It’s a new era of Indianapolis Colts football. Well, sort of. Can new general manager Chris Ballard make sense of the mess he inherited from Ryan Grigson?
The Indianapolis Colts may have landed the best quarterback prospect since John Elway in the form of Andrew Luck. While Luck’s first three years in Indianapolis were terrific, the last two have been mired with injury and disappoint for the former Stanford standout.
Indianapolis has not made the AFC playoffs the last two years after getting trounced by the New England Patriots in the 2014 AFC Championship “DeflateGate” Game. Luck has largely carried this team, as former general manager Ryan Grigson did a deplorable job of building a supporting cast around him.
Sure, the Colts have a few decent players like wide receiver T.Y. Hilton and defensive back Vontae Davis, but the problem remains. Indianapolis just does not have the talent to win big in January. It has a bona fide franchise cornerstone in Luck, but he’s rapidly decaying before our eyes physically and it’s sad.
Luck missed half of 2015 with a lacerated kidney. He tried to extend a play behind a collapsing pocket and took a punishing hit from the eventual Super Bowl-champion Denver Broncos. Enter Matt Hasselbeck and no wonder the 40-year-old quarterback couldn’t catch the rival Houston Texans in the AFC South.
Last year saw the Colts lose an embarrassing game in London to the toothless division-rival Jacksonville Jaguars. If Indianapolis wins that game, the Colts might win the division. Instead, they finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs for a second straight season.
Despite being essentially rag-dolled behind a terribly constructed offensive line, Luck re-signed with the Colts for top dollar last offseason. Did he realize that he had all the leverage in this situation? He signed up for more years around an organization that is clearly failing him. That falls on him.
The Colts finally made a right move in the front office this winter by tapping Chris Ballard, former front office executive of the Kansas City Chiefs, to be Grigson’s replacement. Ballard comes from the Ron Wolf school of scouting. He’ll need another draft or two to right this sinking ship in Indianapolis, but will Luck be a shell of himself by then?
Keep in mind that Luck missed the entire preseason and could be out a few weeks to start the regular season after offseason shoulder surgery. Why did he not go under the knife in February? The organizational dysfunction with the Colts is maddening and it doesn’t help that head coach Chuck Pagano is clearly on the hot seat.
While Pagano might have been a great defensive coordinator, that has not translated to success on defense in Indianapolis. If the Colts struggle to keep the opposition out of the end zone, this could be a long year for Colts football. This might be the second-worst roster in the AFC after the tanking New York Jets. Okay, maybe third-worst as the Buffalo Bills might be tanking, too.
This season is shaping up to be a rough year for Indianapolis, but it does look like Ballard has hit on a few of his draft picks. Getting former Ohio State safety Malik Hooker in the first round could transform this defense overnight. He has received a lofty prototype comparison coming out of Columbus. Is he the next Ed Reed? Maybe, maybe not, but his ball skills are off the charts.
Cornerback Quincy Wilson out of Florida had first-round hype that fell to the Colts in the second round. It seems that the Colts have found Frank Gore’s heir apparent in fourth-round running back Marlon Mack out of South Florida. If he can run around the Ryan Kelly injury, Mack might be a dark horse to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
In essence, this should be a rebuilding year in Indianapolis. There’s nothing wrong with that, as cleansing all the front office horrors from yesterday under Grigson is a good thing and totally understandable. However, Indianapolis might actually hang tough and contend for a playoff berth in the AFC South.
Historically, the Colts have dominated their division. Houston has come on in the last six, seven years to be a perennial playoff contender most years. Tennessee is about to break through, but the Titans last beat the Colts when Luck was a redshirt junior in Palo Alto majoring in architecture.
Then there’s Jacksonville, who is facing the harsh reality that Blake Bortles is not the answer to their quarterbacking problems. That being said, Jacksonville has a talented roster otherwise. And therein lies the issue with the Colts: all three of their rivals have better players than they do.
