The Indianapolis Colts are on the road to take on the New York Giants in their Week 17 game on Sunday at 1:00 pm EST.

Last week, the Colts offense went into turmoil, finishing with 38 points against a bad Tennessee Titans team. However, the defense folded like a lawn chair in the second half and didn’t allow the Ti-toons back into the game until late. A lot of people seemed mad at Shane Steichen and I just don’t like that. If you score 38 points you should win the game every time. If the other team keeps the ball close while you score 38 points, that’s not on the side of the ball that’s scoring the points, but on the side that’s preventing the other team from scoring the points.

There were complaints that Jonathan Taylor should have been in the game with a three-point lead. Conversely, if Jonathan Taylor had been seriously injured, there would have been even more complaints saying, “What did he do in the game where he was three points up?” and I would have been more likely to agree with those complaints. But unfortunately, despite all the gnashing of teeth from Colts fans online, the team actually won last week. Believe it or not.

This week Indy faces a team desperate to secure the No. 1 spot in the standings. Giants head coach Brian Dabol appears to be on his way out (that’s not going to happen, but I’d back the Brinks truck to have Dabol become an offensive consultant in Indy next year if he’s relieved of his duties). And they cut their starting quarterback for Week 1 a few weeks ago. The Colts should absolutely win this week’s game no matter who starts at quarterback.

Speaking of which, Anthony Richardson will miss another game this week due to what appears to be back spasms. At this point in the season, my only real interest was watching Richardson from week to week, and even though he only threw the ball 11 times last week, he faced more checkdowns than he had in previous weeks. Which is good! Too often the kid has forgone open receivers underneath to throw low-probability 20-yard bombs. This is not something you want to take away from the child completely because it can lead to special plays from time to time, but it is something he will have to do a lot less of and I hope he can pay more attention to it over time , when it’s time to take a shot and when it’s time to make it 5 yards on 2nd and 7.

With that being said, Joe Flacco will start. The last time Flacco started the run game, he was stagnant and Flacco looked his age. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things will be better this time. Defensively the Colts should be fine, but I wouldn’t bet on this defense ever doing anything good, so we’ll see.

So far this season, the Colts have lost to good teams and beaten bad ones, which seems right for a (mostly) solid team led by the least experienced starting quarterback in recent memory. The Giants are a bad team and this young quarterback isn’t playing. We’ll see how it goes, it won’t be revolutionary either way.

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Week 17 Inactive

This is your open thread for Week 17, so stick around, chat, celebrate, commiserate, and argue in the comments! Go wild (within reason)!

Come on, Colts!