CROSSOVER: Indianapolis Colts Head to Seattle to Face Red Hot Seahawks

CROSSOVER: Indianapolis Colts Head to Seattle to Face Red Hot Seahawks

Philip Rivers going against the Seattle Seahawks vaunted defense in the year 2025 of our Lord. Could it actually happen? We’re going to be breaking it all down here on a Crossover Thursday edition. Locked on Seahawks, locked on Colts. [Music] You are locked on NFL Crossover, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Greeting twelves and Colts fans. We’ve got a thrilling crossover Thursday episode here on the Locked on Podcast Network coming your way. I’m Corbin Smith from Locked on Seahawks. He’s Zack Hicks Locked on Colts. And this was certainly a game that was circled before the season started. And even in the middle of the season, it was circled for different reasons. when Indianapolis looked like one of the best teams in the AFC. A lot of things have changed in between that time period and now. So, we’re going to be taking a close look at Indianapolis’s quarterback conundrum that has reached a historic precipice this week. We’re going to look at some key matchups. We’ve got keys to victory and predictions all coming your way here courtesy of our friends at Price Picks. Download a Price Pix app today and use the code locked on NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. All right, Zach, I’m just going to get straight to the point here because this is my seventh season with Locked On, and I don’t know that I have ever had a crazier storyline to dive into in a crossover episode. And there’s been some crazy ones, don’t get me wrong. The NFL knows how to have narratives out there, but I I just had to be straight up asking you like, is this really happening? Is Philip Rivers at 44 years of age? Looks like he’s had a few chicken wings since his last snap in the NFL. Is Philip Rivers starting this game on Sunday for the Indianapolis Colts after Daniel Jones goes down for the season? Are we seeing Philip Rivers going up against Seattle’s defense in the rainy weather at Lumen Field on Sunday? Well, Corbin, I will start off by saying if this is the craziest storyline, then you haven’t done enough crossovers with the Colts over the last couple years. You’re not getting the Jeff Saturday hiring the ESPN analyst who had no right being a coach being brought in here or maybe the star quarterback retiring right before the 2019 season. Just do more crossovers with Colts and I think you’ll get a lot of crazy storylines. But to answer your question, it looks like it’s trending that way. Uh the Colts have not committed fully yet. Uh Philip Rivers hasn’t committed fully yet. We don’t have that like insider report saying that he’s definitely starting on Sunday. But the fact that Riley Leonard did practice in full today. He is dealing with a PCL uh injury, but he practiced in full and the Colts still didn’t commit to the young rookie sixth round pick being the starter. They kept saying, “We’ll see.” And apparently Rivers took more of like in the warm-up sessions it was he was like the first guy to go and then it went to Leonard and then it went to Ripen. Uh it does appear to point to Philip Rivers getting out there on Sunday. And heck, when you’re 44 years old and you’ve been retired for 5 years and now you’re resetting your Hall of Fame clock right now, you’re not doing that to come in here and be a backup. You know, he’s coming out here to start on Sunday. Uh so yeah, we will be seeing old man Philip Rivers out here. 44. We we we called him Uncle Phil back in 2020 when we had him. Now we’re changing it to Grandpa Phil, I think, here in Indie because he is a grandpa as well. So, uh yeah, 44 year old Grandpa Phil, older than the head coach in Indie, older than the offensive coordinator. Uh he will likely be the Colts starter on Sunday. I I almost guarantee it for the Colts. Yeah, you make a really good point there, Zach. And if I like I’m just thinking about it from like Marshon Lynch’s perspective. Marshon came out of retirement to play for the Seahawks in the playoffs. Now, a little different. He was he was only like 35 then. Even by running back standards, that’s like a 44 year old playing back there. But I’m thinking about that scenario there. Marshon Lynch isn’t coming into play or suit up if he isn’t going to be playing like especially in the case of Phil Rivers who is right now is a semi finalist for the Hall of Fame. So, I don’t think this has ever happened. I don’t know that a guy has been this close to getting into Canton and then just decided, you know what, I’m willing to wait five years. And I don’t know, I I’ll have to check pro football reference. I don’t know if they have a game started by grandfather statistic just yet that they might have to add that now with Philip Rivers. I