EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — Nick Foles dropped back to pass with his eyes downfield and turned his back late in the second quarter Sunday at MetLife Stadium. The Colts quarterback pump-faked to his right as he surveyed his reads, but he couldn’t make it through his entire progression before Giants rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux tackled him to the ground.
When Foles hit the turf, the ball was tucked into his rib cage, making the tackle so painful he couldn’t get up. As Foles lay writhing in pain, Thibodeaux lay next to him and seemingly mocked the former Super Bowl MVP by making fake snow angels. Thibodeaux eventually popped up and continued celebrating on the sideline, but Foles took longer to get up before walking gingerly off the field and being taken to the locker room on a cart.
Nick Foles is driven off the field after an injury on a first-half sack. (Vincent Carchietta/USA Today)
Foles never came back and neither did the Colts in a 38-10 loss. However, that play did not decide the outcome.
Daniel Jones did.
“When you’re playing this football team and you have a mobile quarterback and you get down, it’s tough sledding,” Colts interim head coach Jeff Saturday said. “You’re watching those plays, a lot of those runs by Daniel Jones aren’t designed runs, he’s booting out the back. That’s tough on the defense.”
Jones, in his fourth season, did whatever he wanted against the Colts and reminded them of their biggest need in the upcoming draft: a young, mobile quarterback. Jones, 25, went 19-for-24 passing for 177 yards and two touchdowns, which isn’t an all-world showing. But it’s his legs that made life miserable for the Indianapolis defense.
Jones totaled 11 carries for 91 yards and two scores, highlighted by an 18-yard score in the third quarter. The Colts haven’t had a quarterback run for at least 50 yards since Andrew Luck in 2016. The starters since then? Scott Tolzien, Jacoby Brissett, Brian Hoyer, Phillip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Sam Ehlinger and Foles. Wentz, who was jettisoned from the team last year, and Ehlinger, a former sixth-round pick in his second season, are the only ones with the mobility to be considered dual-threat QBs in a league that’s moving further away from pocket-only passer.
“It is an extra element that you have to account for,” said Ehlinger, who notched his first career TD on a 6-yard pass to Michael Pittman Jr. in the third quarter. “In the quarterback run game, you get an extra (blocker) and you run out of guys as a defense when you’re using the running back or tight ends as blockers. Then guys have to get off blocks versus having a guy as a free tackler on the running back. There’s that, and then in the pass game, it adds an extra element that you have to contain the quarterback and you can do a really good job in the back-end covering and there’s still that element that you have to stop. It adds a level of complexity to offensive play.”
The Colts have seen that complexity up close this season when facing franchise quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Dak Prescott and Jalen Hurts.
“That’s just the trend and the game always runs in trends,” Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “So, the time of that quarterback that’s just gonna stand in the pocket and sit back there and pick you apart, it’s looking like that’s dead now. All of the best quarterbacks — from Patty to Jalen to Josh (Allen) — that’s what it is. And then as you saw today, they’re successful because they basically have an extra gap accounted for because it allows the running back to be a lead blocker.”
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Even the teams without star QBs still have ones who are capable of extending plays and, when needed, at least running for first downs. Ryan, Foles and Ehlinger have combined to run for 13 first downs all season, ranked 23rd in the league, according to TruMedia. The NFL average for QB first-down runs this season is 24.4, compared with 14.6 a decade ago and 13.4 in 2006, when Saturday was snapping for the legendary but immobile Peyton Manning.
“You can go throughout the league and the style of offenses, the way guys are playing with them,” said Saturday of dual-threat QBs. “You’re watching college football, everybody watched it yesterday (in the College Football Playoff). You’re seeing what all that looks like. The bottom line is they’re proficient. It’s not just that they’re mobile, they’re making plays with their arms as well.”
One of those young quarterbacks is Ohio State’s CJ Stroud, who had arguably the best game of his college career in a 42-41 loss against Georgia on Saturday. The projected top-five pick totaled 348 passing yards and four TDs but used a 27-yard run to set up a potential game-winning field goal that Noah Ruggles missed as time expired.
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There’s no guarantee the Colts will draft Stroud. But of the top QBs in the upcoming draft — which also includes Alabama’s Bryce Young, Kentucky’s Will Levis and Florida’s Anthony Richardson — all of them are mobile, and Indianapolis needs to pick one to pull itself out of the past and into the future.
“When you have a running quarterback, it’s just another threat,” said Franklin, who acknowledged the Colts failed to contain Jones. “When you can drop back and have everybody covered and even have a good rush and then have all of that break down, and your quarterback still runs for 20 yards, it’s just like, damn. But that’s just how the game is going.”
(Top photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
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