Falcons’ rally against Colts falls short, 27-24
Brissett stellar to help Colts hold off Falcons
INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jacoby Brissett played brilliantly Sunday.
He was poised, accurate and turnover-free. He helped his team score points, avoided mistakes and capitalized when opportunities arose.
Brissett completed his first 16 passes, threw for two touchdowns in the first half, led the Colts to scores on their first four drives and even converted a late third down with an 11-yard completion to Jack Doyle to close out a virtually flawless performance in a 27-24 victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
“I was feeling like everyone was open and I was throwing it to people in my color jersey who were open,” he said. “It was just one of those days.”
One of those days Colts fans might have expected from Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck.
In his first game at Lucas Oil Stadium since Luck stunningly retired last month at age 29, Brissett stepped onto the big stage and delivered a masterpiece.
When the Falcons tried to load up on the Colts’ emerging ground game, Brissett spread the ball around by completing 28 of 37 passes for 310 yards — his second-highest single-game total and the third 300-yard game of his fouryear NFL career — even as Pro Bowl receiver T.Y. Hilton missed the second half because of a quad injury.
Brissett took one sack and kept the Colts’ final scoring drive alive by scrambling 6 yards on thirdand-5.
“We won’t decide those until tomorrow,” Indianapolis coach Frank Reich said, “but I can guarantee you Jacoby will get a game ball.”
That’s an easy call.
The Colts scored on five of their seven possessions, punted once and picked up three first downs on the final drive to prevent quarterback Matt Ryan and the Falcons (1-2) from getting a chance to win the game or at least force overtime after cutting the deficit to 27-24 with 4:11 left.
Indianapolis (2-1), coming off a 19-17 win against the Tennessee Titans a week earlier, won its home opener for the first time since 2013 to extend its string of overall home victories to seven.
“It means we’re on the right track. We’re doing enough to win in the NFL,” Brissett said. “In the fourth quarter, we just made it up in our minds that we were going to take over the game and finish with the ball in our hands.”
They did, even though Ryan did his best to give the Falcons a chance after trailing 20-3 at halftime.
After Ryan threw two touchdown passes to Austin Hooper to cut the Colts’ advantage to 20-17 early in the fourth quarter, Brissett answered quickly.
He ran for one first down, picked up another when Atlanta was flagged for defensive holding, hooked up with Zach Pascal for 35 yards on third-and-1 and then watched Marlon Mack score on a 4-yard run to make it 27-17 with 8:40 to play.
Ryan’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Julio Jones made it a three-point game, but Atlanta never got the ball back.
“I think everybody’s angry with not performing the way that we can,” Ryan said. “The penalties, turnovers, those kinds of things, we’ve had too much of that in the first couple weeks of the season. We had too much of that today.”
Atlanta committed 16 penalties for 128 yards, one penalty short of matching the franchise record, and its defense gave up two scoring drives that covered more than 90 yards.
The bad news for the Falcons went beyond a disappointing result on the scoreboard. Starting safety Keanu Neal, who missed most of last season after tearing an ACL in the opener, was carted off the field late in the first half with an Achilles’ tendon injury.
Backup running back Ito Smith (concussion) also exited before halftime.
Ryan was 29-of-34 passing for 304 yards with three touchdowns and one interception. He passed John Elway for No. 9 on the NFL’s career list for completions and broke a tie with Elway for No. 11 in touchdown passes. Ryan now has 4,144 completions and 303 touchdown passes.
Jones had eight catches for 128 yards, and Devonta Freeman had 16 carries for 88 yards.
After missing five of his first eight kicks this season, 46-yearold Adam Vinatieri reverted to his traditional form for Indianapolis. The NFL’s career scoring leader made all five he attempted Sunday, starting with a 49-yard field goal he banked in off the left upright.
“We expect it,” Brissett said. “He’s the greatest of all time for a reason.”
“It means we’re on the right track. We’re doing enough to win in the NFL. In the fourth quarter, we just made it up in our minds that we were going to take over the game and finish with the ball in our hands.” — COLTS JACOBY BRISSETT