Jabaal Sheard’s incredible walk-off sack gave the Colts a little ray of hope for the season

Jabaal Sheard had his own version of a walk-off home run on Sunday.

With two seconds left in the game, Sheard’s Colts found themselves in the precarious position of potentially losing to the Texans with Tom Savage at quarterback.

In a season where they just announced that their franchise quarterback, Andrew Luck, is not coming back to save them and is instead heading to IR, losing to the Tom Savage-led Texans would have been like kicking a man when he’s down.

The only reason the Texans were even in position to win the game at all was due to the Colts giving up a touchdown on offense. But regardless of whose fault it was, here the Colts were nursing a six-point lead with the Texans just 7 yards from the goal line. One final play would decide victory or defeat for both teams. In that moment Sheard rose to the occasion.

Lining up as the right outside linebacker, Sheard came off the ball, as he had all game, with a fierce determination. I wish I could give you a name for what kind of move it was that Sheard put on left tackle Chris Clark, but the closest I can come to describing it is it looked like a damn mugging.

Sheard completely manhandled Clark for a couple of steps, then he used his outside hand (right hand) to get control of Clark’s outside (left) wrist, and that was all she wrote for Clark.

Sheard pulled Clark’s wrist down to help shorten his corner, then came through with a rip move to escape off the block. Just as Savage was about to try to throw the ball, Sheard reached out with his right hand and violently stripped it right out. The resulting fumble would squirt around on the field for awhile before Sheard’s teammate Barkevious Mingo was able to fall on it to officially end the game.

You may have seen a replay of that sack and caused fumble by Sheard before you read this, but did you see anybody point out that the Texans had tight end Stephen Anderson wide fucking open in the end zone on that play? It was a result of a real shitty double team by Colts linebacker Jon Bostic and safety Matthias Farley. But for Sheard’s heroics, it would have probably cost the Colts the game.

See, Anderson ran inside right at Bostic, then pushed off to create separation when he changed directions back outside. Farley, who initially had outside leverage on Anderson, jumped inside for some reason as Anderson approached Bostic. There was nobody within a yard of Anderson when Sheard knocked the ball out of Savage’s hand.

You might be asking yourself “why does that matter?”

Well, remember when I said Savage was “about to throw the football?”

Guess who he was about to throw it to.

Yeah ...

Even Tom Savage could make that throw.

Given that added context, I would’ve be tempted to name Sheard as the Hoss this week even if this was the only play he made all game. It wasn’t, and that made my decision much easier.

Leading into this game the Texans traded left tackle Duane Brown to Seattle and lost Deshaun Watson to a season-ending knee injury all in the same week. With Savage “The Statue” starting at quarterback behind pretty much the same awful offensive line he had in Week 1 when the Jags racked up a kagillion sacks, it was a safe bet that the Colts would have every opportunity to get after the quarterback this week. However, Jacksonville came into last week with 33 sacks in seven games on the year, while Indianapolis had less than half of that with a grand total of 16 for the season ... in eight games.

Not exactly encouraging.

I don’t know about the rest of the Colts’ defensive front, but Sheard must have eaten his Wheaties Sunday morning or something because he was on Savage’s ass all day.

For instance, his first hurry came when the Texans were facing a second-and-8 near the mid-point of the first quarter. Sheard was at left outside linebacker that time and he had to line up kind of wide because the Texans had a tight end and wing to his side. On the snap of the football, both the tight end, Ryan Griffin, and the wing, Anderson, went up the field on their routes, leaving Sheard one-on-one with Houston right tackle Breno Giacomini.

Sheard went right at Giacomini as if he was about to bull rush him, but then just as Giacomini set his feet for power, Sheard stepped back out wide and executed what’s called a dent move where he chopped down on Giacomini’s outside (right) wrist with his inside (right) wrist to prevent Giacomini from being able to get his outside hand on him.

After beating Giacomini cleanly, Sheard had a clear path to Savage who ended up throwing an incomplete pass to Will Fuller while trying to drift away from Sheard’s pressure.

Then there was Sheard’s pressure early in the second quarter.

This time he was over at his right outside linebacker spot, outside of the guy who actually started the game at left tackle for Houston, Julien Davenport.

Sheard’s pass-rush moves weren’t always pretty, but damn they were effective. This time he tried to chop Davenport’s outside wrist, but he missed. Undeterred, Sheard bench-pressed Davenport up off him as he continued toward the quarterback. Then, once he had full extension with his arms, Sheard swiped Davenport’s outside wrist with his outside wrist and escaped right off the block. Sheard bent the corner and damn near was able to reach out and swipe the ball out of Savage’s hand. Instead Savage got the throw off towards Nuk Hopkins in the end zone, but it ended up falling incomplete.

This was on a third-and-9 at the Colts’ 21-yard line, by the way. The Texans missed the ensuing field goal try on fourth down.

The sack and caused fumble on the last play of game wasn’t Sheard’s first sack and caused fumble on Sunday.

The Texans were actually threatening to get into at least field-goal range late in the first half before Sheard helped to destroy that plan. Houston had a first-and-10 from the Colts’ 41-yard line after Savage hit Fuller for a 29-yard gain on the play before and appeared to be getting some momentum.

Sheard, who was at right outside linebacker again, came off and showed his hands like he was about to power rush Davenport. He had just about put his hands on Davenport to sell power, but right at the last second, Sheard stepped wide outside and transitioned to a rip move. Davenport was caught with his feet stuck in the ground and just couldn’t keep up. Sheard dipped around the corner and stripped the ball out of Savage’s hand just as he was about to throw it.

Call it foreshadowing.

Davenport was able to recover that fumble, but the resulting 9-yard loss helped to knock the Texans offense off schedule and they eventually punted on fourth down. Sheard made a lot of plays like that on Sunday that low key helped to keep points off the board.

Hell, Sheard would’ve had another sack at the end of the third quarter, too, except for offsetting penalties. The penalty on the Colts was a hold on Pierre Desir while trying to cover Hopkins, a call which I found to be a little questionable. The penalty on the Texans? Sheard had so thoroughly dominated Clark on a power rush that Clark tried to tackle him.

Didn’t work because Sheard still took Savage down, they just didn’t count it. The dude was on fire and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the Colts.

On Sunday, I had Sheard with two sack/caused fumbles, four hurries, two tackles, and one other hit on the quarterback. That is one hell of a day, I don’t care who you’re playing. He was also able to seal the victory with that sack/caused fumble at the end, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

For all of his efforts, it was easy to name Jabaaal Sheard my Hoss of the Week for Week 9 of the NFL season.