The final score of this game (and all preseason games like it) just didn’t matter. What did matter was what we saw from the Indianapolis Colts first team units. Their opponent wasn’t important, or rather the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals played their second and third stringers against Indy’s starters, wasn’t important. Without question there will be things you cannot determine from starters going against backups, but other things will exist regardless of the opponent.
For example an accurate throw against a bad defense won’t be any less accurate against a good defense. An accurate throw is just an accurate throw and those are the things that we can judge in a game like this one.