The Takeaways, Week 4: Indianapolis Colts at Washington
October 6, 2026
by Steve Thomas
This game went more or less as I feared it would, with Washington having a bit of a letdown after last week’s big win, losing to the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 30 – 13. The injury bug certainly hit the team again, in major ways, and Washington seemed to be on the verge of being in the game for much of the time. At the end of the day, though, it was a pretty big, depressing loss to a team that shouldn’t have been able to achieve this big of a win against an opponent who was more or less in their class. Washington is now 1 – 3, and things don’t look good for the rest of the season. The Takeaways for week 4 begin below.
The moment wasn’t too big for Athan Kaliakmanis
Kaliakmanis was forced into this game as a result of what appears to be a fairly serious right knee injury to backup quarterback Marcus Mariota, reportedly an MCL injury. We don’t know about who will play in the coming weeks – it remains to be seen how long it will be before Jayden Daniels is ready to play again. It’s also possible that Washington elects to sign a veteran quarterback if Daniels and/or Mariota are going to be out for awhile. For today, though, Kaliakmanis definitely looked like an NFL quarterback. He wasn’t “great”, mind you, or even “good” from a statistical perspective, going 12 for 26, which is a 46% completion percentage, for 155 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception, for a quarterback rating of 62.2, in a little more than 3 quarters of work. That having been said, he proved that he belongs and didn’t get overwhelmed by the moment. We’ve all seen young rookie third string quarterbacks forced into games who collapsed as a result. That’s not what happened here. Kaliakmanis had two great deep sideline passes that caused the Colts to respect his abilities at least somewhat and not focus exclusively on the run. Washington has a young quarterback who can play and will get better if more opportunities present themselves.
Injuries….and more injuries
Let’s see, who went out with new injuries on top of what the team has already suffered? Mariota, Jaylin Lane, who appeared to have a serious ankle injury, Jeremy Reaves, Charles Omenihu, Brandon Coleman, Tyler Owens. Who have I missed? Anyone? Probably. Some of those weren’t serious; however, the point is that this team has suffered about a terrible of an injury situation as it’s ever faced so early in the year, and this game only made it significantly worse. They might actually be forced to play Luke McCaffrey on offense and special teams next week, and that’s never a good situation.
The defensive front 7 fails against the run
Washington allowed the Colts to average 4.8 yards per carry, with 27 carries for 129 yards and 3 touchdowns. In particular, Jonathan Taylor had 20 carries for 95 yards, 4.8 yards per carry, and 3 touchdowns. Considering just how many assets Washington put into its front 7 this offseason, that kind of result is simply unacceptable. One of my keys to this game was to try to take away the Colts’ passing game and dare them to beat Washington on the ground. Unfortunately, that plan utterly failed. The Colts are a good but not great run team, and were able to make some significant strides on the ground. Washington’s defensive front seven has repeatedly been victimized on the ground and needs to start to do better, ASAP, if the team is going to have any sort of successful season.
Austin Ekeler proves his worth
Ekeler was signed about 5 minutes ago and immediately showed his value, with 4 carries for 29 yards, 7.3 yards per carry, and a long of 10 yards, and also had 1 reception for 11 yards. That’s exactly the sort of contribution he was making for Washington before he injured his knee last year. I suspect that Ekeler will begin to develop a solid relationship with whomever ends up playing quarterback, and will only increase his contributions as the weeks go on. He’s a positive signing.
The rest of Washington’s running game stinks
Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said for the rest of Washington’s running game, which was downright awful. As a team, Washington had 20 carries for 101 yards, which sounds great, but it becomes less so when you realize that (1) one of those carries was by Mariota for 35 yards, and (2), Washington’s non-Ekeler running backs, including Jacory Croskey-Merritt, Craig Reynolds, and Kaytron Allen, collectively had 12 carries for 21 yards, which equates to an impressively terrible 1.8 yards per carry. We all knew coming out of training camp that the team’s running back room wasn’t particularly good, but I wasn’t prepared for this level of incompetence. All of that having been said, though, it’s hard for running backs to produce at a high level when the offensive line is an injury-filled trainwreck. It’s true that we don’t know how the running back room would have performed if Washington wasn’t down to guys who are no better than me and Alex Zeese starting and getting playing time. This is a group effort: mediocre to bad play by the running backs, offensive line nightmares, and the Colts stacking the box.
Penalties
Take your tin foil conspiracy theories hats off, people. Yes, Washington had 10 penalties for 84 yards, as compared to just 1 for 5 yards by the Colts. Yes, I thought a couple of those 10 were a bit ticky-tacky in terms of calls by the refs, and I think they missed a couple calls, but I strongly disagree that it was a situation in which the refs had it out for Washington. The vast bulk of those were legitimate calls. I do not agree that any of these 10 penalties were just flat-out wrong, which I assume is an opinion that is contrary to the vast bulk of Washington fans. Regardless of anything else, the Colts committed far fewer infractions than did Washington. The home team killed themselves in many respects with these penalties, even taking into account that a couple of them were pretty minor. That’s the team’s fault, not the refs. Nobody specifically has it out for Washington.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back with another edition next week after Washington’s home battle against the division rival New York Giants.