INDIANAPOLIS -- The Colts have been a strong team coming off a bye week under coach Chuck Pagano. They’re 4-1, including a victory over Tennessee in 2016, during Pagano’s first five seasons.
The Colts (3-7) will try to add to that win total Sunday when they face the Titans (7-3) at Lucas Oil Stadium. Indianapolis, which lost in Nashville in Week 6, hasn’t been swept by the Titans in a season since 2002.
Here are three other notable areas in Sunday’s game:
A different Mariota: The Colts will face a healthy Marcus Mariota this time around. The Titans quarterback was limited by a hamstring injury in the Oct. 16 meeting and attempted two rushes for no yards.
But now the Colts will have to worry about Mariota tucking the ball and keeping it in Tennessee’s read-option offense. The third-year player is averaging 5 yards per carry on 37 attempts.
“Now that he is 100 percent, the zone-read stuff, you can always hand it off, but now the second and third option are there to pull it,” Pagano said. “Extending plays on third down, the pass game, the bootleg ... everything comes back into play. Totally different deal for us defensively. Kind of had an idea that they probably wouldn’t do most of that stuff with him coming back in the first one, but it’s all there now. It’s really, really dangerous.”
Welcome back: The Colts will be the healthiest they’ve been all season on defense with the return of safety Clayton Geathers and linebacker John Simon. The only two key defensive players still missing are lineman Henry Anderson (throat) and safety Malik Hooker (knee).
Geathers is making his season debut after undergoing neck surgery in the spring. He’ll be on a "pitch count" as far as his snaps go. Simon is back after missing the past four games due to a stinger suffered in the first meeting with the Titans.
Anderson and Geathers are joining a defensive unit that, since Week 8, is fifth in the NFL in yards per game (293.3), eighth in third-down defense (34.2), sixth in yards per play (4.84) and 12th in points allowed (19.3).
That’s a drastic change for a defense that ranked at or near the bottom of the league before that stretch.
“You look at us defensively the last three weeks, we’ve played as good of defense as we’ve played since we’ve been here,” Pagano said. “You win one of those games ... it really doesn’t matter. But we’re getting better.”
Gore could move up: Lost in the losing season, lost in not having Andrew Luck and lost in the inability to close out games has been Colts running back Frank Gore moving up on the NFL’s all-time rushing list.
Gore can pass Jerome Bettis for sixth place with 89 yards Sunday.
Passing Bettis against the Titans is no guarantee for Gore, however. He’s topped 80 yards rushing only once this season, when he gained 82 against Cincinnati on Oct. 29. In fact, Gore has rushed for more than 89 yards in a game just three times in his two-plus seasons with the Colts.