Inside the Matchup | Episode 51

up kind of where my affinity of football started. Was fortunate to win a few state championships in Indianapolis that stadium, went a few Big ten championships in that stadium, grew up a colts fencing it in Section five forty with my dad. So I had a lot of memories about Indianapolis, and, Uh, it's gonna be cool to be able to be on the field, you know what I mean. Like, really, as

an opposing player, that's kind of crazy. But it's just it's reflecting on that as like how blessed I've been, how how good guy's been in my life, And you just never know where your journey is going to be. You couldn't have told me when I was seven years old that I wouldn't be playing in the NFL and to be able to come back and share that moment with my family and my close friends, that's gonna be pretty cool. But you know, at the end of the day, I want to win this game. I want to keep

our win streak going, you know what I mean. I think they pose as a really good team. They're really disciplined on defense, and I know, you know, they have a new quarterback, but he's going to probably give them a lot of energy. So we have to go in there and and limit the negative plays and get off to a fast start on the road. The Commanders look to move to five hundred on the season and this

weekend's road game against the Indianapolis Colts. Santana Marles and Logan Paulson shared some of the head to head matchups they will be looking out for. So there's a lot of high expectations for the Indianapolis native to go out there and perform. And I think it could tell he was he was kind of almost getting like a little emotional thinking about that. But how cool to be, you know, a young man or a boy, I guess dreaming of playing the NFL and he finally will get that chance, Santana.

Is it a challenge to kind of put that mindset away because he's going to be going up against probably stuff on Gilmore and we know what he's capable of doing. It might be a challenge in the sense, but I think when you have a guy that's as focused as Terry, you know, he goes out there all about business. So I'm pretty sure that he's gonna embrace the moment knowing that, hey, I'm home, my family's here, this is where it all started.

That But at the end of the day, I have a guy a cross from me who's all pro in all right, and I have to go out here and compete in battle and make sure that I do what I had to do for my team. So I know Terry's gonna go out there about his business. But it's great that he's gonna opportunity. I had plenty of those opportunities, so I handled it a little differently. But just talking to him this week, you can tell that he's looking

forward to it. Thinks that about seventy in attendance that they got tickets for, but he already did it ahead of time. But that's a lot of people you want to put up a good show against as well, so we know he's going to be locked in if we go defensively. John Allen has been locked into all season long. Their offensive line is still kind of like, I don't know, not what you'd expect. Is this a good day for John? I think it's a huge day for John. I'm really

excited to see John Gold against Quintin Nelson. I think Quintin Nelson's not playing like Quintin Nelson of old. Maybe the best guard in the NFL, that's not him anymore. But it's always fun to see those big names come together and kind of duke it out. And with John playing the way is such a high level in pain too, he deserves a ton of credit. I think they're gonna be able to really take advantage of that interior group

for Indianapolis. And again, they're probably gonna run the football at Indianapolis, and so can those two guys show up and make their presence felt I think one thousand percent. So I think Alan takes advantage of of a kind of declining Quintin Nelsons at this point. You know, Matt Ryan back there, you'd hear Indie say, look, he was like a statue. It's why he took so many sacks. And they need somebody who has a little bit more mobility. And so we'll see. But Quintin Nelson's going to have

two sacks and two penalties so far this year. Um, offensively, the offensive line is going to go up against some really good tackles those Tana Yeah. I mean you have Stewart and Buckner, and both of these guys are what top five in the league right now when it comes to tackles. And if you think about Stewart just had one of the one of the best games in Week seven, you know that any d line has had this year.

So I think our offensive line has really been kind of our trajectory is being going in the right direction the last few weeks. Our running backs has been playing pretty well, and I think in order for us to have a good opportunity to win this game, we have to run the ball well. So it's going to be a big challenge making sure that we can do so with those two guys on dub posing side and Brian Robinson being back has really added to the run game.

They're averaging one hundred and forty seven rush yards in the last two weeks. How will they do against their linebackers this week. I mean, I think this group is really dynamic. They're very very fast, selective defensive line. They're very very fast, very athletic, they run to the football well. They played this nice eight man front. They know where they fit in that front. So it's going to be very,

very challenging. But we have two tremendous athletes on our team, and I think with the scheme that Scott Turner can cultivate, let's make those guys question their assignments and see if they can HiT's a big place. It was exciting to watch the second half of that game, the way that they made adjustments after a little bit of a shaky start. So now with Taylor Heineke taking all the snaps with the first team in the roups with them, we'll see

how much more sinkey is this week in Indy. For all of your news and analysis, be sure to tune into Command Center weeknights if five thirty and ten pm on NBC Sports Washington. You can also stream on YouTube and Commanders dot Com.