What the Colts must improve coming out of the bye week
The Indianapolis Colts are a strong 4-2 coming out of their bye week. After a come-from-behind win at home against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6, the Colts will now head on the road to face the Detroit Lions coming out of the bye week.
While Indianapolis is 4-2, and are only one game back in first place in the AFC South, they still have some areas they can work on.
Here are three things the Colts need to improve on as they come out of the bye week and head towards the toughest part of their schedule:
Rush offense
In Week 1, Indianapolis lost starter Marlon Mack, and since then, the rushing attack just hasn’t been there for the Colts all season.
According to NFL’s NextGen Stats, Jonathan Taylor has had the highest percentage of rush attempts with at least eight defenders or more in the box of all running backs to have at least 80 carries this season.
Indianapolis as a team is struggling to run the football. They are 28th in total rush yards per game, 32nd in yards per attempt, all while being 18th in rush attempts per game.
The strength of the Colts offense last year was its running game and when they face teams like Baltimore, Tennessee and Green Bay in a few weeks they will need to rely more on the ground game.
Situational Offense
One of the more important keys Frank Reich and the offense look at each week and each year is the situational offense. That would include third down offense, and red zone efficiency. This season so far, the Colts haven’t been up to standards.
Going into Week 8, Indy is 26th in the NFL in red zone offense (scoring touchdowns) at 52%. In their four wins, the Colts were 9/14 scoring touchdowns, with four field goals. In the two losses, they were just 3-9, with only two field goals.
Third down offense also has been below average for a Reich offense. Indianapolis is 23rd in third down conversion, at only 39% on the young season. In the four wins, they’re 21-47 (44.7%) and 8-23 (34.8%) in their two losses.
First-half defense
There’s a positive and negative to having a strong second-half defense. The positive is, that Matt Eberflus can adjust to teams mid-game. The negative being that teams carve the Colts defense to start games, putting them in obvious pass situations in the second half.
Over the first six games, in the first half the Indianapolis defense has faced 201 plays, gave up 1110 yards (5.5 yards per play), eight touchdowns (five passing, three rushing), and forced four turnovers.
In the second half it’s a different story. 164 plays, 708 yards (4.3 yards per play), three touchdowns (two passing, one rushing), and forced six turnovers.
Whatever the defense is doing in the second half, they need to start doing it for a full 60-minute game when they face more explosive offenses in Green Bay, Baltimore, and Tennessee.
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