Colts Notebook: Josh Downs Returns To Practice

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INDIANAPOLIS – The first road trip of the 2024 season for the Colts takes them to the hallowed grounds of Lambeau Field.

It’s a Sunday afternoon kick at 1:00 with the Packers (0-1) hosting the Colts for their home opener.

What were the takeaways from the Colts first practice of the week?

• Wednesday brought the first practice for WR-Josh Downs (ankle) in 5 weeks. Downs practice in a limited role. The return of Downs, potentially as early as Sunday, would be extremely beneficial in trying to aid Anthony Richardson becoming steadier in the passing department. Downs said he felt around 70 percent last week, but is more in the 80-90 percent range this week. Not thinking about his ankle when cutting is one of the final steps according to Downs.

• No Wednesday practice for DeForest Buckner (back), which is a rare sight for the veteran defensive tackle. Buckner has never missed a game due to injury in his 5-year career with the Colts, although there have been a couple of times where Buckner has played under a pitch count due to some physical ailment. Could that be in the cards on Sunday? Buckner got hurt on the final drive of Sunday’s loss to the Texans.

• What do the Colts need to see from K-Matt Gay (hernia) this week to have him kick on Sunday? The ability to handle a full kicking workload on game day. Gay was actually close to playing in Week 1, but the Colts opted for rookie Spencer Shrader due to concern on the entire plate of Gay. That’ll be something to monitor this week as the Colts head outdoors for their first road game of the season. Gay did practice on Wednesday, after missing all three practice days last week. Gay had surgery on his injured hernia about two weeks ago.

• How will the Colts replace JuJu Brents? That’s now the conversation as the team has lost one of their top outside corners, who played 62 of the 79 defensive snaps as the team’s 3 ^rd cornerback on Sunday (playing outside cornerback in the nickel package). The Colts played 3 cornerbacks in their opener (Kenny Moore II-all 79 snaps, Jaylon Jones-all 79 snaps, JuJu Brents-62 snaps). If you look at the current roster, the Colts probably have more corner depth in the slot, versus outside, if they want to explore moving Kenny Moore II to the outside, where he plays in their base personnel groupings. If they want to keep Moore II in the slot, then a guy like Dallis Flowers, who is still less than a year removed from tearing his Achilles, would be a potential option. The Colts do have 4 cornerbacks on their practice squad, so some options are there. If you are looking for any optimism on losing Brents for a lengthy period of time, it comes at a point in the schedule where the Colts shouldn’t face too immense of a passing game challenge in the coming weeks, with Malik Willis, Caleb Williams and Justin Fields the upcoming quarterbacks.

• The Colts are focusing more on preparation for Green Bay quarterback Malik Willis compared to Jordan Love (knee). Given Willis has been with the Packers for 15 days (he was traded there in late August), has looked very shaky in his limited game action and Love’s high standard of play, you can see why Vegas has moved the line from Packers favored by 4, to Colts now favored by 3.5. You could make the argument there’s not a steeper drop off from starter to backup quarterback anywhere else in the league. Willis is more of a running threat though, so the game plan for him should be much different than it was for Love.

• In the usual over examining of a first-round pick’s NFL debut, let’s look at how Laiatu Latu performed on Sunday. Latu played 31 of 79 defensive snaps and didn’t record a single box score statistics (sack, tackle, quarterback hit, etc). While those black and white stats weren’t there for Latu, he was credited with 2 pressures. That might not seem like a lot, but consider some edge-rushing pressure numbers from the Colts for all of last season: 21 for Samson Ebukam, 17 for Kwity Paye, 13 for Tyquan Lewis. So Latu having 2 in his debut (on pace for 34) is a notable number. Yes, you want to see Latu finish more plays, but he was impacting some things in his debut (and was opposite Houston LT-Laremy Tunsil on a pair of false starts).

• How different was the kick return game for the Colts in Week 1? Houston forced the Colts into 4 kick returns, which is nearly half of the total amount of returns the Colts had in all of the 2023 season (9 kick returns last season). It’ll be interesting to see if the return of Matt Gay leads to the Colts exploring more returns on their end, thinking a veteran could place the ball into some favorable coverage situations at all (like the Texans did).

• The Colts are now in their regular season practice routine of Wednesday-Friday practices, a walk-through on Saturday before boarding a plane for Sunday’s game in Green Bay.

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