Harrison Smith's 40th Career Interception Seals the Vikings' 16-10 Win Over the Colts and a 6-0 Start

MINNEAPOLIS

The Indianapolis Colts led this game for more than three quarters. They left it with nothing to show for the second half. Harrison Smith intercepted Daniel Jones with 1:15 to play — the 40th interception of his career — and the Minnesota Vikings closed out a 16–10 win at U.S. Bank Stadium that keeps them unbeaten at 6-0.

Taylor strikes first

Indianapolis scored on the game's opening drive, and it was the running back who did it: Jonathan Taylor broke a 38-yard touchdown run at 9:13 of the first quarter for a 7–0 lead. Taylor finished with 95 yards on 18 carries, the engine of a Colts afternoon that controlled this game far longer than the final score suggests.

Minnesota's answer before halftime came from its kicker. Will Reichard hit from 28 yards early in the second quarter and from 47 late in it, and Spencer Shrader's 43-yarder on the final snap of the half sent Indianapolis in ahead 10–6. The Vikings had been outplayed for a half and were only four points down — the defense had already started bending without breaking.

The flip

The game turned in the fourth quarter. After Shrader's 56-yard field-goal try missed, Kyler Murray ripped off a 35-yard scramble and finished the drive with a 5-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson at 14:36 of the fourth. It was Minnesota's only touchdown of the day, and its first lead: 13–10.

Murray's line was modest — 14 of 24 for 150 yards and the one touchdown, plus 39 rushing yards — but the two plays that decided the game were his: the scramble that flipped the field, and the throw that flipped the score.

The lockdown

From there it was the defense's game — and, in truth, it had been for a while: Indianapolis was shut out for the entire second half. Blake Cashman led Brian Flores' unit with 12 tackles, 2 sacks, 4 passes defensed and 3 quarterback hits, and Jones was sacked four times for 44 yards lost on his way to a 13-of-22, 108-yard afternoon. IndyStar noted the streak underneath it: 11 straight regular-season games without Minnesota allowing a fourth-quarter touchdown.

The last word was Smith's. Protecting the six-point margin Reichard's 52-yarder had restored at 1:39, Minnesota watched Jones work the no-huddle to his own 44, then throw short right for Will Mallory. Smith read it all the way — intercepted at the Minnesota 44, returned 15 yards to the Indianapolis 41, ballgame. The Associated Press recap carried in ESPN's summary noted it was the 40th interception of Smith's career, in a 15th season he decided just before it began to come back for. His full day: the interception, 4 tackles, half a sack and a pass defensed.

The streak that bent

Reichard's afternoon carried a footnote of its own. His two second-quarter field goals ran his streak to 35 consecutive makes — a franchise record, and the longest active streak in the league — before Grover Stewart blocked his 59-yard try in the fourth quarter.

Given one more kick that mattered, he delivered: the 52-yarder with 1:39 left pushed the margin to six and forced Indianapolis to play for a touchdown it never got.

Minnesota is 6-0; Indianapolis falls to 2-5. The Colts led for more than three quarters in front of 66,934 at U.S. Bank Stadium — and scored nothing after halftime. Against this defense, that was the game.

Full box score, linescore and play-by-play: Vikings 16, Colts 10 — Game Center. More: NFL · Stats Hub