3 things to watch in Week 9

Sauce Gardner & Charvarius Ward Sr. against CeeDee Lamb & George Pickens

Among cornerbacks with at least 150 coverage snaps, Gardner has the highest forced incompletion rate (28.6 percent) in the NFL, while Ward is ninth (19.4 percent). Gardner, as you’d expect, has only been targeted 21 times on 227 coverage snaps – about one in every 11 coverage snaps, and about two and a half times per game.

“When you’re a talented player like that, teams don’t want to throw at you every down,” head coach Shane Steichen said, “and that’s respect to him and the way he operates.”

Lamb, meanwhile, enters Week 9 leading the NFL in targets (94) and is third in both receptions (60) and yards (709). But it’s not as simple as telling Gardner and Ward to lock down Lamb and Pickens on every snap.

Pickens has run 77 routes from the slot, eighth-most in the NFL, while Lamb has run 73 routes from the slot, tied for 10th most. The Cowboys intentionally move both players around instead of isolating them to an outside position, which is where they’ll draw matchups with Gardner and Ward.

So when Lamb and Pickens are lined up as outside receivers, expect the Colts to trust Gardner and Ward to lock them down. But that won’t be on every snap, meaning the Colts will have to deploy a plan to those receivers down when the Cowboys move them away from those two outside corners.