Week 8 Colts vs. Saints Game Thread

The Indianapolis Colts will host the New Orleans Saints for their week 8 game, Sunday at 1PM EST.

Last week the Colts offense had a fantastic day against the NFL’s best defense. Today they’ll get another test against another good defense in the New Orleans Saints. The Saints and Cleveland Browns share a few things schematically, so one could expect the Colts to come out and have a similar level of success. Not to mention the Saints rush defense isn’t nearly as good as the Browns and Jonathan Taylor is looking more and more like the Jonathan Taylor we saw before the ankle injuries derailed his 2022 season.

These things are logical but every time I mention them to anyone, they like to point out that things never go as they should. And in some ways we should expect regression. The Colts were gifted multiple “free plays” that Gardner Minshew turned into explosive gains and points. The Indy offense can’t count on that again this week. But also, some things should improve. Chiefly among them is that Minshew is currently averaging one turnover per quarter. It would actually be difficult for that pace to continue. So assuming an improvement (perhaps wishful thinking) the offense will be better in ways it hasn’t been the past two weeks. Also, it would be hard to have worse officiating at the end of this weeks game than what we all saw last week.

Defensively the Colts defensive backs might struggle. With solid rookie Juju Brents missing today’s action with a quad injury, on paper the position doesn’t inspire. Fortunately the Saints offense has been a total mess. There has been a lot of talk that offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael might see an early departure from his current position, which is never a good sign. On the other hand, if Derek Carr and a bad Saints offense comes out and carves up the Colts defense, it could prove to be a very bad sign of the things to come.

This is a very winnable game and having watched both teams play this year, I feel the Colts are the better team. With that said, there’s a reason they play the games. Hopefully Indy is able to limit their mistakes, get Jonathan Taylor and the quick pass game going early and use it to set up a few play action shots deep down field when the time is right. If they can do that, well, we’ll all have had a lot of fun by the time the 4 o’clock games kick off.

As always, go Colts.

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This is your week eight open thread so hang out here, chat, celebrate, commiserate, and argue in the comments! Go wild (within reason)!