The Indianapolis Colts are on the road to take on the Minnesota Vikings for their week nine matchup on Sunday at 8:20 PM EST.

Week eight completed the Houston Texans season sweep of the Colts. The defense played surprisingly well. We saw DeForest Buckner return and with him the defensive line delivered its best performance of the year, which had a ripple effect on the other two levels of the defense.

The offense sputtered. Anthony Richardson didn’t complete, I don’t know, many of his passes. His receivers caught zero contested catches, and his head coach didn’t throw high-percentage, quick passes until the second half (where Richardson played much better).

The match was over and after that it was a quiet week. Not much of note happened at all.

Either way, Joe Flacco will start at quarterback this week because Shane Steichen believes he gives them the best chance to win the game. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll find out. My biggest concern is how Flacco will impact the run game. With Richardson, there will always be forward lanes for his back because of the way defenses have to account for his legs. Defenses don’t have to account for Joe Flacco on the ground at all, so running backs may be harder to find.

Defensively, the Colts will face a rejuvenated Sam Darnold, who the New York Jets (a bad franchise) threw to the wolves, failed to develop and then shipped him out of town, declaring he was the problem , not his teammate, and not the guys who made him. the decisions and not the guys calling the plays. No, it was Darnold. Now that Darnold is getting a true second chance, he’s playing like a borderline top-10 quarterback. Something the Jets would love to have.

I’m not drawing parallels, I’m just telling the history. If you see one, ask yourself why.

Either way, the defense will have to get after Darnold and pressure him early and often. He likes to make deeper throws and receiver Justin Jefferson might be the best wide out in all of football. The Vikings aren’t a great rushing team, but the Colts have made the pedestrian rushes look much better than before. So Buckner’s continued presence and good play will be paramount tonight in primetime.

And whatever happens on the pitch tonight, we’ll likely share a few highlights from the half-time entertainment on social media:

Colts mascot Blue, created each week and donned by Trey Mock, was the Colts nominee for the Salute to Service award, a rare nomination for a mascot:

In real life, Blue and Vikings mascot Viktor Viking are good friends and Blue will be at the game tonight to take part in the Mascot Game against a group of naive primary school football players, those poor kids think they have a chance but they never will. see it coming:

Anyway, whatever happens to our Colts tonight, at least we have Blue.

As always, go Colts.

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Colts vs. Vikings Game Info

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This is week nine’s open thread, so stick around, chat, celebrate, commiserate, and argue in the comments! Go wild (within reason)!

Go Colts!