I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of such a thing, an NFL player. Maybe there was a kicker that lasted into his mid to late 40s that uh Yeah, George Bland was in his 50s. George Blando was in his 50s. George Blandon might have had great grandkids when he was playing. Brett Favre, I think, was a grandfather when he his last couple years, but besides that, there’s probably not many grandfathers who played in the NFL. So maybe PFF or Pro Football Reference has that. But look, I’m just going to be look, anything can happen on Sundays. And I have a ton of respect for Philip Rivers and I agree with everybody that has said he is in that Mount Rushmore for competitors. So, if there is a guy, Mike McDonald said this on Wednesday, if there is a guy who can pull this off, who can be in retirement for five years, come back clearly, I mean, at least from my viewpoint, does not look like he is anywhere close to peak condition, but this is not his game has never been predicated on movement. He was a statue in the prime of his career. His game’s always been about getting the ball out quick, being accurate, talking smack without cursing. Like, that’s always been his game. So, he’s always kind of had the old man quarterback game. That’s kind of been his style. So, if there’s a guy that can do it, it’s Philip Rivers. But I look at what he is drawing for his first game back. If indeed he is starting in this game, or even if he’s on the sidelines, they start Riley Leonard and then early in the game, you know what? This ain’t working. Let’s put Philip Rivers in. Your first test, you get to play a Seahawks defense that has given up nine total points the last two weeks. They have been swarming running backs. They’ve been swarming quarterbacks. They aren’t given big plays up downfield very often. This defense just did something that hadn’t been done by the Seahawks since the Legion of Boom in 2014 when they were in their peak. That arguably best defense in NFL history. At least they’re in the discussion there. This Seahawks defense is playing at that level right now. They are rushing like madmen. They are creating turnovers like crazy now. They are getting healthier in the secondary. Look, that’s just that is the worst of the worst draw if you’re a guy that hasn’t started a game in a couple years, let alone five years. A 44 year old quarterback that already has movement limitations going against Mike McDonald. I wouldn’t be shocked that this is a game. They haven’t blitzed very much, but I would not be shocked if this is a game if that’s who’s starting that Seattle says, “Okay, Devin Witherspoon, Ernest Jones, Nick Eman, we’re gonna we’re gonna make this grandpa see if he could move at all.” I would not attracted that to the Seahawks, too. And they really try to pound him early and and see if the old man can handle it because I I know I’d be doing that if I was the defensive play caller. Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because the way I always operate when it comes to blitzing versus not blitzing with with quarterbacks is if you have more the mobile guy who you want to contain to the pocket and you want to just get that ball out of his hand because he’s not a quick decision maker, you want to blitz them, right? Because when you blitz, it’s not always to get sacks, you’re kind of blitzing to hurry up the process, make them have mistakes. With Philip Rivers, you know, he might be a quarterback that you probably I don’t know if you want like maybe you want to do the feeling out early in the game, but I don’t know how much you want to blitz him because that ball might be out in 1.8 in 8 seconds regardless. You know, if you bring 10 guys, if you bring one guy, that ball might be out. And kind of the way that you go against quarterbacks like that, at least in my opinion, is drop as many bodies into coverage because that ball is going to come out quick. You might as well just have more hands out there. Uh but I do think there will be that feeling out process early for both sides. Uh because you just have no clue what to expect. You know, you can’t look at the film from five years ago and say this is what Philip Rivers is going to be because he might be completely different. Might be worse. might be. I mean, look, I’m not trying to say he’s Tom Brady or anything, but Tom Brady’s arm somehow got better every single year in his 40s. So, maybe he found the TB12 method and was doing whatever Tom Brady was doing to get his arm stronger. Who? We have no clue what we’re going to see on Sunday. We can guess what we’re going to see, but it it’s anyone’s guess. There’s no film to look at, which is killing me as the film nerd here over here in Indie. But, um, yeah, it’s going to be a fascinating thing to look. I I understand why the Colts did it because look, at the end