to smile. You can see it on his face. He’s pleased, so pleased, but he’s too classy to show it. So he’s holding it in as Belichick approaches, and the Patriots coach offers a hand but not a single word before heading off to be miserable somewhere else.
This was the haughty end to a haughty game, with the Colts jumping the Patriots early and the Patriots answering with brute force. It was stupid little things, like 315-pound Patriots defensive tackle Lawrence Guy ripping the ball from Taylor’s hands as he rises after a short gain in the first half, trying to get inside the running back’s head, I guess. It’s Patriots pass rusher Matthew Judon coming near the Colts sideline after sacking quarterback Carson Wentz, running his mouth because he just made a play, even if the scoreboard showed the Colts leading 20-0, and Wentz not backing down and Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner defusing the situation by getting between Judon and Wentz.
It was Patriots safety Kyle Dugger nearly prying the helmet off the head of Colts receiver Michael Pittman Jr., then striking at Pittman as the Colts receiver objected, finally popping the helmet off. Officials reviewed the skirmish and decided it was fair to disqualify both players, because officials make mistakes, but now the Colts are without their No. 1 receiver on a day Wentz is struggling (5-for-12 for 57 yards, one touchdown and one interception).
This game is starting to get ugly, with the Patriots acting like bullies and the Colts starting to choke – Mo Alie-Cox can’t make a tough catch for a touchdown on third down, leading to a field goal … and Michael Badgley misses two other FG tries, though he gets a second chance at one miss and converts – and if we’re going to have church time, it’ll be to ask God why he keeps forsaking our city for the (gosh) damn New England Patriots.
But there goes the MVP, sprinting 67 yards, and now we can relax and have another conversation.
Go to playoffs, Colts; go to hell, Patriots
We don’t need to wonder what the Colts have anymore. We know. They have a dominant running game and a defense that wants the ball. The Colts added two more interceptions on Saturday, one from Darius Leonard (his 11th takeaway of the season) and another from diving linebacker Bobby Okereke. A third linebacker, Matthew Adams, blocked a punt that a fourth linebacker, E.J. Speed, recovered in the end zone for a touchdown.
Buckner had an enormous 15-yard sack to end one drive, and cornerback Kenny Moore was making tackles behind the line and breaking up passes, including one in the end zone in the fourth quarter.
The Colts can win with defense and their ground attack, and Frank Reich is finally leaning into that. The Colts passed for 58 yards, and somebody asked Reich how he felt about that, and this is what Reich said:
“My takeaway is, I’m fired up by it. I’m so happy by it,” he said. “We’ve proven over the years we can be dynamic in the passing game. What we need to prove was we could win a game like this, with defense and running the football.”
Reich has been criticized for two years for not running the ball enough, most notably in that faith-shaking loss to Tampa Bay on Nov. 28, but now he gets it: He has a defense so good, he can stop worrying about outscoring the other team. And he has a running game so dangerous, he can stop letting the defense dictate what he will do. Screw that, Reich was saying on Saturday by calling for 29 runs by Jonathan Taylor – let New England respond to us.
“If you can keep pounding and keep pounding with the offensive line we have and the backs we have,” Reich was saying afterward, “it just breaks.”
It does. Taylor reached a speed of 22.13 mph on Saturday, according to the NFL’s Next Gen stats, giving him three of the five fastest ball-advancing plays this season. For the whole league! Running Taylor makes sense. He’s a deep pass, all by himself.
But questions arise. Michael Badgley, who has beaten out Rodrigo Blankenship at kicker, missed two kicks Saturday – one didn’t count, because of penalty, but still – and he missed a field goal the previous game against Houston, too. There’s a reason he was unemployed in midseason. Are the Colts now seeing it?
Same goes for Wentz. He was not good on Saturday, his sixth or seven subpar game of the season. He’s had some marvelous games, too, but depending on how strict you want to grade, he’s been about a 50-50 proposition to play good or bad this season. And a coin flip at quarterback isn’t a good thing.
Neither is a hothead at receiver. Everyone loves how tough Pittman is with the ball in his hands – he runs angry, like a bull – but he lost it on Saturday, twice having to be pulled away by teammates after the Dugger exchange. The second time, Colts receiver Zach Pascal had to pull Pittman away from the referees. That’s not good.
This Colts team is not perfect. In fact, it seems quite vulnerable. But it also has the ability to smash anyone in its path, as it did on Saturday to New England, and as it could do when the calendar turns from 2021 to 2022 and the playoffs begin. This Colts team, with its running game and its defense, can play in all weather. It can beat anybody.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, the Colts just beat the New England Patriots. Call it church time, call it a miracle, call it proof of God’s existence. But the Patriots came to town and left a loser.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.