Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears: Takeaways from Indy's 21-16 win in Week 3

Cody Manning

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Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears: Takeaways from Indy's 21-16 win in Week 3 image

The Indianapolis Colts have found themselves in the win column after escaping with a 21-16 win over the Chicago Bears.

The victory comes on a day when Anthony Richardson had one of the worst performances in his young career while Jonathan Taylor put the offense on his back, and the defense came to play for the first time this season. 

They say a win is a win, regardless of how it comes. There is plenty for the Colts to improve, but for now, they got a much-needed victory to keep this season from falling apart this early in the schedule. 

Here are five takeaways from Indy’s win:

Colts vs. Bears: Takeaways from Indy's Week 3 win

1. Jonathan Taylor carries the offense

On a day when the passing attack failed to find any rhythm, it was the ground game led by Jonathan Taylor that helped the Colts win this contest. He gave his team the lead in the middle of the second quarter with a nifty run from 29 yards out for his first touchdown of the game.

By halftime, he had 10 carries for 58 yards and a touchdown. It was Taylor who provided life to the offense late in the third quarter when the unit couldn’t get anything positive going. Following a neutral zone infraction by the Bears on a fourth-and-two to keep the drive alive, Taylor had a 25-yard reception and a 21-yard run on back-to-back plays to get Indianapolis to the red zone. 

That led to a Trey Sermon one-yard touchdown run three plays later to give Indianapolis a 14-3 lead. To put the icing on the cake, it was Taylor who closed out the game. He scored his second touchdown of the game following a Laiatu Latu strip-sack to make it a 21-9 game. 

To follow that up, JT finished his day running behind Quenton Nelson to get the game-winning first down so they could kneel it out for the win.

He ended with 135 total yards and two touchdowns. A notable stat was that Taylor accumulated 76 of his 110 rushing yards on the right side of the line. 

Anthony Richardson is going to have to win games for Indianapolis at some point, but for now, it is the star back who is getting the job done for his offense. 

2. Laiatu Latu's game-changing first career sack

The patience for Laiatu Latu to make a big play for the defense paid off in a big way for the Colts. After the Bears made it a 14-9 game in the middle of the fourth quarter, Indianapolis failed to do anything with the ball, and punted to give Chicago the ball back with 6:52 left in the game. 

On the first play of the drive, Latu came off the edge for a vintage Dwight Freeney/Robert Mathis strip-sack to give his offense the ball back at the Chicago 18-yard line.

That led to Taylor’s second touchdown of the game. 

Per Next Gen Stats, Latu generated seven pressures and one sack on 28 pass rushes (25.0%).

Latu’s seven pressures are the most by any rookie in a single game this season. five of Latu’s pressures came on 19 one-on-one matchups against Braxton Jones (26.3%).

Latu finished well below the league average of separation yards from the QB (4.56 yards) with 3.3 yards and his sack was the fastest of the game (3.3 seconds) per Next Gen Stats. The Indy defense will need more of this since they are without DeForest Buckner, Samson Ebukam, and potentially Kwity Paye going forward. 

3. Forgetful day for Anthony Richardson

There will be highs and lows for Anthony Richardson in his development process but for the sake of this season, Shane Steichen has to hope this will be the lowest moment for his quarterback. It was a rough afternoon for the young signal caller. 

He struggled to find any rhythm, cost the offense turnovers while trying to make a play, and missed opportunities to move the sticks when he had a man wide open. Richardson almost had a disastrous start on the second drive of the game. 

With Montez Sweat all over him, he tried to make something out of nothing when the ball came out of his hands right into a Chicago defender’s hands, but luckily, the refs blew the play dead prior saying his forward progress was stopped. 

That was an omen for how his day was going to go. On the following drive, after making a big 44-yard completion to Alec Pierce on third-and-10 to get to Chicago’s four-yard line, Richardson tried to get a ball to Ashton Dulin on third-and-goal but the attempt was tipped right into Tremaine Edmunds’ hands for an easy interception.

While it was tipped, that is a ball that needs to be to the back of the end zone where only Dulin has an opportunity to make a play. His second interception was just plain ugly. Under no pressure, he airmailed a ball over a wide-open Michael Pittman Jr. right into Jaylon Johnson’s hands on the first play of the second half. 

The one area of Richardson's game he has struggled with thus far in Year 2 is reading defenses. That was on display today. Per Next Gen Stats, Richardson averaged his quickest average time to throw against the Bears in Week 3 (2.62 seconds).