of the day, unless you stumbled ac across Brock Perie in the sixth round, which I don’t think they did with Riley Leonard, you’re not going to have a day three rookie quarterback that’s going to be ready to go, especially in this environment against Seattle’s defense. Where with Philip Rivers, you get the ultimate competitor. You get an accurate quarterback. I mean, I think Philip Rivers till the day he dies could probably throw an accurate ball under 10 yards. You know, it’s just how he’s always been his entire life. Now, can they do anything more than that? I don’t know. But that still might be better than the sixth round rookie quarterback against a defense. Uh, but it’s on the Seahawks to just suffocate those underneath routes, stop the run, which they have been just so good at doing, uh, this entire season, uh, and force those turnovers that they’ve been doing as well. So, um, you know, I think we know how this is probably going to go on Sunday, but at least with Philip Rivers compared to like Leonard or Ripen out there, there is this like tiny modicum of just like, who knows? We’ll see, I guess. You know, cuz like it’s still Philip Rivers, you know, but even though he’s almost 50, like it’s still Philip Rivers. So, I understand from the Colts perspective, even if it’s, you know, very unlikely to be successful, it it’s probably still better chance than Riley Leonard getting a win on Sunday. And the Colts might have seen what the Seahawks did to Max Bromer two weeks ago, who, look, he was undrafted, but very similar in terms of grades uh with Riley Leonard. Bromer could have been picked in the sixth or seventh round, and Seattle just shoot him up and spin him out. So, the Colts might be looking at that like, look, we’d rather put an old man in there that has seen everything and hope that there’s still a few cannons in there for him to throw and see what happens. And I guess it’s hope that they have going into this game. When we come back here at Crossover Thursday, I I promise that we’re probably done talking about Philip Rivers for the most part, but at the same time, look, this is crazy news. So, we’re going to get to our key matchups to watch when the Seahawks and the Colts duke it out. And there might be a few guys back on the field for these two teams respectively as well sprinkled into that. We’ll get into the matchups coming up next here on our Crossover Thursday edition Locked on Podcast Network. This episode is brought to you by Price Picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on Price Picks, being right can get you paid. Don’t miss any of the excitement of this sports season. Whether you’re following the NFL, NBA, or both, there’s no better time to jump in on the action. If you haven’t tried it yet, price picks the simplest way to play. Just pick more or less on at least two player stats, and if you get them right, you win. It takes less than 60 seconds to make your lineup, and you can play anywhere. Prize Picks operates, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Price Pix has added an extra layer of excitement to the holiday sports schedule. You can create a lineup in less than a minute and the app makes the whole process smooth and intuitive. You can choose from a huge range of unique stats, fantasy scores, field goals, attempted free throws made, turnovers, whatever fits your strategy. Download the Price Picks app today and use the code locked in NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s the code locked in NFL for $50 in lineups after your first $5 plays. It’s good to be right. Welcome back to Crossover Thursday. Locked on Seahawks, locked on Colts. I’m Corbin Smith, host of the Locked On Seahawks podcast. He’s Zach Hicks, host of the Locked On Colts podcast. We’ve got a big game coming up on Sunday. The Colts, they basically are on the brink of elimination with the way things have played out as of late. And the fact that the Texans and the Jaguars have been so hot in the division as well, that certainly has not helped their situation. The Seahawks at 10 and three, they are tied for the best record in the NFC West and the NFC with the Rams. So, they are in the mix to win their division and get that number one seed that is coveted for the buy in the NFC. But, they got to have this one. Both teams are going to be coming in desperate for different reasons given where they’re at in the standings. But Zach, let’s dive into some of the matchups here. And I’m curious because DeForest Buckner, he has been a Seahawks killer. Started off his career with the 49ers. Seahawk fans, I’m sure, maybe still have nightmares about him. He’s been on injured reserve, but the Colts opened up his practice window, the 21-day window, to come back from a neck injury. I’m curious whether you expect to see him out there this