In Week 8, the Jacksonville Jaguars will be back at home and taking on the Indianapolis Colts for a divisional matchup that could further widen the Jaguars' lead in the AFC South. Currently, Jacksonville is 4-2 after a Week 7 bye, while the Colts are tied with the Houston Texans at 2-5, and the Tennessee Titans are in last at 1-6.
The Jaguars also have won 11 straight home games over Indianapolis, including one game in London at Wembley Stadium. The Colts are struggling, and have traded away some of their best players, signaling they may have already thrown in the towel on this season. It should be an easy game for Jacksonville to win, but self-inflicted mistakes could still rob the Jaguars of the win.
Here are five keys to victory over Indy.
Stop Jonathan Taylor and force Indianapolis to throw
Running back Jonathan Taylor is one of the best in the league, and he's a threat no matter how much of a mess the rest of the Colts team may be. Taylor has 587 rushing yards and eight touchdowns through seven games, and the Colts will clearly want to lean on him rather than put everything on Daniel Jones, who has not performed well so far this season.
Jacksonville has handled Taylor fairly well in recent meetings, and if the Jaguars can make Indy one-dimensional, the rest of the defensive plan gets much easier.
Turn pressure into negative plays
Jacksonville has the quickest pressure time in the entire NFL, and one of the highest pressure rates overall, but not many sacks to show for it so far this season. Quarterbacks have been able to get the ball out quickly
Against Jones, there’s a real opportunity to change that: Minnesota blitzed him relentlessly last week, and he responded with sacks, a fumble and an interception. The Jaguars should use that as a blueprint this week, even though the blitz typically isn't something favored by Anthony Campanile.
Run directly at the weakened Colts front
Indy is allowing 4.8 yards per carry, and now DeForest Buckner is gone. Meanwhile, Jacksonville’s run game has become one of the offense’s clearest strengths with Bhayshul Tuten and Chris Rodriguez.
The Jaguars should take advantage of this weakness and exploit it.
Get Trevor Lawrence going early and force Indy out of its preferred game
Lawrence has thrown 14 touchdown passes through six games, the best six-game start of his career. If Jacksonville scores early and makes Indianapolis chase points, that forces the Colts to play catch-up, moving away from Taylor and relying more on Jones. That's exactly the position the Jaguars want Indianapolis to be in.
Stop beating themselves
Penalties have been an ongoing problem for Jacksonville. The Jaguars had 26 penalties between the Cincinnati and Philadelphia games, which was then lowered to six against Houston... but several of those six were enormously costly, including erasing one touchdown and extending a Houston scoring drive.
Coming off the bye against a 2-5 Colts team that just traded two franchise cornerstones, Jacksonville should feel no need to be anything beyond precise. The easiest way to make this game unnecessarily difficult would be to hand Indianapolis extra possessions and erase its own big plays.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: 5 keys to a Jaguars victory over the Colts in Week 8
