Seth McGowan gave the Indianapolis Colts one clean, physical answer on a fourth-and-short snap: he drove past the line to gain. In a highlight recap built around a sequence of live-game plays, that run was the clearest look at how Indianapolis tried to win the low-margin downs that decide drives.
Colts drive through tight space
The fourth-and-short carry is the kind of play that shrinks the field to a single collision point. McGowan’s gain mattered because it put the ball in Indianapolis' hands beyond the minimum, the exact kind of execution a drive needs when every yard is counted before the snap.
The run also stood out because it appeared inside a longer play-by-play sequence, not as a standalone highlight. That means the snap was part of a broader game flow, with the Colts trying to stack successful moments instead of leaning on one isolated burst.
Jonathan Taylor follows
Jonathan Taylor later scored a rushing touchdown to get the Colts on the scoreboard, giving Indianapolis a more traditional finishing play after McGowan had already helped move the offense forward. Earlier in the sequence, Daniel Jones lost his grip on the football on the opening drive, and Odafe Oweh recovered it for the Washington Commanders.
That opening turnover made the Colts' third-down and fourth-down work more valuable, because they were already trying to recover from an early possession swing. McGowan’s fourth-and-short run fit that pressure: keep the drive alive, avoid another empty stretch, and let the offense reset after the rough start.
Commanders pressure early
The Commanders opened the scoring in London with a 31-yard field goal from Drew Stevens, then watched Adetomiwa Adebawore sack Marcus Mariota for a 6-yard loss and force a short field goal attempt. Washington also got a stop when Rasul Douglas hit Ashton Dulin short of the line to gain, another reminder that this game was being decided in compact spaces.
McGowan’s play lands in that same category. On a day when the first score came from a 31-yard kick, the Colts’ answer had to come through clean execution on short yardage, and the fourth-and-short carry showed they could at least win one of those exact situations. The sharper question for Indianapolis is not whether one run worked, but whether that kind of contact balance can keep carrying them through the rest of the drive.