weekend and is that the type of addition that maybe could swing things a little bit into the Colts favor trying to slow down Seattle’s offense. Uh to answer that last question, uh maybe a little bit. Uh we’ll talk about with other matchups though that I don’t expect this Colts defense to be too effective uh this weekend against Seattle’s offense. One, Seattle’s offense is just outstanding. And two, uh the other matchup is the Colts quarterback room is kind of a mess. Uh, but I’m not sure if we’ll see DeForest Buckner this week. I will always say this with DeForest Buckner. You can never rule him out. You can never like count him out. Even when he was actually officially placed on IR, I was still expecting him to show up on the fields on Sunday because he’s always just been such a warrior. I mean, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him fully healthy in his time with the Colts uh since going back to 2020. Uh, but he’s been out there for almost every single Sunday outside of a couple of IR stints now uh just to clean up some things and and get healthier. So, he’s doing everything he can to be out there on Sunday. The Colts know they got to have at least two of these final four games if they want to make the playoffs, which is why they went out and got Philip Rivers. Look, I I can’t stop talking Philip Rivers here, but uh is why they went out and got him. Uh so, I would say that Buckner is going to push to play on Sunday. And typically with veterans, as long as they say they’re good to go, they they get the okay from teams. That’s typically, in my understanding, how it works. Uh so, I I can’t rule it out officially. I’d say purely 50/50 right now, but uh if they do give it all up to Buckner, I think he would pick to play because he is just built that kind of way. Uh and he’s he’s just such a good player. The Colts pass rush has been absolutely dreadful without him in there. They got some pressure against Atlanta prior to the by-week. Uh but after the by-week, I mean, Pat Mahomes, the only pressures they got on him was when he ran into pressure on three-man rush looks. And then the last two games against Houston and Jacksonville, uh, just no impacting the quarterback whatsoever. Uh, those quarterbacks had hours to throw the ball back there. So, if they can even get Buckner at 20% on the field on Sunday, it would probably be better than what they’ve been throwing out there. So, he would certainly be an upgrade for a Colts defensive line that’s been in a rough place lately. And it could just be the past track record. But but seeing him out on the field and Seattle’s offensive line, quite frankly, is much better than it has been for at any point the last seven or eight years. So, right, these lines are better than the ones that Buckner went against when he was in San Francisco and the last time he played them as a member of the Colts. So, this is going to be an improved unit he’d be going against regardless. But as you pointed out at the corner position, that’s the one that I’m watching most closely going into this game because Indianapolis went all in and I understood it. I mean that you didn’t have your quarterback suffering an Achilles injury and all the other things that have happened. It made sense to go out and get Sauce Gardner once it became clear he was available, a top five corner in the league. But S Gardner is dealing with a calf injury. And now Chavarius Ward, another familiar foe for the Seahawks who played a number of years in San Francisco. Another concussion. He’s on injured reserve, so he won’t be in this game. And now you got to deal with Jackson Smith and Jig, but Cooper Cup is playing better as of late. And oh, by the way, Rasheed Shahid just had easily his best game since Seattle traded for him. Seems like he and Darnold are starting to click. You’ve got to deal with those three down your top two corners. That feels like that could potentially be an insurmountable issue for Indianapolis’s defense, especially given that JSN has cooked even the best corners in football this year in a number of games, including Derek Stingley, the only receiver that’s made him look below average this year. I mean, he made it look like he wasn’t going up against an allp pro. That does feel like that is going to be a match of I don’t know how Indianapolis does that unless they can find a way to get a pass rush so that Sam Darnold can’t get the ball downfield. But it feels like that is working strongly against Indianapolis in this one. Yeah. I mean, if we’re going to be honest about it, of the Colts top seven or eight corners they had coming into training camp, only one of them is still currently healthy and in and on the roster, and that is Jaylen Jones, who just had his worst game as a pro this past week against the Jacksonville Jaguars. So, the