The Colts’ Sunday backfield platoon of a ‘Good Sermon’ gets at least another week together to showcase their stuff against a certain South Beach squad.
The Indianapolis Colts have already ruled out star workhorse Jonathan Taylor (ankle) again—which is his third consecutive missed start, meaning it’ll be the tag-team platoon of Trey Sermon and Tyler Goodson on Sunday hosting the Miami Dolphins.
In the Colts backfield, Sermon is projected to predominantly handle the ‘between-the-tackles’ work, while Goodson may operate more outside and as the pass catching back.
That being said, with Sermon averaging a meager 2.5 yards per carry on 37 carries so far this season, and it wouldn’t be surprising if that split starts growing in Goodson’s favor—as far as workload sharing is concerned. Goodson has averaged 5.9 yards per carry on 13 attempts and has shown a little more explosion and burst when called upon than Sermon.
Although to be fair, Sermon has been placed in quite a few “run the ball up the middle at the end of the game to kill clock late, when the opposing team knows exactly what’s coming and loads the box” scenarios—which has hindered some of his output.
The Colts averaged just 2.9 yards per carry last week, but with the return of dual-threat starting quarterback Anthony Richardson, who should open up running lanes, and veteran center Ryan Kelly, that production should hopefully improve this Sunday against Miami—especially if both Sermon and Goodson can operate with a little more pep in their step.
The Dolphins are currently 18th in run defense allowing 125.8 total rushing yards per game.