What We Learned: Colts vs. Broncos

The Indianapolis Colts earned their second victory of the 2022 and are now 2-2-1 on the season after defeating the Denver Broncos 12-9 in Week 5.

Here are my biggest takeaways from the Colts’ primetime victory.

• Offensive line play remains an issue:

The Colts’ offensive line has vastly underperformed through the first five games of the season. For yet another week, quarterback Matt Ryan has little-to-no time to throw.

Despite making several drastic changes to their starting unit, the results remained the same, as Ryan was sacked a total of six times against Denver’s defensive front.

Indianapolis is currently tied with the Los Angeles Rams for the most sacks surrendered in the league with 21. Additionally, outside of running back Jonathan Taylor’s 161-yard rushing performance against the Houston Texans in Week 1, has found very little success in the running game this season.

Whatever the strategy may be, the Colts will go nowhere quickly until they can resolve their head-scratching offensive line troubles.

• Defense dominates with multiple turnovers and sacks:

On the other side of the ball, Indianapolis’ defense might’ve put together their best performance of the 2022 season so far.

Defensive tackle DeForest Buckner and defensive end Yannick Ngakoue combined for 3.5 of the defenses 4 sacks on the night.

Rookie safety Rodney Thomas and cornerback Stephon Gilmore were among the other standouts on defense. Thomas recorded his first career interception, which stalled a promising Broncos’ drive, and Gilmore had an interception that eventually set up the game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter as well as the game-sealing pass deflection in overtime.

Of the issues the Colts have, their defense hasn’t been one of them over the last few weeks, and they deserve a ton of credit for their performance against Denver last Thursday.