Colts likely starters are going to be Jones and Mai Blackman. Uh, we might see, I guess, Cameron Mitchell and Jonathan Edwards rotating in there at times, but I I wouldn’t shock me if you guys didn’t know who those names were because nobody around the league should know who those guys are at this point. Um, yeah, the Colts quarterback room is is in dire straits right now. Uh, they came into this off seasonason with, you know, Mooney Ward to be this the the top guy they needed on the outside. He was great when he played, but three concussions and I I don’t think he’s going to be a member of the NFL after the season after the year that he’s had with those concussions. Uh Justin Wall-E, a really talented third round pick that they spent this offseason to his ACL in training camp. And then S Gardner, the big addition they they made to fix the cornerback room, is not going to play this week with that calf injury. So, uh yeah, of all the teams to be going against with injuries in your cornerback room, I I don’t know if Seattle would be high on that list of who you’d want to play. uh Jackson Smith and Jigba is having one of the best wide receiver seasons that we’ve ever seen in the NFL. Like it it’s unfortunate that Puka Nakua is also having a great season that he even has to be in like a conversation for like offensive player of the year or top or top receiver because he’s having such a special season. Um so yeah, that’s definitely not the guy you want. Like even if you had Sauce and Mooney out there, he’d be a handful, right? Because he’s having that great of a season, especially on the vertical plane. I don’t know if I’ve seen many receivers just be so dominant down the field. Um, so for the Colts, I mean, yeah, the biggest matchup is like if you have to throw all like all 11 bodies on him, like make sure somebody else beats you because this guy has been beating everybody this year in route to having one of the greatest seasons we’ve seen at the wide receiver position. So try to stop Jackson Smith and Jigba, but I just don’t know if they have the the facilities to do that here, you know, on on defense here. Now, I’m curious. Flipping the script here, looking at the Seahawks defense, and I mentioned it earlier in the show, the way that they are playing right now is on par with the Legion of Boom. And they’re doing things a little bit differently. The secondary is star-studded, but you don’t have quite maybe quite the same personalities, say Richard Sherman or Earl Thomas, but but they’re still getting turnovers, and they’ve got some versatile pieces that they can move around. Nicki Moriri, I think, deserves defensive rookie of the year consideration. the guy has been incredibly disruptive in Mike McDonald’s defense. He’s getting better every single week. To me, if the Colts are going to have any shot to win this game, it all starts and ends with their run game, especially with the quarterback situation. And Jonathan Taylor’s been as good as anybody in the NFL. The Seahawks have been as good as any team in the league at stopping the run. And I believe they are at 22 straight games without giving up a 100yard rusher, the longest streak in the NFL. It looked like Bejian Robinson might get it last week and then Seattle did what they seemed to do. They just kind of tightened up the defense a little bit and Kurt Cousins started throwing picks. The game got away and next thing you know, Robinson wasn’t really a factor after that point. That’s what Seattle’s been able to do to a lot of teams that are good at running the football. But Jonathan Taylor behind that offensive line, Quinton Nelson. Man, Quinton Nelson going up against Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy the second and Jiren Reed. That is the that is the marquee matchup looking from Indianapolis’s offensive standpoint. And if the Colts can get their ground game going, it takes a lot of pressure off of Philip Rivers and maybe those five to 10 yard completions, they can put together some drives against the Seahawks this weekend. Yeah, I think it’ll be fascinating. And I’ll be quick with this because I know we got to get to our final segment, but it’ll be fascinating to see because a lot of their rushing offense this year, and I’m not saying they’ve been under center a ton this year. They’ve, you know, it’s still like lower like around the h like middle of the pack in the NFL in terms of under center. Uh, but they’ve built a lot of their offense off of being under center, being heavy personnel packages, uh, and then throwing out of those and then running against lighter boxes. With Philip Rivers, you can’t do like these long stretch runs. you’re not going to do these these runs that ask your quarterback to quickly take steps and get the ball to the running back, right? So, in my