He completed six of his nine quick pass attempts for 51 yards, while struggling on longer developing dropbacks (over 2.5 seconds), completing just four of his 11 such attempts for 116 yards and two interceptions. 

The Bears’ defense played zone coverage on all but two dropbacks (91.3% zone coverage). This is compelling when you consider that Richardson struggled against man coverage more than zone coverage in the first two games. 

Quarterback development can be a grueling process, especially this early for one that hasn’t played a lot of football but you would like to see Richardson start making the layups, not be Superman when he doesn’t need to, and making sound decisions towards the halfway point of the schedule. 

4. The defensive front shows up

There was plenty of chatter surrounding the horrendous start to the season by the Indy rush defense. But on a day when they had a favorable matchup, Gus Bradley’s unit took advantage of it. 

His defense held the Bears to 63 rushing yards on 28 attempts (2.3 YPC) and didn’t allow one rushing attempt to reach 10 yards. Just four of Chicago’s 26 first downs came from rushing plays. 

The Indy defense finished with seven TFLs, with six of them coming from six different defensive linemen: Laiatu Latu, Kwity Paye, Tyquan Lewis, Adetomiwa Adebawore, Raekwon Davis, and Taven Bryan.

It was the rush defense that kept the Bears from tying the game up late in the second quarter. On a 16-play, 58-yard drive that took 6:39 seconds, Indianapolis held Chicago out of the endzone despite getting goal-to-go from the four-yard line. 

This included a third and fourth goal-to-go from the one-yard line. After stuffing a Khalil Herbert third-and-goal run, the Indy defense sniffed out a sprint option to tackle D’Andre Swift for a 12-yard loss on fourth-and-goal.

It wasn’t just defending the run where the defensive front delivered, but they were getting pressure on Caleb Williams throughout the afternoon. They just didn’t get home enough in the first half. Entering halftime, the Colts only registered one sack and two QB hits. 

By the end of the game, they tallied four sacks and six QB hits. Latu, Adebawore, Bryan, and Paye were responsible for three-and-a-half of the sacks. All four also made up five of the six QB hits. 

This was a great performance from Indy’s defensive front who was without DeForest Buckner. They will need to repeat that against the Pittsburgh Steelers rushing attack in Week 4. 

5. Career day for Jaylon Jones

A key to winning this contest for the Colts was winning the turnover battle three to two. Following Anthony Richardson’s first interception, Caleb Williams hit Rome Odunze for 47 yards to get Chicago to the Indianapolis 33-yard line. 

Three plays later on a third-and-four, with Tyquan Lewis getting pressure on Williams, Jaylon Jones jumped on a late pass attempt to get his first career interception.

This flipped the momentum back to Indianapolis who would take a 7-0 lead three plays later. One wasn’t enough for Jones. Later in the third quarter, the Colts forced a three-and-out on Chicago’s second drive of the second half, but a roughing the kicker penalty kept the drive alive. 

Despite losing the challenge, there was a debatable missed call by the refs where Tyler Goodson (who ran into the punter) tipped the ball with his hands, which would have negated the penalty.  Even Tiki Barber, who was calling the game, made an argument that Goodson got his hand on the ball. 

Regardless, it was a ball-don’t-lie moment the following play for the Colts. Williams attempted a deep shot to Odunze but Nick Cross had great coverage on the rookie receiver to get the pass breakup, and Jones made an athletic play to get the ball with one hand and keep his feet inbounds for his second interception.

It wasn’t a picture-perfect day for Jones but he made plays for his team when they needed it, which should help build up his confidence. He finished with five tackles (four solo), a TFL, two passes defended, and two interceptions. 

Gus Bradley will need Jones to continue to grow in Week 4 with George Pickens coming to town and the fact that he might be the best available cornerback if Kenny Moore II’s hip injury keeps him out of the lineup. 

Cody Manning

Cody Manning Photo

Cody Manning is a graduate of the University of Tampa’s Sport Management program. He spent time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Guest and Member Relations Game Day staff where he was a Team Leader and earned Difference Maker of the Year in 2017. During his time with the Bucs, he helped start Blitzalytics, a scouting and analytics media company. After that came to an end, he joined USA Today’s Colts Wire as a contributor in 2021. Outside of football, he is an avid WWE and Batman fan. You can find him on Twitter/X @CodyTalksNFL.