Are Colts, Texans Best AFC Competition for Patriots?
Either the Indianapolis Colts (3-2) or Houston Texans (4-2) will walk out of Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday with the AFC South Division lead.
But look at the bigger picture, which in the AFC always starts with the New England Patriots, the defending Super Bowl champions off to an impressive 6-0 start.
After the No. 1 Patriots, the next AFC team in NFL.com's power rankings are the Texans at No. 6. That’s understandable, considering they duplicated the Colts’ previous game with a comeback road win at Kansas City last week. The Colts, coming off a bye, were 10.5-point road underdogs when they stunned the Chiefs 19-13 two weeks ago.
If looking for the Colts in those power rankings, scan down the list past the Chiefs (4-2) at No. 7 and the Buffalo Bills (4-1) at No. 10 and they held steady at No. 14 despite the weekend off.
Aside from the inspiring upset of the Chiefs, the Colts have been inconsistent enough to plant seeds of doubt. But a fair argument could be made that they are worthy of a higher spot.
The 1 p.m. Sunday kickoff at Indianapolis will decide who has a leg up in the division, but we all remember what happened last year. The Texans won at Indianapolis early in the season, but the Colts won at Houston later on and then once again in the game that mattered most in January’s AFC playoffs.
Much has changed for both teams since then. The August retirement of Colts quarterback Andrew Luck opened the door for backup Jacoby Brissett, whose 94.9 passer rating ranks 18th among NFL starters who have played more than one game. But he’s taken care of the football for the most part with 10 TD passes and just three interceptions.
And the 2019 Colts have shown a decided shift in offensive philosophy as one of the league’s best rushing teams. Just two teams have run the ball more than the Colts, who average 31.8 carries per game and rank fourth in rush yards at 142 per game. Running back Marlon Mack’s 470 yards ranked fifth before the bye week.
Although the Colts lost pass rusher Kemoko Turay to a broken ankle — he was placed on injured reserve on Monday — they will have their defensive leader, Darius Leonard, back in charge for Sunday. The 2018 NFL leading tackler missed the past three games in concussion protocol. Safety Clayton Geathers has also been cleared after sitting out the Chiefs game in the same protocol.
“This team has some really talented players on offense,” Colts head coach Frank Reich said on Monday. “They are smart players. You can tell that they have smart football players and physically talented players. So we need to have as many of those guys as well. Darius (Leonard) is one of those guys that can – when (Texans quarterback) Deshaun Watson gets in the open field, Darius can make it interesting and not many guys can. So you need guys like Darius that can make it interesting.”
The bigger question is can the Colts or Texans make the AFC interesting or are the Patriots just going to walk away with another conference title and Super Bowl berth?
When Luck retired, the notion that the Colts could contend for a playoff spot couldn’t have been more in doubt. But after the Chiefs win, eyebrows raised about what this team could achieve.
The Colts are actually slight home favorites at 1 to 1.5 points, depending upon the line cited. That means this matchup with the Texans is basically a toss-up. That’s kind of how we should look at the division. Based on last year, we learned not to place too much stock in one game, that fortunes can change by the time the weather turns cold in December and January.
If nothing else, the Colts and Texans have shown against the Chiefs that they can beat top-caliber competition on the road. The Chiefs lost last year’s AFC title game at home in overtime to the Patriots, but league MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes is hobbled.
What stands to reason is that the winner of the AFC South Division should have a better chance to earn a January trip to Foxborough, Mass., as anyone else. A division title means a home playoff game or two before that.
Earning a playoff berth as a wild-card team means tougher sledding on the road.
The Colts made the playoffs for the first time since 2014 despite not winning the division last year. The Texans won the division but it didn’t matter when they lost to the Colts in the opening round. Then the Colts lost on the road to the Chiefs 31-13 in the second round.
But look at the rest of the AFC? Who out there really presents a strong case for pushing the Patriots?
The Bills are in the same division as the Patriots, so if they make the postseason, they have to survive on the road. Good defense in Buffalo, but a shaky offense at 25th in scoring.
The Baltimore Ravens lead the AFC North Division at 4-2, but got routed at home by Cleveland and lost at Kansas City. Quarterback Lamar Jackson is a dynamic two-way threat like the Texans’ Deshaun Watson. But the Ravens have telling games in the next two weeks at Seattle (5-1) and at home against the Patriots.
The AFC West Division still belongs to the Chiefs, but can KC rebound enough if Mahomes is playing on that gimpy ankle for an extended period?
The opportunity is there for the Colts and Texans to assert themselves in the AFC. That doesn’t make Sunday an all-important outcome, but it’s definitely more intriguing.