estimation, they’re going to be in shotgun a lot in this game. And how does that impact the run game? Because Seattle, even if they have a lighter box on defense, they play so hard, play so aggressive, and so fast on defense that they can fit those run lanes better than anybody in the league. That’s why they’ve been so good against the runs. So, um, you know, most teams you want to lighten the box and then run it with a Jonathan Taylor, but I just don’t know how effective that’s going to be against a Seattle team that just triggers so quickly on defense. Especially too, uh, Braden Smith’s probably not going to play this week, the Colts right tackle, so fourth round rookie Jaylen Travis will be out there. I thought he did some decent things against the Jaguars, but, you know, this is a different animal against Seattle. Seattle’s been so good on defense this year. So, how does that impact things? But, um, I’m very curious to see what the running game looks like because I don’t think they can do some of the under center stuff that they’ve done this year because you just don’t have a quarterback with the mobility to do that, uh, on Sunday. That’s a really good point where, you know, you also look at the fact that Daniel Jones, you had a lot of packages in there for him to do designed runs and you’re obviously you were never going to do that with Philip Rivers at any point in his career, let alone now at the age of 44. So, yeah. Sorry, not to interrupt you, but they did a lot of bootlegs uh, with Daniel Jones. That’s where a lot of their like easy buttons were on the offense to start the year. And we actually saw when the Colts offense regressed the last couple weeks because he was playing with that fractured fibula in the left leg. They weren’t doing the bootlegs as much and the offense stagnated. You can’t do bootlegs with Philip Rivers. Like you can try, but he’s not going to move. Like who’s going to buy that, you know, like as a defense? Um, so I’m very curious to see what the easy buttons are going to be for Philip Rivers. they go full like, you know, empty personnel like Ken Wizenh Hunt type stuff where it’s just quick screens and quick slants and stuff to get the ball out and supplant the run game that way. I I’m I’m fascinated by what’s going what it’s going to look like on the Colts offense this weekend. Well, it just keeps going back to the Philip River storyline, but it’s just because like, you know, I don’t know. I I believe I I read the other day it was Steve Deberg in 1998 came out of retirement after several years and played at the age of 44. uh his team got blown out in that game. So, we’ll see what happens for Philip Rivers when he tries to do this and and in defense of Philip Rivers, Rivers had a much better career than what Deberg had. So, it’s not like that those are comparable, but still that that just makes everything about this game in Curly fascinating. So, that is going to continue our discussion when we come back here. We are going to be diving into keys to victory. What do the Colts have to do to pull off what would be one of the biggest upsets of the season giving their situation right now? And what do the Seahawks have to do to just simply get the job done and keep their awesome season rolling at home likely in torrential downpours? We’ll get to that up next here. Crossover Thursday. Locked on Seahawks, locked on Colts. Car shopping should feel exciting, not confusing. 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I’m Corbin Smith, host of the Locked On Seahawks podcast. He’s Zach Hicks, host of the Locked on Colts podcast. Seattle and Indianapolis set to duke it out at Lumenfield on Sunday. And look, I I can tell you this, being a resident of Indiana for 27 years to start off my life. I know that Indianapolis natives understand the whole weather is optional in terms of forecasts. The forecast may or may not be right, but look, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be pouring on Sunday. And if you have, unless you’ve been under a rock in the Pacific Northwest, uh we’ve had flooding, we’ve had roads getting closed, mudslides, you name it. The likelihood of there being a lot of rain on Sunday is really high. So, we had to keep that forecast in mind here, particularly with the Colts. Philip Rivers, again, a quarterback I have great respect for. I think he is a Hall of Famer right now. how he was on the semi-finalist list, a chance to get into Canton that now I think gets delayed because he signed with the practice squad for the Colts. But Zack, looking at this game for Philip Rivers, assuming that he is the guy you’ve made it sound like you think that’s going to be the case on Sunday, what do the Colts have to do? Let’s even just instead of just victory, what do the Colts have to do to make this game interesting enough