It has been a horrendous year for the Indianapolis Colts. Their franchise quarterback missed his first career games. He was then rushed back only to get hurt worse. The coaching staff has been in flux, but no real changes are evident. Now with their loss Sunday to the Texans, their first loss ever at home to Houston, the Colts season is all but over. What does that mean for the rest of 2015 and beyond?
First and foremost, Andrew Luck should not see a minute of the field for the remainder of the season. He’s too vital to the club’s future to risk injuring him even more in a meaningless game. The offensive line is beyond tattered and the running game that could potentially save him dropbacks is just as ghastly. Feed Charlie Whitehurst to the wolves for the rest of the year just like Jim Caldwell did to Curtis Painter as they tanked the “Suck For Luck” season. It is delusion otherwise to think that Luck’s return will somehow propel this broken team on a Super Bowl run, which would be the only logical reason to bring him back.
Giving Luck a full summer to heal and work with what should be an entirely new class of offensive talent is the best plan. There will be a massive overhaul once the season is over. Trying to get him back in a rhythm with a player that may not even be back next year is a complete waste of time.
When Luck is fully healthy, management needs to find a way to keep him that way. The offensive line has been a weakness for far too long in Indianapolis. The Colts need to make addressing this their top priority this offseason. Using two of their first three picks in the 2016 NFL Draft on offensive linemen is a must. Mock drafts and experts alike have said for years that the Colts need to fix the broken line, but management has always needed to be the smartest guys in the room. Look no further than last year’s first round pick Philip Dorsett. While the former Miami wideout has acclimated well to the offensive system, but he isn’t enough of an impact player to overshadow the glaring need the Colts neglected.
While the offensive line should be top billing on the team’s proverbial Christmas list, the defensive line isn’t far behind. They’ve allowed 121.4 rushing yards per game this year, the eighth worst figure in the league. That is amplified by their 27.4 points per game allowed this year. In the past the offense could bail out a bad day or two. But the defensive line has been so bad at the point of attack that it has added unwarranted strain on each successive level of defenders. If the Colts are for some reason going to shy away from the offensive line, then the defensive line needs to be the pick. If not, things are even worse than I could imagine.
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Speaking of drafting, that responsibility cannot belong to Ryan Grigson at season’s end. Though Chuck Pagano has been much maligned for the team’s failures on the field, Grigson needs to absorb that much blame, if not more, for the team’s poor construction. It’s not necessarily that he is a poor talent evaluator. It is more that he tries to throw a bunch of guys together with zero regard for what system they are coming from in college or position they are most comfortable with.
According to reports, he is also quite meddlesome when it comes to gameday preparations. That just can’t happen, especially when the intervening party continues to prove time and time again in every facet of their job that they are woefully incompetent. Todd Herremans and Andre Johnson were both unmitigated disasters in free agency this season. Pagano has had to defer to Grigson in regards to coaching appointments underneath him. Wherever Grigson’s performance falls on the spectrum of power trip to being incredibly under-qualified, he needs to go.
And while I just spent two paragraphs saying it wasn’t even close to all his fault, Chuck Pagano’s departure has to happen as well. He’s been seemingly overmatched in nearly every coaching matchup this year, even against men with less at their disposal. Losing to a team that had to a fourth stringer, and a cast off from a 4-10 team at that, is not the sign of a championship caliber coach.
There isn’t a plethora of premier coaches actively seeking work right now, but waiting for the right guy and treading water in the mean time just can’t be the solution. The Colts cannot waste the prime of their franchise quarterback like they did the first few years of Peyton Manning’s tenure with the club. Fortuitous lighting has struck this team twice. The organization needs to stop avoiding these strikes starting now.