After playing four road games in five weeks, the Colts return home on Sunday to kick off a November largely spent in Indianapolis. Three of the Colts' next four games are at Lucas Oil Stadium, beginning on Sunday against Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys.
Let's look at a few things to watch on Sunday afternoon in downtown Indianapolis:
Can the Colts' offense come to life against a struggling Cowboys defense?
This is one of those "something's gotta give" games in which two struggling units go head-to-head:
Really, these numbers could've been distilled into yards per play and takeaways/turnovers. The Cowboys give up plenty of yards and don't take the ball away; the Colts have struggled to consistently gain yards and have turned the ball over at a high rate.
The Colts' offense has recently run a gauntlet of difficult defenses, though, with three of their last four games against the NFL's three top scoring defenses: The Pittsburgh Steelers (18.0 points/game, 3rd), Minnesota Vikings (13.3 points/game, 1st) and Jacksonville Jaguars (15.1 points/game, 2nd). The last time the Colts faced a bottom-10 scoring defense (Washington in Week 4), they scored 30 points.
Sauce Gardner & Charvarius Ward Sr. against CeeDee Lamb & George Pickens
Among cornerbacks with at least 150 coverage snaps, Gardner has the highest forced incompletion rate (28.6 percent) in the NFL, while Ward is ninth (19.4 percent). Gardner, as you'd expect, has only been targeted 21 times on 227 coverage snaps – about one in every 11 coverage snaps, and about two and a half times per game.
"When you're a talented player like that, teams don't want to throw at you every down," head coach Shane Steichen said, "and that's respect to him and the way he operates."
Lamb, meanwhile, enters Week 9 leading the NFL in targets (94) and is third in both receptions (60) and yards (709). But it's not as simple as telling Gardner and Ward to lock down Lamb and Pickens on every snap.
Pickens has run 77 routes from the slot, eighth-most in the NFL, while Lamb has run 73 routes from the slot, tied for 10th most. The Cowboys intentionally move both players around instead of isolating them to an outside position, which is where they'll draw matchups with Gardner and Ward.
So when Lamb and Pickens are lined up as outside receivers, expect the Colts to trust Gardner and Ward to lock them down. But that won't be on every snap, meaning the Colts will have to deploy a plan to those receivers down when the Cowboys move them away from those two outside corners.
There are several young players to watch.
The Ohio State defensive end duo of Jaylahn Tuimoloau and Caden Curry has flashed as of late, and look for both players to continue to see upticks in their playing time. Against the Jaguars, Tuimoloau pummeled quarterback Trevor Lawrence on a strip-sack Curry recovered; he had another pressure that could've resulted in a sack had a Jaguars offensive lineman not kicked his leg out to trip Tuimoloau after the 2025 second-round pick won early into a first-half snap.
And Curry hit a clean spin move to quickly hit Lawrence in the second half, resulting in Laiatu Latu bringing down the Jaguars quarterback for a sack.
"He did a heck of a job," defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo said of Curry. "He missed an opportunity on a sack. He had the guy in his grasp and Latu was able to clean it up. But his overall effort, you start with that. It showed up on that screen play, the one screen he makes the play, clubs – tries to punch the ball out with a good attempt of a strip attempt, which was fantastic. He can do multiple jobs for us, both outside and we moved him inside a little bit now with Buck (DeForest Buckner) being gone as an inside rusher on third down. And that's where he came clean on that sack, or missed sack opportunity. But overall, hard-trying guy who brings multiple roles to the table. So, we'll continue to get him some more snaps."
Defensive tackle Adetomiwa Adebawore signed a contract extension this week after a disruptive and productive first eight games.
Linebacker CJ Allen will look to follow up his 10-tackle, one-sack showing in his first NFL start with another solid performance on Sunday as well.
And on offense, left guard Jalen Farmer will make the second start of his career – and will likely draw a tough assignment in four-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.