that maybe they have a chance late to steal one in Seattle? Man, you know it’s bad when your team is picking the key matchups or whatever just to make it close on Sunday. Like that’s when you know it’s bad. But I understand why you’re you’re putting that stipulation out there. Uh I think the Seahawks from a lot of places I’ve seen are like 13 and a half point favorites uh on Sunday. Uh that’s I saw Yes. Yeah. And that’s against a team that’s eight and five mind you. So 13 and a half favorites over an eight and five team. But uh I completely understand it. I think, you know, realistically speaking, when it comes to how the Colts can even make this competitive, you have to look at all the avenues that NFL teams can make upsets possible, and that is turnovers, special teams, field position, like those are the key elements. Uh, and that’s the only way that an underdog really has a chance against one a better team that should be heavily favored. So, if you can win the turnover battle by two, three, four points, you know, in this game, that is that can be enough to completely swing things. Special teams are huge. Block kicks, big returns, things that swing momentum and swing uh point totals, those are going to be massive in this one. Uh but realistically speaking, I think the one thing I’m really looking for, and it’s more so for like uh just for the future or going forward, because this Colts core has been here uh since like 2018, 2020 if you want to include some other players in there. And they’ve been a part of major meltdowns in the past. 2023 losing the final game of the season to miss the playoffs. Uh 2021, they had a 97% chance of making the playoffs with two games to go. Lost both those games and missed the playoffs. Uh 2022, we saw them just give up down the stretch last year, giving up almost 50 points to a really bad Giants team, uh and losing that game when they still realistically had a chance at the playoffs, or I guess statistically. Uh this core has given up in the past. And the only way this can even somewhat work with 44y old Philip Rivers is that the other 10 guys on offense and the 11 starters on defense show up and give their all. Like look, if you get out talented by the Seahawks this weekend, that’s fine. Jackson Smith and Jigba’s great. Sam Darnold’s a very good quarterback. Their offensive line’s really good. They’re, you know, on defense, they have dogs across the board. Really good team, right? If they beat you, they beat you. But I don’t want to see them lay down and give up like they just did. I mean, look, their quarterback went down for the year. I understand it. But this past game against the Jaguars, the second Jones went down, they laid down after that game. And you got to control what you can control. Go out there and compete the best of your ability and make some plays. You know, again, if you lose, you lose. But I want to see them actually put up a fight in this one, not just roll over and let the Seahawks just kick them while they’re down. And I don’t want to see 44y old Philip Rivers being the only one who gives a crap on Sunday. I think that’s the biggest thing I’m looking for. And that’s the biggest key for the Colts is show some fight. You know, show some fight. like if you don’t win this one, you at least have three more games the rest of the year and show some fight that you’re actually going to make it interesting. Don’t roll over and die. But, you know, for this game to be close, it really does just come down to those typical factors we look for in upsets. Turnovers, uh, and special teams, I think, are going to be vital. Uh, because if the Seahawks can just not turn the ball over and not give up big returns or have block kicks against them, I don’t really know how the Colts make this a game because that’s it’s it’s that big of a difference between these two teams right now. Yeah. And look, I I look at this game and and most games you and I are, we function in a similar vein. Most games I I’m really diving into the X’s and O’s and I’m looking at how you can get some schematic advantages. And certainly, you know, Mike McDonald is doing that behind the scenes defensively. He’s going back and watching old Philip Rivers tape because that’s what he’s got. You know, that’s what he can work with. He’s looking to see if he can find some when he and Sten were uh together in uh LA. you know, he’s looking for all those different kinds of things right now, trying to find advantages and get, as he liked to say, chase edges. But I look at this game, particularly with the history that you just mentioned with this core of players and what happened last week. If I’m Seattle, I’m coming out and I’m putting on my boxing gloves and I’m saying, “Okay, the key for this game, I need to go out and throw some haymakers early.” And if the