10 thoughts on Colts loss to Jaguars; Joe Flacco does what is asked of him

JACKSONVILLE – Ten thoughts on the Colts ’ 37-34 loss to the Jaguars at Everbank Stadium:

1. Another trip to Jacksonville, another defeat. But this one was entertaining, competitive and kind of wild.

The Colts found a counterpunch in them once their plan to live methodically unraveled and they faced a two-score deficit.

They scrapped despite a barrage of injuries to key players, though that's not really an excuse against a winless team.

Ultimately, the Colts fell short because they were too lacking in depth on defense to do much of anything against a Jaguars offense that badly needed a game like this.

The game provided plenty for us to dissect, though, from that cornerback depth to the reliance on the pass rush to Alec Pierce's explosive plays and Joe Flacco's moxie and Anthony Richardson's absence and ongoing health questions.

2. Although Richardson practiced in limited fashion each day this week, he never really appeared close to being able to play. In the practice time we got to watch, he put almost no physical effort into his throws, just using all arm and wrist to flick a few passes here and there. The Colts seemed aware of that all the way through, having Joe Flacco take a majority of the reps.

It wasn’t physically impossible for Richardson to play through the oblique injury, but it would have meant having him play without the downfield passes or the rushing, and he just isn’t built to succeed that way. The Colts were in a better position to win with a healthy Flacco, and keeping Richardson healthy and fresh for the long haul matters more than any single game this season.

From Joel A. Erickson: Late Jaguars FG ends Colts' 14-point comeback attempt, extends curse

Another injury: Colts left guard Will Fries carted off with right lower leg injury

3. I thought Flacco played rather well for a backup quarterback, which is exactly what he is and will continue to be.

He managed the game well with a number of short passes, which worked early but froze in the middle of the game.

He got caught for one bad turnover when he held the ball too long in the pocket and Braden Smith got worked by Travon Walker.

He threw some prayers up, one of which Mo Alie-Cox came down with for an acrobatic touchdown.

And he took some shots late to Alec Pierce to give the Colts a chance to come back. But he ultimately couldn't carry this team past an offense the Colts refused to stop.

No, he's not going to start if and when Richardson is healthy enough to be himself. He's just here to bring a good base line when Richardson can't go.

4. I don’t get why it took until late in the fourth quarter for the Colts to take shots to Alec Pierce on a day when they had zero explosiveness in the backfield without Jonathan Taylor or Richardson. Pierce is not only a dangerous receiver, but he’s also a reliable one at high-pointing the ball, keeping his balance and staying on the details, which isn't coming from their rookie receiver.

Pierce went without a catch in the first half but exploded down the stretch with three catches for 134 yards − a crazy 44.7 average per reception. He exposed a Jaguars defense that loves to live in man with bad cornerbacks, and he's the single reason the Colts were able to scratch back into this one and prevent a blowout once the Jaguars offense got rolling.

5. Brian Thomas Jr. can really fly, and we saw that on his 85-yard track-meet touchdown in the second quarter.

But what we also saw was the issue in playing Dallis Flowers in range right now.

He’s still just 12 months removed from an Achilles tear, and the general rule is that a player needs two years to regain his athleticism, if he can fully recover at all. The players you see succeed in shorter time than that usually aren’t relying on their athleticism, like Kirk Cousins on Thursday night against the Buccaneers.

Flowers’ entire game is athleticism. It’s helped that Samuel Womack has stepped up and provided solid enough No. 2 outside cornerback play so far, but this group has been a ticking time bomb since the loss of JuJu Brents, given that Flowers was still at best a timeshare No. 2/3 option.

6. In the Colts’ recent losses to the Jaguars – a streak that now extends to 10 straight on the road – one of the clearest issues has been an inability to make Trevor Lawrence throw or do anything that’s beyond his depth. He came into this one completing more than 77% of his passes against the Colts in their past five meetings together.

Well, that was the same situation again in this one. A Colts pass rush that was missing DeForest Buckner, Samson Ebukam, Kwity Paye and Tyquan Lewis from the initial plan failed to touch Lawrence a single time.

Really, he attempted 34 passes, and the Colts did not register a single hit on him.

The reasons are understandable, but it exposes how limited the plan to win is this season when it’s all built on the pass rush. Without that affect, Lawrence did what he normally does to this team and then some. He finished 28 of 34 for 371 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a gaudy 10.9 yards per attempt.

And that allowed the Jaguars as an offense to finish with 10.9 yards per play − or a first down on average for every play they ran. That's hard to beat.

7. It felt like Adonai Mitchell played a lot more in this one than he has in recent games. The Colts were running him out in two-receiver sets, rotating out Michael Pittman Jr. and Pierce.

And they made an early effort to get him the ball, with three targets on the first two drives, and then they used him on the throw-back to Tyler Goodson for 24 yards.

It’s a showcase of how explosive his upside is despite the lack of production and efficiency so far. Mitchell entered this game with just three catches on 14 targets, but he has the best separation score in the league because of his ability to fly and break open late in routes.

8. The biggest issue with Mitchell right now, though, is his refusal to go for the ball in contested situations.

Flacco targeted him on a second-down throw early in the third quarter, and with two defenders closing, Mitchell stuck one arm out and barely moved his body. That had the feel of a business decision.

He dropped a pass later in the half that would have been a harder catch along the sidelines but appeared to be another moment when he was staring at the incoming hit rather than securing the pass.

Some of Mitchell’s issues should be correctable with reps and time on the field. That part, however, is going to be a hurdle he chooses to overcome. The game is not going to work out for him until he does.

9. That trick play was all kinds of fun.

The Colts threw what they wanted to look like a wide receiver screen to Mitchell, banking on the defense biting on what was a high-usage player in their game script. Mitchell then looked downfield toward Alec Pierce to draw the scrambling defenders moving vertically and to the right, only to throw back to the left to Tyler Goodson, who caught the ball right as Quenton Nelson was blocking a panicking defender into the Atlantic Ocean.

Goodson then scampered 24 yards in the open field before lowering his shoulder and laying the wood to finish the run.

10.  Will Fries was carted off with an ankle injury in the third quarter, which is the latest blow to a team dealing with all kinds of injuries and really just brutal luck for him.

Fries stepped in as a fill-in right guard as a seventh-round pick back in 2022, when nothing the Colts tried up front was working. And I would argue that no player on the roster has gotten better faster than he has in that time. He’s rounded into such a firm pass protector that I thought he was going to be worthy of a nice extension for this team after his contract year was up after this season.

Now, he’s looking at a potentially major setback, and it adds a crack to the strongest unit on the Colts roster so far this season.

See you next week from Nashville, where the Colts need a win to show they’re a team that’s worth of contending for something this season.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 10 thoughts on Colts loss to Jaguars; Joe Flacco does what is asked of him