Week five of the NFL season is already upon us and this week’s installment of Thursday Night Football features an AFC South matchup between the Indianapolis Colts (2-2) and the Houston Texans (1-3) at NRG Stadium.
The Colts are coming off a 16-13 overtime win against the Jacksonville Jaguars in week four. Stepping in for Andrew Luck, Matt Hasselbeck threw 30 of 47 for 282 yards with a TD and led the game-winning drive that set up the clinching field goal.
Luck was sidelined for the first time in his career with an injured right shoulder. After practice Tuesday, Coach Chuck Pagano said Luck “looked good” throwing passes but his status for Thursday is uncertain.
In his career, Luck is 5-1 against the Texans and has thrown 14 touchdowns with just three interceptions. The last time Luck lost to anyone in the AFC South was December 16, 2012, since then the Colts have dominated, winning 15 straight within the division.
However, that trend has potential to be reversed Thursday. Indianapolis has beaten Tennessee and Jacksonville by a combined five points this season and Luck has been unimpressive throwing five TDs and seven picks while being sacked five times in three starts.
The Texans are coming off an embarrassing 48-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons where at one time the scoreboard read 48-0.
Ryan Mallet actually edges Andrew Luck in quarterback rating for the season and in any other year this would be a commendable statistic. However, so far in this season, that’s not saying much.
Mallet’s 65.3 quarterback rating doesn’t come close to illustrating how bad the offense has looked under his helm. He went 12 of 27 for 150 yards and had one interception before being benched Sunday and has only completed over 50% of his passes once this season.
Despite this, Coach Bill O’Brien is sticking with Mallet for Thursday’s game.
“He’s our starting quarterback,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said. “Like all of us, he knows he has to play better. We all have to do better. He’s gotta do a better job of throwing the ball more accurately, he’s gotta be more controlled in the pocket. Don’t turn it over. Get us into the right play. But that’s who we’ll start against the Indianapolis Colts.”
Although unproductive in his season debut last week, a breakout game could be in store for Arian Foster. The Colts rank 25th in the league in run defense, allowing 120 rushing yards a game. An effective rushing attack featuring Foster and Alfred Blue will only benefit Mallet in generating offensive production.
Coach O’Brien would also like to see more success come from the backfield.
”We really need to work on the running game,” O’Brien said. ”We’ve got to be able to run the football.”
This could be the perfect week to get Foster going as he has averaged 6.3 yards per carry and rushed for five TDs while gaining 505 yards in four home games against Indianapolis.
Even though the Texans have not shown much promise this season, they can claim the division lead with a win Thursday night.
There are plenty of detriments to playing Thursday night games but there is one distinct positive for Houston in this circumstance. The quick turn-around forced them to immediately put Sunday’s humiliation behind them and begin focusing on Indianapolis.
There’s a lot of football to be played,” O’Brien said. ”This will be our first divisional game for us. That’s a great opportunity … We can’t do anything about what happened (Sunday). We’ve got to really focus on Indianapolis and try to improve.”
