Vontae Davis' Elite Play Fuels Hopes Colts Defense Can Beat Better Competition

A week after Pittsburgh's thrashing of the Colts defense, Indianapolis doesn't really seem so alone in that regard. The insertion of Martavis Bryant appears to have given Pittsburgh enough weapons to handle any team, as the Steelers showed by torching Baltimore on Sunday night. 

Meanwhile, in New York, it was just another day at the office for the Indianapolis defense, which harassed and harried quarterback Eli Manning into a 40-10 deficit that was cut to a 40-24 victory after some garbage-time points.

Manning's main problem in this game was dealing with Colts cornerback Vontae Davis, who has had a sensational season in coverage and blanketed (mostly) Rueben Randle to the tune of four receptions on 11 targets for 48 yards. Based on Davis' performance against the Giants, Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star assessed the Colts' possible thoughts about his absence last week against the Steelers:

When the Colts would blitz, Manning would wisely look for the receiver who had one-on-one coverage. Unfortunately for him, Randle has yet to blossom into much of a pass-catcher, and Davis played a phenomenal game while breaking up several passes in Randle's direction.

This is the key to the aggression that head coach Chuck Pagano and defensive coordinator Greg Manusky want to bring on essentially every third down: It's hard to bring the house if you can't trust any of your defensive backs to win one-on-one. 

According to Football Outsiders, Davis played just 11 snaps as the Indy defense was left staggering by the Steelers. It's easy to make too much of Davis' individual value to the Colts based on a result like that—I don't know that anyone was stopping Roethlisberger that game—but without Davis, the Colts lost any hope of the proverbial puncher's chance. 

Coming into Monday night's game, Davis had played a phenomenal season, limiting receivers to a 45.5 percent completion percentage on throws Pro Football Focus (subscription required) charted him in coverage on. While he wasn't in coverage on every throw to Randle, he was responsible for a majority of them. Expect these numbers to only look more obscene by Tuesday.

Week	Opponent	Completions/Attempts	Yards	Touchdowns
1	@ DEN	1/5	5	0
2	v. PHI	2/4	16	0
3	@ JAC	3/6	33	0
4	v. TEN	0/0	0	0
5	v. BAL	2/5	25	0
6	@ HOU	4/5	74	0
7	v. CIN	2/7	21	0
8	@ PIT	1/1	9	0

And, with Davis back, the aggressive Indianapolis scheme could do what it has done best—limit opposing quarterbacks on third down. After being torched by the Steelers on third down, the Colts settled down and held the Giants to just four third-down conversions on 16 attempts. One of which was a hilarious scramble first down by Manning on the run in the fourth quarter.

Week	Opponent	Third Downs Faced	Conversions	Points Allowed
3	@ JAC	10	4	17
4	v. TEN	9	1	17
5	v. BAL	11	1	13
6	@ HOU	8	1	28
7	v. CIN	13	1	0
8	@ PIT	13	8	51
9	@ NYG	16	4	24

It's hard to tell what to make of the Indianapolis defense given how quickly it collapsed against Pittsburgh. One of the main things I don't want to do is put too much emphasis on one game, given that Indianapolis has generally played extremely well on defense this season. 

On the other hand, while defensive end Cory Redding, outside linebacker Bjoern Werner and safeties Sergio Brown and Mike Adams have played better than Indianapolis had any right to expect, there doesn't appear to be much front-line talent on this defense.

The Colts don't have a J.J. Watt or Gerald McCoy on the defensive line that can swing a close game when the schemes cancel out. Linebacker D'Qwell Jackson can be exploited in coverage, the run defense has generally been pretty bad and cornerback Greg Toler was roasted by Odell Beckham Jr. on a few occasions Monday night. 

My read on this defense, for the moment, is that it reminds me a lot of the early Wade Phillips Houston Texans schemes, before Watt became a star. They're going to do whatever they can to threaten the quarterback and play aggressive defense with their cornerbacks. That tends to make me think that their defense will be more effective as the quarterback gets worse with his decision-making.

It's the perfect defense to play against Charlie Whitehurst and Chad Henne, but it won't be quite as effective against top-line spread passing-game talent—last year's game against the Denver Broncos not withstanding. An aggressive rush can be handled with a good offensive game plan. 

That's not to take anything away from the Indianapolis defense. It's played extremely well so far, and Davis would be a deserving All-Pro nod if the season ended today. It's certainly a unit good enough to win a Super Bowl with if you have Andrew Luck as your quarterback. Last I checked, the Colts do. 

But how it performs coming out of the bye against the New England Patriots will be fascinating as we try to get a read on exactly how much we can trust this defense.

If Davis remains on the field, and the Colts still don't have an answer for tight end Rob Gronkowski and the New England offense, it's fair to wonder if the unit is good enough to keep the Colts in games against top competition.

If this defense can prove that it can steal a few possessions from a more talented offense, then the Colts should find themselves in the Super Bowl contender conversation that is typically reserved only for New England and Denver.

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.