LONDON — Nothing about the Colts’ third-straight international win was easy.
Or all that pretty, for that matter.
But Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said all along this offseason that the Colts need to be able to win ugly, and they overpowered a depleted Commanders team 30-13 on Sunday, heading off to a happy flight home with a chance to put itself firmly into the AFC playoff race over the next couple of weeks.
Colts RB Jonathan Taylor vs. Commanders defensive line
Steichen shot out of the blocks throwing.
The rationale was reasonable. Washington’s pass defense came into the game ranked as one of the worst in the NFL after hemorrhaging yards against Seattle star Jaxon Smith-Njigba last week.
The Colts do not have Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Frustrated by a lack of separation from the receivers, Daniel Jones was indecisive and mistake-prone in the first half.
Steichen probably took too long to pivot to the run game. Washington was coming off of two games that made its run-defense statistics look good, but those performances came against the Cowboys and Seahawks. When the Commanders went up against Philadelphia superstar Saquon Barkley, a back much more like Taylor, Washington gave up more than 5.5 yards per carry.
All it took was a little time on Sunday. The more the Colts fed the ball to Taylor, the better the offense looked. Using a lot of runs that allowed the defensive line to shoot up the field, the Indianapolis offensive line started blowing the Washington front off the ball.
Taylor, armed with some help from rookie Seth McGowan, took full advantage. Knifing through the Washington defense, Taylor rushed for 95 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries, putting the game far out of the reach of Washington’s third-string quarterback, Athan Kaliakmanis.
Commanders vs. the rule book
Banged-up, beaten and down to its third quarterback, Washington actually made some plays offensively, mainly by asking Kaliakmanis to throw deep wantonly against an Indianapolis pass rush that struggled to get consistent pressure.
The problem? Washington couldn’t play clean football. Indianapolis committed only one penalty, a 5-yarder that didn’t hurt a whole lot.
The Commanders were flagged nine times for 79 yards, including two flags (holding, illegal shift) on a play that otherwise would have been a game-tying, 87-yard catch-and-run by Antonio Williams after a missed tackle by free safety Camryn Bynum. Essentially every time the Commanders tried to threaten, flags flew, including multiple penalties on long kick returns that could have given Washington excellent field position.
Winning a game with a third-string quarterback isn’t easy.
Winning a game when a team commits eight more penalties than its opponent, hamstringing some of the best plays that quarterback made, is essentially impossible.
Colts QB Daniel Jones vs. himself
The conditions around Jones weren’t great Sunday.
Facing a heavy-blitz defense in the Commanders, the Colts lost veteran wide receiver Keenan Allen to a groin injury that lingered throughout the week Saturday, allowing Washington to focus its coverage on Josh Downs on third down, knowing that Downs is Jones’ preferred outlet when a team is blitzing. The receivers tasked with replacing Allen and Alec Pierce, Laquon Treadwell and Ashton Dulin, struggled to separate consistently.
Indianapolis needed Jones to play smart, conservative football under those conditions, making quick decisions and protecting the football, the way he did in the first eight games last season.
Jones hasn’t been that kind of player this season. For most of the first four games, Jones has been more like the player he was in New York, struggling under the blitz and turning the ball over.
He turned it over twice in the first half of Sunday’s game. Unable to find an open receiver on the second play of the game, Jones waited too long to find his checkdown, drifted into left tackle Bernhard Raimann and then inexplicably fumbled the ball on the way to the ground, setting up an easy field goal for the Commanders.
The second turnover was just as bad. Dropping straight back under a blitz, Jones tried to throw to a receiver on a crossing route, but it was ill-advised. He couldn’t set his feet, flung the ball off-balance and into the arms of veteran Commanders cornerback Rasul Douglas, taking the Colts out of field-goal range.
Once Mariota went down, the job became even simpler: Protect the football. Jones struggled for most of the day, but he didn’t make any fatal mistakes the rest of the way, allowing Taylor to take advantage of Washington’s defense. Jones even finished off the game with a dagger of his own, keeping the ball and powering his way into the end zone for a 4-yard touchdown to make the lead 27-13 early in the fourth quarter.
Colts CB Sauce Gardner vs. Commanders WRs
Gardner’s supposed to be a shutdown cornerback, the kind who takes away the big play.
Indianapolis traded away two first-round picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell — a piece the Colts decided they didn’t need at the time, although it now looks like he would have helped, given the team’s depth issues at receiver — to get Gardner, who was supposed to eliminate big plays, particularly after Indianapolis has taken control of the game.
When Jonathan Taylor picked his way through traffic to get in the end zone for his second touchdown of the day to give the Colts a 17-6 lead, it looked like it should be a wrap against Kaliakmanis.
Treylon Burks, a failed first-round pick by the Titans in 2022, shouldn’t be the kind of player who can turn around a game with a matchup against Gardner.
But the big receiver faked out Gardner, convincing the veteran cornerback halfway through the route that Burks was turning for a back shoulder pass. The fake stopped Gardner’s momentum, and Burks took off into the end zone for a 47-yard touchdown.
Which would have been bad if it was the only time Gardner got beaten by a lesser-known receiver.
On the very next drive, though, Washington sent Dyami Brown on a deep over against Gardner, who was again right there with the receiver until Brown turned upfield, running away from Gardner for a 48-yard pass, a chunk play that didn’t end up hurting the Colts because Justin Walley got home for a big sack on the next set of downs.
Gardner’s missteps in London did not hurt against Kaliakmanis, but they would hurt a lot more against a better offense. If Indianapolis is going to keep winning games ugly, the Colts need Gardner to be the shutdown cornerback they paid a hefty price to get.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Matchups that decided an ugly Colts win vs Commanders in London: Jonathan Taylor and Sauce Gardner
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