Colts stay red hot, storm into Kansas City after beating Houston
HOUSTON — The challenges have come throughout the season for Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts.
Jacksonville and its stingy defense. The same with Tennessee’s defense. Winning streaks by Houston and Dallas. And each time, Luck and the Colts found a way to win at least once against each of those teams.
The Colts passed another test when they went on the road to beat the Texans 21-7 in the AFC wild-card playoffs Saturday for their largest road playoff victory in 23 years.
Now Luck is about to face one of only two quarterbacks talked about more than him this season: Kansas City Chief quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Colts will travel to play Kansas City in the divisional round on Jan. 12.
“Yeah, that will be fun, it’ll be great,” Luck said of preparing for the Chiefs.
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The Chiefs are the top seed in the AFC, but the Colts are the hotter of the two teams and the one with the potential to end what’s been a possible MVP season for Mahomes, who is in his first season as a starter.
Indianapolis has won 10 of 11 games after starting the season 1-5 to become one of the most talked-about teams in the NFL.
The Colts need their offense to keep rolling in order to hang with a Chiefs offense that averaged an NFL-high 35.3 points a game and had five games of at least 40 points during the regular season.
The Texans, who have pass-rush specialist J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney lined up as ends, were supposed to present a challenge for the Colts. That was definitely supposed to be the case after Texans cornerback Johnathan Joseph referred to T.Y. Hilton‘s “second home” comments in reference to NRG Stadium as being for “clowns.”
Hilton got things going for the Colts with three catches for 63 yards on their opening drive that ended with an Eric Ebron touchdown. The 63 yards were the most Hilton has ever had on an opening drive in his seven-year NFL career.
It looked as though the Colts made a concerted effort to get Hilton the ball on their opening drive, because it seemed to set the tone for the offense.
What the Colts have continued to show is that their offense is not just predicated on Luck’s right arm. They’re also a running team, which was evident on the second drive, when running back Marlon Mack rushed for 39 of his team-playoff-record 148 yards.
The Colts led 21-0 at halftime in a half that couldn’t have been scripted any better for them.
They were just the fourth team in the past 10 playoffs to lead by 21 points in the first half while playing on the road, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
They were also just the fourth team to be perfect on third down (6-of-6) in the first half in the playoffs since at least 2001.
The Colts are the first road team since 1970 to have at least 20 first downs in the first half, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
Simply put: Playing on the road doesn’t bother the Colts.
Having a running game will help with ball control to keep Mahomes and Kansas City’s offense on the sideline next weekend.
It helps the most that after years of abysmal offensive line play, the Colts have the best offensive line in the NFL. They gave up an NFL-low 18 sacks during the regular season and carried it over to Saturday, when Luck wasn’t sacked and the Colts rushed for 200 yards.
Now they’ll put all those things to the test on the road against impressive Kansas City.