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What do Andrew Luck and MacGyver have in common? MacGyver is expected to take a piece of scotch tape, some chewing gum, a paper clip, and a bit of brain power and save the day. Andrew Luck? Same deal, but no paper clip.
7 players have been ruled out for #INDvsNE: https://t.co/ELJq2heal7 pic.twitter.com/iphJHNsUDk
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) October 3, 2018
That’s about what the Colts will look like tomorrow night when they travel to face the New England Patriots in a Thursday Night football showing. On offense, no T.Y. Hilton, Jack Doyle, Marlon Mack, or Denzelle Good. That doesn’t include Ryan Kelly and Anthony Castonzo, who are questionable to play.That paints a bleak picture for an offense which has struggled mightily to be consistently effective.
Then there’s the defensive side of the ball, where things don’t look all that much more reassuring. Out are Kenny Moore, Quincy Wilson, and Hassan Ridgeway. Darius Leonard and Clayton Geathers are both listed as questionable as well. If they are able to play, they’ll likely be less than 100%, as Leonard had an ankle injury and Geathers a knee issue.
To add a final measure of insult to it all, Adam Vinatieri is questionable with a groin injury. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that Frank Reich had thrown out his back on the plane and Matt Eberflus has the flu.
If nothing else this is a prime example of the poor position that Thursday night games put teams and players in. The NFL touts player safety as the utmost important, so much so that they would add rules that make sacking a quarterback without getting a flag nearly impossible to understand.
They do this and tell players with a straight face that these rules are about their safety and well-being, while setting them up to play games which don’t afford them nearly enough time to recover from the physical toll taken by the prior week of football.
This is an absolutely brutal list of injuries, and it is tough to see this team being very competitive given what they’ll be missing. In the NFL anything can happen, but with so many pieces missing across the team as a whole, this game is going to be a tough one.