Indianapolis, IN
3 Colts with Rising Stock After Loss to Texans
The Indianapolis Colts are coming off their first season loss after falling 29-27 to the division-rival Houston Texans. While it’s not an ideal start, moments during the Lucas Oil Stadium contest gave plenty of hope and promise to what Indianapolis’ young team can accomplish in 2024. With this on tap, it’s time to look into three Colts players whose performances are raising their overall stock.
Ashton Dulin | Wide Receiver
Colts wide receiver Ashton Dulin is more of a special teams ace than a pass-catcher. However, if Indy needs help at receiver, Dulin provides a good downfield target with plenty of speed. While Anthony Richardson found fellow receiver Alec Pierce first, Dulin’s play was a foot race more than a deep throw.
Anthony Richardson to Ashton Dulin! 54-yard touchdoooown.
📺: #HOUvsIND on CBS/Paramount+ — NFL (@NFL) September 8, 2024
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/VRaovwYP9m
Dulin showed ridiculous speed after the reception and can make a tough catch when needed. With Josh Downs missing this contest put more pressure on rookie wideout Adonai Mitchell. So, for Dulin to step in and help with receiving depth while making a massive play may give him more offensive looks going forward.
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Alec Pierce | Wide Receiver
Third-year Colts receiver Alec Pierce had a career day against the Texans. He’d secure all three targets for 125 receiving yards (41.7 average) and a score, breaking Houston’s defense every time he touched the football. However, no play was bigger than his 60-yard monster score.
Alec Pierce’s two deep posts against the Texans.
The first was a 60-yard TD in which he tracked one of the most insane throws ever.
The second had Pierce slowing up to get it, and beating safety Jimmie Ward in the air for 57 more yards. pic.twitter.com/VSD8VUdF5F
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) September 9, 2024
Pierce was likely missing the arm strength of Richardson to match his best qualities. Pierce is a deep threat through and through, so expect the former Cincinnati Bearcat to have more plays like these from Sunday. After two disappointing seasons as a pure wideout, Pierce will likely have a career-best season when 2024 concludes.
DeForest Buckner | Defensive Tackle
Three-time Pro Bowler and former First-Team All-Pro DeForest Buckner dominated against the Texans in the trenches. He’d conclude with 6 tackles (1 for loss) and 1.5 sacks (led team). Even though Indy gave up 213 rushing yards, Buckner stood out in run and pass defense. Despite sustaining a back injury, Buckner likely will push through the setback to suit up for the Green Bay Packers.
Shane Steichen is hopeful DeForest Buckner is able to play this week. Says Buckner’s “tough as nails,” and has played through stuff his whole career.
— Joel A. Erickson (@JoelAErickson) September 9, 2024
Indianapolis didn’t look great in the defensive trenches outside of Buckner, so there is immediate cause for concern with how easily the Texans dominated the line of scrimmage to compile rushing yards. But names like Grover Stewart, Laiatu Latu, Kwity Paye, and Tyquan Lewis will look to help improve from what was a brutal start for Charlie Partridge’s troops.
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Taylor Swift excitement takes over Indianapolis
The city of Indianapolis prepared for Taylor Swift’s stop on The Eras Tour, the airport was decorated to welcome all Swifties.
Stop the presses: Taylor Swift talked about Indianapolis.
Yes, little old us! From the biggest artist in the world’s lips to millions of TV screens across the world, a major Indianapolis moment. We’re even on a nickname basis: She said “Indy.” She likes us, she really likes us!
The Circle City gets a shoutout from Swift and some serious screen time in the fourth episode of “The End of an Era,” the new Disney+ documentary series chronicling Swift’s record-smashing Eras Tour. The six-episode series features behind-the-scenes footage of Swift, her family and friends and the Eras Tour crew throughout her two-year globetrot that clocked 149 shows in 51 cities, including three shows in Indianapolis in November 2024.
