The Indianapolis Colts seem to be snake-bitten. Not literally, of course, but would it really be shocking if a player suffered that injury too? The team has seen a number of players miss time or be brutally injured in training camp. Maybe Indy should just stop all contact before the regular season.
In Thursday’s joint practice between Indianapolis and the Green Bay Packers, another key Colt was banged up. Wide receiver Josh Downs appeared to injure his hamstring and had to leave practice. The good news is that he walked off under his own power, but hamstrings can be tricky.
The wise move might simply be to hold all of the presumed starters and key players out of both preseason Week 2 and Week 3. The joint practice versus the Packers was likely more meaningful than what Indy will gather from Saturday’s preseason game versus Green Bay, anyway.
Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Josh Downs appears to have a hamstring injury
In joint practices, coaches can put their teams in certain situations for stretches, such as two-minute drills and other scenarios that will be important when the real games begin. But if the Colts continue to have potent players go down, the real games won’t seem to be reality either.
Perhaps, Josh Downs’ hamstring will be fine and if the season were going to start next week he would be good to go, but we might not know until the weekend just how bad the injury is. After the play where Downs felt discomfort, he immediately went to the trainers so he obviously knew there was something wrong.
The wide receiver has spent two seasons in the league, and his second season was slightly better than his rookie year. He is a relatively sure-handed receiver who can be moved around the alignment. What he isn’t is big and strong, so he relies on sudden bursts of quickness to get open. A bad hammy would certainly affect that.
As far as the rest of the joint practice, results were mixed. Quarterback Anthony Richardson was sharp at the beginning, but the Indianapolis Colts’ offensive line was being manhandled by the Green Bay Packers’ defensive line. Hopefully, that trend will not continue into the regular season, one in which Josh Downs is available to play from Week 1.