Colts are anything like they have been in the past, including last week, they’re going to take a few of those and they’re not going to be interested anymore. And it is going to be, you know, we’re going to be able to run the football, then we can get the play action, get some of those downfield shots, and then maybe Drew Lock gets some snaps in the second half, like squash the bug and go after them. And you say this about any underdog g, you know, game where you’re heavily favored, like you don’t want to give that team a chance to hang around because that’s when they get life. And the Seahawks have been really good for the most part this year with teams that came in as underdogs even on the road. Um they’ve done a great job of taking inferior teams and beating them up early. They did it in Washington. They did it to the Cardinals twice. Uh they did it to New Orleans earlier this year where they just wiped the floor with a number of these teams. Minnesota they started off slow and then in the second half they took over. But they have been a team that scores a lot of points and bunches. I think if you come out and physically set the tone in this game, I you know, you don’t want to turn the ball over all those things. Those are always keys. But I think in this game in particular, especially if Buckner’s not playing, that’s one of the guys, you know, is going to fight. If he’s not out there, like I’m I’m testing that metal and I’m seeing like, okay, we’re going to we’re going to bully you early and we’re going to see whether you wither up or you keep fighting back and that is going to be very telling to me. But I think that’s the biggest key for the Seahawks going into this game. Yeah. And I will say and and you guys know this best obvious obviously from uh what happened in your Super Bowl with Russell Wilson and throwing the interception at the one yard line. The one thing you never want to be is on the opposite side of a story that people tell their kids when they’re older and stuff like that, right? So that one for instance, I know that was in the Super Bowl, but everyone’s going to tell their story the last second interception. You know, people are going to be talking for decades if somehow 44 year old quarterback Philip Rivers comes out here and beats arguably the best team in football in out of five years retirement. So, if you’re the Seahawks, you got to come out here and show that this is more of just a WWE gimmick thing than anything else. You know, if you’re the Seahawks, like you can’t let this be a real game, you know, because that’s when Lady Luck can be get involved. You don’t want to leave that thing up to chance. And and again, the last thing you ever want to be in in any sport is the the team that it was against when you’re telling that story, you know, years and years down the line. I don’t think you guys have to worry about that on Sunday. We don’t want this to be a Hulk Hogan versus Rocky type ordeal where, you know, it’s an exhibition match or whatever. Like, no, that’s Seattle can’t approach it that way. And look, Mike McDonald, his teams have not had issues with that since he got Seattle. And I I expect he is going to be tell and a lot of these guys have played against Philip Rivers. So Leonard Williams going to be telling guys like I don’t care if he’s 70, it’s Philip Rivers. We need to be serious and I don’t think Mike McDonald is going to let those guys come in coasting and and we’ll see how the weather ends up bearing into this because Rivers did have his issues earlier in his career uh throwing an inclement weather, too. So there there’s just all kinds of storylines off of that storyline that are going to make this a fascinating one to watch. But uh we’ll see what everybody’s talking about coming out of this game. Do the Seahawks do what they’re supposed to and get it done? Or does Philip Rivers show why he belongs in the Hall of Fame? Maybe they’ll just put him in after he plays a few games with the Indianapolis Colts uh coming out of retirement five years in and pulls off a massive upset. We’ll see what ends up happening, but should be a fascinating one to watch at Lumen Field. You can follow me on X and Blue Sky at Corbin Smith NFL. You can follow Zack at Zack Hicks, too. Make sure to check out Locked on Seahawks and Locked On Colts. Both of us will have our Friday shows coming out tomorrow. Getting the hay in the barn, so to speak, heading into Sunday’s matchup between Seattle and Indianapolis. Thanks for listening in and enjoy the rest of your Thursday. Go Hawks. Go Colts.

The Indianapolis Colts are in for a doozy this weekend, as they head out to Seattle to face off against one of the best teams in the league. Do they stand a chance against the 13.5 point favorites?

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