Several notable names pop up in the series — Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Swift’s fiancé Travis Kelce, for one, along with her pop protégés Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams. But the real star of the show in episode four, “Thank You for the Lovely Bouquet”? The downtown Indianapolis JW Marriott, of course.
The hotel is known for plastering graphics of the people, teams and events du jour on the side of its 376-foot building, and Swift got more than a casual nod when Indianapolis relished in the Taylor Treatment. In case you missed it, a so-much-larger-than-life image of Swift — classic red lips, body suit and boots, pink acoustic guitar in hand — graced the building.
Abrams, who opened for Swift in Indianapolis during her Nov. 1, 2 and 3, 2024 shows, spotted the graphic first and texted Swift about it while she was in transit.
“Gracie texted me and she was like, ‘I knew you were tall, but check this out,’” Swift, who stands 5-foot-10, said in the documentary. “I’m on the side of the hotel, like a million feet tall.”
The tribute struck a chord with Swift. Remember that unfortunate “sexy baby” line from “Anti-Hero,” the lead single off her 2022 album “Midnights”? The one where she envisions herself as this colossal omen “slowly lurching toward your favorite city”?
Turns out, being emblazoned on one of Indianapolis’ most notable structures isn’t all that dissimilar.
“I used to have this joke, and that’s part of why I wrote ‘Anti-Hero.’ It’s like, ‘I’m a 5-foot-10 woman followed around by 500-foot-tall monster shadow, and this monster just knocks over buildings and wreaks all this havoc,” Swift continued. “Me being that size tall and I’m a hotel, it’s like, ‘Eh, that’s kind of how it feels sometimes.’”
Local efforts to transform downtown into Swift City paid off in documentary screen time. Cameras captured the friendship bracelet décor strung across The District Tap, renamed street signs like Ready For It Road and Long Live Lane and groups of fans dancing and singing at the corner of Meridian Street and Georgia Street. (And if you crane your neck and really squint, you’ll catch the IndyStar sign outside our former home at the Circle Center Mall.)
Indianapolis had the rare distinction of closing out the Eras Tour’s U.S. dates with Swift’s Nov. 1-3 run of shows. That run also came days before the 2024 presidential election, and the significance of the timing wasn’t lost on Swift.
“The one thing I can provide for people is an escape, like nothing could ever or should ever bother any of us. And nothing will for three-and-a-half hours,” Swift said in the documentary. “I’m glad that I will have given just 100% girlhood and hope and belief and sweat and effort, because that’s the job.”
Contact IndyStar Pop Culture Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X @hmb_1013.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Procrastinators on Tuesday hit the Fashion Mall at Keystone to snag those last-minute gifts.
There were lines to get to shops, including jeweler Pandora, but that didn’t stop 8-year-old Blane Randolph from getting something for his mom. He’s looked at getting a frame or bracelets. “It feels good, because I like giving stuff to people.”
The National Retail Federation has estimates consumers are each budgeting an average of $890 for seasonal items, and that holiday sales in the U.S. will surpass $1 trillion.
Experts say buying at brick-and-mortar stores means having last-minute gifts in hand without worrying about shipping.
James Payer of the Fashion Mall at Keystone on the north side of Indianapolis described the shoppers as calm this season. “The stress level isn’t as stressful as it used to be, because people have a plan and they’re executing that plan.”
He recommended grabbing a coffee or a gelato while shopping to enjoy the experience.
Besides the big box stores, News 8 got a chance to stop by a local gift shop called Silver in the City in downtown Indianapolis and spoke to shopper Jennifer Courteney. “I love shopping small and making sure we’re using stores that are local and not big box stores for everything, so it’s really important to shop small and support local business on Mass Avenue.”
She got little baby socks with meatball prints, and a Star Wars book for a new dad. She didn’t seem too frazzled by the last-minute shopping.
INDIANAPOLIS — The fall Jaylon Jones has taken down the Colts depth chart has been one of the most surprising developments of this season.
Jones, a full-time starter in his first two years in Indianapolis, played only four defensive snaps against the 49ers on Monday, a night when Jones was the team’s clear-cut fifth cornerback despite injuries to Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward.
