The Colts are on the board with their first win of the season.
It wasn’t always pretty, but Indianapolis did enough today at home to beat Chicago 21-16, leaving both teams at 1-2 on the season.
Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson is still making plenty of rookie mistakes in his second season, and today he went just 10-of-20 passing for 167 yards, with no touchdowns and two interceptions. But the Colts got two rushing touchdowns from Jonathan Taylor and one from Trey Sermon, and that was enough.
Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams threw for 363 yards and two touchdowns — the first two touchdown passes thrown by the 2024 draft class — but he also had two interceptions.
Late in the game the Bears oddly decided not to onside kick with 2:01 remaining and only one timeout — and then the Colts oddly didn’t return the Bears’ kickoff, effectively giving the Bears a free timeout by not burning the two-minute warning on the kickoff return. But the Colts’ offense got the first down it needed to end the game.
Those strategic mistakes were the kind of thing both of these teams do too much of, and they both have plenty of work to do in building around their young quarterbacks. But today it was the Colts who did just enough to pull out a win.