The Indianapolis Colts are on a winning streak after defeating the Washington Commanders to improve to 2-2 on the year.
With the dust having settled on Sunday's game, let's take a look back at the Colts' performance with three things we learned.
The Colts need more consistent play from Daniel Jones
It was another subpar outing overall for Jones. He ended the day being somewhat efficient, but that was, in part, due to a lot of short-area throws that generated very little. Jones and the passing game would average just over 4.0 yards per pass attempt -- that's not a lot.
Ball security issues continue to be problematic for Jones. He also had several off-target throws, along with some poor decisions, and he has often looked uncomfortable in the pocket.
Conditions aren't perfect around Jones by any means,
but the Colts paid him big money to overcome some of those issues.
Colts very much miss Alec Pierce
Without Pierce, not only are the Colts struggling to generate explosive pass plays, but defenses are defending the Indianapolis offense much more aggressively.
Without a true vertical presence, the Commanders weren't afraid of getting beaten deep. This allowed them to shrink the field by playing closer to the line of scrimmage. This can make moving the ball on the short to intermediate throws more difficult, and can even impact the run game.
This is forcing the Colts to string together long scoring drives in order to score, and that's a difficult way to consistently put up points.
The Colts improve to 2-2, but ....
The good news is that the Colts are 2-2 on the year, with everything they want to accomplish still in front of them. That said, despite the 30-13 win on Sunday, the eye test didn't look as good as the outcome.
As mentioned, Jones and the passing game very much struggled. The defense, for the most part, was able to keep points off the board, but gave up several explosive plays that resulted in points. Another was wiped away by a Commanders' penalty.
And while nothing in the NFL is a given, one would hope that today's victory would have gone a bit more smoothly, considering that the Colts were facing a rookie QB who was drafted in the seventh round. Indianapolis was playing from behind early, and the game wasn't put away until about halfway through the fourth quarter.
It remains to be seen how sustainable all of this is.
This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: 3 lessons learned from Colts' Week 4 win over Commanders
