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Colts' poor performance contradicts 'higher urgency' mandate from ownership, raising doubts about leadership's evaluation of GM and coach.
Colts' defense struggled mightily, unable to contain Ravens' passing attack and running game, leading to a lopsided defeat.
Colts' offense faltered early, with QB Daniel Jones' mistake sparking an avalanche and limited impact from star receiver Alec Pierce.
Baltimore Ravens v Indianapolis Colts
Source: Justin Casterline / Getty
5 Things Learned: Colts Drilled In Season Opener
INDIANAPOLIS – After an offseason of hearing about a “higher sense of urgency,” the Colts responded with a dud of an opening game.
The Colts lost 41-23 to the Ravens in Week 1.
What did we learn from the Colts losing in Week One?
FIVE THINGS LEARNED
–That Follows Higher Urgency?: That ownership directive of a “higher sense of urgency” was met with an absolute dud of a performance by her football team. Following a 7-game losing streak to end last season, and following a 5-year absence from the playoffs, the Colts played like that in front of their home crowd. Honestly, the 18-point Ravens lead at halftime could have been larger had they not had 6 penalties for 55 yards in the opening half. Issues for the Colts were three-phased, with some key special teams mistakes early, as the Ravens built such a massive lead. It’s never a good day when the opposing running back is waving goodbye to your home crowd with 12 minutes left on the clock, but it was more than fair when Derrick Henry did it as the Ravens went up 22 points. As Irsay-Gordon evaluates her general manager and head coach, this sort of performance can’t be simply chalked up to “Week 1 weirdness.” That’s alarming when your team’s first opportunity following all of this higher urgency talk is met with such a performance.
-Horrific Defensive Performance: Zay Flowers absolutely torched the Colts on Sunday, and his last snap came before halftime. That’s humbling. The most frequent victim was running away from new nickel cornerback Justin Walley, who was playing his first football game since November 2024. Any in-game adjustments to trying to slow Flowers didn’t occur. The Colts defense benefitted greatly from Flowers exiting just before the first half with a hamstring injury. Of course that put his 5-catch, 150-yard, 1-touchdown day into more jarring perspective, considering he didn’t even play a full half. The Ravens wideout group became thinner in the 3rd quarter when promising rookie wideout Jakobi Lane left due to injury, too. Defensive playmaking was hard to come by, outside of late-half combo sack/strip by Laiatu Latu and Arden Key, which DeForest Buckner pounced on. That led to 7 points. Derrick Henry rumbled for 144 yards on 24 carries, helping the Ravens preserve things in the second half. Early in the 4th quarter, the Ravens were averaging an astonishing 9.0 yards per play. Simply, Sunday was an awful day for Lou Anaruom’s unit.
–Early QB Mistake Starts Avalanche: A major play in the Ravens early avalanche came on the Colts second drive when Daniel Jones was picked over the middle by linebacker Roquan Smith. Jones was tossing a rare target in the direction of Laquon Treadwell, but errored from a clean pocket when not identifying Smith just underneath the intended receiver. With the Colts unable to get Jonathan Taylor going early, the passing game couldn’t sustain that first drive. To start the game, Josh Downs won a couple of key third-down man opportunities, but those were his lone catches in the entire first half. Jones and the Colts air attack did hardly anything after the first drive, until some cheap fourth-quarter yards. This was one of the least efficient passing days we’ve seen from Jones in a Colts uniform.
–Limited Alec Pierce Doesn’t Offer Much: During Sunday’s first half, the Colts hardly felt the presence of Alec Pierce. This was a major storyline entering Sunday, how much would Pierce play and how effective would he play. The Colts were thinking Pierce could play around 30 snaps on Sunday. And while his final number might have got there (Pierce had 4 catches on 6 targets for 61 yards), it was certainly much more skewed to seeing action in the second half, and producing when the game was all but over. When Pierce was on the field in the first half, they attempted one deep shot to him, which resulted in a tremendous pass breakup by Ravens star cornerback Marlon Humphrey. Pierce had a chance for a key third-down pick up late in the 3rd quarter but he couldn’t secure a well thrown ball from Daniel Joens, with Ravens cornerback Nate Wiggins appearing to get his left hand on the ball. Those are the moments and types of plays the Colts will be asking more out of their 100-million dollar receiver. The Colts offense just lacked verticality with Pierce not fully himself. Only one deep shot was attempted to Pierce, and the Colts hardly produced anything of note through the air, at the second and third levels.
–Colts Back To Losing In Week One: After finally winning a Week 1 game last year, Sunday’s defeat now means the Colts have lost their season opener 12 out of the last 13 years. On top of that though, this is an AFC loss over a team many have pegged into the postseason. A team’s level of play in Week 1 is borderline impossible to gauge for the rest of the season. So that’s good/optimistic news for the Colts. But this loss, over a quality, in-conference opponent is something that shouldn’t be forgotten as the season moves into its latter stages. And the style in which they lost it has to be something sitting on the mind of Carlie Irsay-Gordon.
QUICK HITTERS
Inactive Players: LB-Austin Ajiake (hamstring), CB-Johnathan Ewardds, RB-DJ Giddens, DE-Geroge Gumbs Jr., OL-Dalton Tucker.
Injury Report: The following Colts left Sunday’s game due to injury:
Stat Of The Game: Despite 10 penalties in the game, the Ravens still produced 41 points, the most the Indianapolis Colts have given up in a home opener.
What’s Next: The Colts will hit the road in Week 2, taking on the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football. The Colts will get the Chiefs coming off a short week, as Kansas City plays Denver on Monday Night Football.