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Indianapolis Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II faced questions about his place on the Colts roster following a down year last season. After his historic performance against the Carolina Panthers, Moore might be owed an apology.
Moore picked off Panthers quarterback Bryce Young twice, taking both back for touchdowns. Those scores ended up being the difference in the Colts 27-13 win over their former head coach, Frank Reich, and his now 1-7 Panthers. The win improves the Colts record to 4-5.
Moore’s pair of pick sixes covered up what was an abysmal performance by the Colts offense. The Colts only managed 198 yards of total offense; 128 through the air and 78 on the ground. Quarterback Gardner Minshew one-hopped passes repeatedly, while both Zack Moss and Jonathan Taylor were each held under 50 yards rushing. The offense would not score following Matt Gay’s 57-yard field goal at the end of the 2nd quarter.
The game was almost a complete 180 from what we have seen from the Colts in the previous 3 weeks, when they had great success on offense but couldn’t stop anyone defensively. It continues a trend of up-and-down play from the Colts as a whole, as they still are struggle to put together a complete game.
It was especially concerning watching Minshew, whose arm appeared to be showing signs of fatigue throughout the game. Had Moore not made the plays that he did, the Colts could have been faced with the embarrassment of losing to one of the worst teams in the NFL, as well as the coach they unceremoniously fired almost exactly a year ago.
During Monday’s edition of The Ride With JMV, John spoke to Stephen Holder of ESPN about the win over the Panthers. Stephen spoke about Minshew’s performance, and how lucky the Colts were to win the way they did.
“He had I believe 4.9 yards per pass attempt, which is kind of the metric that coaches like to use as kind of a universal metric for efficiency in your quarterback. 4.9 is a season low for Gardner Minshew, and that is way below where you want a guy to be. You want it in the high 6’s and you want it in the 7’s ideally. 4.9 is just, you just can’t win like that. Now obviously they won, but that game is an outlier because you had two pick sixes in there.”
Listen to JMV’s full conversation with Stephen down below, and tune into The Ride With JMV weekdays from 3-6pm on 93.15/107.5 The Fan!
