Don't look now, but the 6-1 Colts are very much for real

They came into Sunday's game with one victory over a team with a winning record. Then they pummeled the 4-2 Chargers and left no doubt: This team is a true-blue contender.

Midway through the third quarter of the Colts’ rousing 38-24 victory over the Chargers in Inglewood, Calif., I happened to be checking out X, at which point, I saw the following from former player and current TV analyst Richard Sherman:

“I will say it again the Colts are CONTENDERS! They are winning in a very sustainable way. QB looks to be in the perfect scheme for his skill set. RB looks to be MVP/OPOY candidate and the defense is playing like a top 5 unit despite missing their top CB.”

I’ll be honest: Even at 5-1, even with three blowouts to their credit, I still wasn’t completely sold on the Colts as a true contender. That’s not their fault, but they’d won just one game against a team with a winning record. How, I wondered, would they perform when they went up in weight class and faced the then-4-2 Chargers in Los Angeles?

Question answered.

Loudly.

Despite some garbage-time yards and scores that made the outcome look more cosmetically competitive, the Colts showed everybody, myself included, that they are very much for real. Daniel Jones has sewn up the Comeback Player of the Year award and should get some MVP consideration. Same with Jonathan Taylor, who continues to have his greatest season, even better than his 2021 year when he ran for 1,811 yards. The offensive line is playing as good a football as we’ve seen in several years. And the defense, while it surrendered 421 passing yards to Justin Herbert and the Chargers, made plays when the game was still on the line, intercepting two passes.

Could this team be a Super Bowl contender?

Seven games in, the answer is a rousing yes. It’s not like the Colts are winning one-possession games. Four of the seven victories -- Miami, Las Vegas, Tennessee and the Chargers -- have been decided by two or more touchdowns. The Colts have scored 30 points five times in seven games, and they scored 29 against the Denver Broncos. The Colts point differential (points for/points against) ranks first in the league -- by a lot. They own the league’s highest-scoring offense and the defense, well, it’s been good enough.

A few games in, you could be excused for thinking it was all a bit of a fluke. Hadn’t we seen six years of tape on Daniel Jones? At what point would he revert back to the form that got him run out of New York last season? Do it once, it can be concluded it was an anomaly. But Jones, who finished 22-of-33 for 275 yards and two touchdowns, has done this six times in seven games, and if we’re being honest, he wasn’t all that awful against the LA Rams a couple of weeks back. We just have to understand, at this point, that this is who he is. And he’s not who we thought he was. Is there a better individual story in the NFL?

All of this should be sending a clear message to general manager Chris Ballard: The Colts need to be buyers at the Nov. 4 trade deadline. The most pressing need is in the secondary, where Charvarius Ward is on the IR and the Colts have been pummeled by injuries. What looked like it would be the Colts strength has become an issue, although the reserves who’ve filled in have done so admirably enough.

If Ballard really wants to make a statement -- we’re for real and we’re going for it this year -- he will bolster the pass rush. The Colts are middle of the pack in sacks so far this season, but the pass rush has been inconsistent, to say the least. Ballard was aggressive (for a change) this offseason, adding Ward, Cam Bynum, Jones and others in free agency. He needs to stay aggressive, be proactive, find the last piece or two in the construction of a contending team.

May I suggest Cincinnati edge rusher Trey Hendrickson?

The pass rush, which produced three sacks and 15 quarterback hits against a decimated offensive line, still needs some help. Even on a day when the Chargers were largely one dimensional, especially in the second half, the pass rush didn’t get to Herbert nearly enough. I still feel like the Colts need a defensive closer, a guy who keeps offensive coordinators awake at night. They still need a Dwight Freeney or a Robert Mathis (yeah, good luck finding those kinds of guys). Laiatu Latu is making progress -- he got his second sack of the year Sunday -- and Kwity Paye showed up last week, but a game-changing edge rusher could be the final piece of the puzzle.

It’s hard to state just how good, how ruthlessly efficient, the Colts offense was Sunday at Sofi Stadium. They were unstoppable on the ground and through the air, and if all that wasn’t enough, they got an 81-yard kickoff return from Ameer Abdullah. And now they have a two-game lead on the Jaguars, one-sided losers in London this morning, in the race for the AFC South.

After seven games, the best team in the NFL resides in Indianapolis. (Tampa Bay is 5-1 and plays Monday night). Some of us -- blush -- thought they would be bad AND boring this season, led by a retread who’d failed pretty thoroughly in New York. Now look. The Colts are rolling and it’s hard to imagine what, if anything, can stop them now.