Monday night’s game was the fourth time in seven games that Jones has played fewer than five snaps, and from the sounds of it, even an abysmal defensive performance that hemorrhaged 440 yards and 41 points is no guarantee that Jones will be elevated on the depth chart for this week’s game against Jacksonville.
“We evaluate each guy each week, and certainly, everything will be up at that position to be evaluated going forward,” defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo said. “We’ll look at all avenues.”
The team’s reluctance to play Jones stems from a hamstring injury that plagued the third-year cornerback throughout the summer.
Jones first suffered the hamstring injury during organized team activities in the summer, injured it again a couple of days into training camp and pulled it significantly again in the season opener, robbing Jones of precious time to learn how he fits in Anarumo’s scheme.
“Obviously, starting the year with the injury kind of set him back,” Colts defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson said. “If we would have had him throughout all of training camp and continuing to play, obviously, I think he plays better.”
Jones has never been through an injury like that one.
He dealt with a significant hamstring injury in college that forced him to miss the first two games of a season, but Jones had never missed that much time before.
The experience taught him something.
“Trusting my process, man, understanding I need to do all the right things, make sure my body’s ready to go and I’m available,” Jones said. “A learning experience.”
The time in the training room seems to have driven a wedge between Jones and the field. Jones has played 149 defensive snaps in seven games this season, starting against Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, but he hasn’t been able to hold onto that spot consistently. In those snaps, Jones has limited opponents to 9 of 18 passing for 117 yards, a touchdown and an 89.4 rating when he’s the nearest defender in coverage, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.
But Indianapolis has consistently chosen trade pickup Mekhi Blackmon over Jones in a pinch; now, undrafted rookie Johnathan Edwards and street free agent Cameron Mitchell have passed a player who started 27 games the past two seasons and played 1,932 snaps for the Colts. Of those three, only Blackmon has a better rating against him than Jones (88.4) and he’s given up a higher completion rate.
Henderson rebuffed a question last week about whether Jones is a poor fit for Anarumo’s defense.
“None of them are perfect,” Henderson said. “Even the best ones have things in their game you wish you could tweak and change. … You try to grow them in the area he needs to grow, keep him confident in the areas that he’s really good at. If he’s in, use him to his strengths.”
Indianapolis believes the 6-2, 200-pound Jones is best suited to playing against tight ends.
“He’s doing well in the role that he plays,” Henderson said. “He’s going to go guard the really good tight end pass-catchers in this league.”
From a philosophical standpoint, the role sounds weighty, particularly for an Indianapolis defense that has given up the second-most yards in the NFL to tight ends this season.
Practically, Jones is playing more of a bit part.
Anarumo has talked a lot about getting more defensive backs onto the field to avoid pitting a tight end against linebackers regularly, and Jones seems to be the perfect solution.
Except that the Colts actually reserve those looks for a handful of passing situations each game. If a team attacks Indianapolis on first or second down, an opposing tight end is often looking for holes in the zone against Colts linebackers Zaire Franklin and Germaine Pratt.
“We don’t go into any game looking at linebackers covering tight ends at all,” Anarumo said. “Our deal is to try to match up, and that would be more in the true passing situations. … That was a little bit of the predicament last night.”
Jones is handling his reduced role without complaining publicly.
He has tried to focus on his own game, rather than the decisions that have kept him on the sidelein.
“Looking in the mirror, being consistent within myself, within my game,” Jones said. “Once I do that, I think it takes care of everything else. … Being consistent with my process, zoning in on the little details. I’m just happy doing my role, playing my role, trying to help my team win games.”
But it has not been easy.
“In moments like this, just growing,” Jones said. “I think I became more of a man this year, just because there’s going to be adversity in the road, there’s going to be bumps in the road, things like that, but I’m just doing my role, doing what I can for this team so we can win games.”
Even though it’s hard to play a big role in a team’s wins or losses when a cornerback spends all but a handful of snaps on the sideline.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
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