The more of these draft picks that Ballard hit on, the better. They don’t have to pop right away as rookies. Frankly, it would almost be better for the Colts to lose a bunch of close games this year and make sure Luck is back to 100 percent physically.
It’s past due for a coaching change in Indianapolis. Not to say that owner Jim Irsay will can Pagano mid-season, but he could promote offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski to interim head coach and see quarterbacks Brian Schottenheimer run the offense.
It’s not like they haven’t done it before. Chudzinski coached the Cleveland Browns for a season. Schottenheimer has been the New York Jets, the St. Louis Rams and the Georgia Bulldogs offensive coordinator before. It’s really been defensive ineptitude that has sank the Colts the last two years.
Overall, the Colts have lost the ability to get the benefit of the doubt from the national media. It’s been five years since Chuck Strong and Luck will be 28 years old heading into Week 2. The Colts cannot keep selling us on upside when we all know that the cupboard is bare from their own doing. We want to see this team compete, but it’s hard to not have a pessimistic outlook on this year’s squad.
X-Factor
The x-factor for the Colts has to be Hooker. Not since Dwight Freeney came out of Syracuse, have the Colts had a blue-chip prospect on their defense? Living up to the lofty hype might inevitably crush Hooker, but he does things in the defensive backfield that can only draw comparisons to Reed.
With Davis being solid and Ballard going with Hooker and Wilson in the top of the draft, this could be a secondary that could get pretty good pretty fast for the Colts. Keep in mind that the secondary is the area of the defense that Pagano specializes in teaching. He has obvious talent to work with. It’s up to him and his staff to get it done in the back-end.
What sets Hooker apart from his peers is that he can take any errant pass to the house. He has elite vision, great hands and a knack for jumping routes. When he has the ball in his hands, who is going to bring him down on the interception return? Exactly, they are not.
Best Case
Indianapolis finds away to go 5-1 in AFC South play by sweeping the Jaguars and Titans, splitting the pair with the Texans. The Colts find a way to get another four or five wins out of division and win the AFC South by a game or two at 10-6 or 9-7.
Luck stays healthy. The running game improves under a great first year from Mack. Hooker and Wilson help accentuate the great player already in Davis in the secondary. The Colts find a way to be very positive in turnover differential and in red zone efficiency. In short, the Colts are about a year ahead of schedule thanks to Ballard finding the right players.
Indianapolis would be the No. 4 seed in the AFC Playoffs. They would face somebody like the Oakland Raiders or Miami Dolphins in the first round. Using Lucas Oil Stadium to its advantage, the Colts pull off an upset and win the wild card game to advance. They eventually fall on the road in the divisional round to an elite team like the New England Patriots in Foxborough.
Worst Case
Man, it gets ugly really fast in Indianapolis. The Colts simply cannot win a game or be competitive in one without Luck under center. A lack of on-field talent immediately exposes the Colts as a playoff fraud and things go south very quickly.
Luck doesn’t play the whole season and gets hurt again when he gets back on the field. Pagano ends up being the first coach fired. The team quits on Chudzinski and Schottenheimer in the interim. Indianapolis gets pulverized by Houston and Tennessee in divisional play. Even Jacksonville whips them at least once.
The Colts find themselves well below .500 by Thanksgiving. Indianapolis is in that group of teams that are lobbying for a high pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. The only problem is that the Colts don’t need a franchise quarterback. Indianapolis wins somewhere between four and six games. With the sixth pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, the Indianapolis Colts select….not a franchise quarterback.
Final Word
The Colts have not shown us any reason to think that this will be the year that they get back to the AFC Championship. Making the AFC Playoffs would be a massive overachievement for this team. Folks in Indianapolis might think this team is a viable playoff contender, but outsiders realize this is a bottom-five roster in football.
Next: Every NFL Team's Biggest Draft Whiff Of All-Time
How the Colts play the Jaguars will determine if they inherit a third-place schedule or a fourth-place schedule for 2018. We might see some signs of promise with a few of the players Ballard selected, but they won’t be ready to play winning football for the Colts.