The 2024 Colts: What the hell?

The Colts are a dumpster fire. I still expect they'll win the Super Bowl this year -- because that's the kind of fan I am -- but even when that does come to pass, it's time to let Ballard and Steichen go and clean house.

Ballard has had a tough job. He put together a spooky roster with high hopes in 2019, but Andrew Luck snowboarded his way right off the team during a preseason game in which the Colts fans have been vilified for booing (1000% of fan bases boo in the same circumstance). Yes, I burned my Chinese Andrew Luck jersey that night at my annual draft party. No I don't regret it (that shit was cathartic). Yes I still have my autographed Luck jersey hanging in the man cave.

A great QB walking on a team is a tough situation. The Colts received zero compensation for the loss of Luck. Everyone blows smoke up the Texans' ass for the incredible job they did going from the rapist to CJ Stroud, few mention how the Texans received 3 1sts, a 3rd, and 2 4ths in return for the Browns being eternally banished to the shadow realm for karmic malfeasance.

Ballard was left with the heartless shell of an exciting team that beat the rapist and the Texans at their place in a playoff game in 2018, after earning their place in the wildcard by beating the Titans at their place the week before. A roster that was finally ready to help Luck reach his potential and not die in the process. Alas, he was already dead. Thanks Grigson. (And Eric Ebron for dropping that pass against the Chiefs).

Cue a series of sometimes fun (Uncle Phil Rivers, Gardner Minshew), sometimes middling (Jacoby Brissett), sometimes infuriating (Carson Wentz), and sometimes awful (Matt Ryan) quarterbacks. To show for all of it: a fun playoff loss to the Bills and a poor outlet pass to Tyler Goodson away from another play in game victory. And zero division titles.

I've been a big Ballard supporter. He's been a great identifier of talent and he's been dealt a shit hand. But it's time to go. This team, very much his team, and this leadership regime in general has lost the thread entirely.

Steichen is a whole other ball of wax. Boy the shine on him in year one was electric. He could do very little wrong calling plays. He made the right decisions. He had the team playing hard. Minshew was fun but limited, and we had the promise of a potential Cam Newton++ on the bench in Anthony Richardson. Ballard did zero to stock the cupboard after 2023, but it was easy to view this as a win now team. AR and JT together at last behind a monster o-line and a great play caller, with Pittman, Downs, and the promise of AD. Pierce came on early. Possibilities were endless.

Then it seems like Steichen just totally forgot how to coach. It started with shaky play by Anthony Richardson (in between alien like flashes of athletic football excellence) and a porous defense. I say porous but do note that the defense has been set up to fail from the opening kickoff this season. The Colts offense has been far and away the worst in the league in time of possession.

A combination of AR's inaccuracy, WR and TE drops, and heinous play calling lead to an astonishing low number of minutes the Colts offense hang onto the ball, leaving the defense out to dry.

Wait. Heinous play calling? This is Shane Steichen we are talking about. The man that made a Gardner Minshew lead offense scary. What's going on here? I'm at a loss. From my perspective, with AR on the field Shane has been way too cute. Running RPOs and read options every play, not using schemed runs with one of the best line / RB combos in the NFL, and generally not scheming short passes to get our young QB going. Ya know, like he did for Minshew.

Then, AR gets his bell rung on a run play. Flew back in, and Steichen calls a QB run the very next play! After a win against a fun Bears team and a very solid opening thrashing a good Steelers defense, AR's first time off of the season begins.

Enter Joe Flacco. Flacco, the guy who publicly has zero desire to assist a young QB in learning the game. A good backup to be certain, a good role model for AR he is not. Flacco does a good job picking up where AR left off in closing out the Steelers. Flacco scores on a nice scripted drive to open against the Jags and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing until the 4th quarter. Then he throws a couple fuck it chuck it tosses to Alex Pierce to make it seem like a good offensive game, and now we have ourselves a QB controversy.

Flacco scores on another good opening drive script against the Titans, does mostly nothing the rest of the game (other than tossing a nice tuddy to a gutsy injured Michael Pittman), and the Colts barely hang on to beat a shitty Titans team.

Then AR is back. The Colts play a real weird terrible game against a QB-less Dolphins team and win that. Then AR and the Colts go back into Houston. And man that game was weird. AR was 10/32 for 175 and a TD. But he looked kinda...good? Tyler Goodson dropped a touchdown. Alec Pierce has a touchdown called back, AD had a huge drop, and more, but the result was awful. And the play calling was bad. The Colts just cannot hang onto the ball. The defense played well though. More than enough to win. They've gelled by this point of the season. Buckner is back by this game after an IR stint. Kwity is back. We lost Tyquan who was playing well and that sucks. Grover is one of if not the best inside technique DTs in the league. Latu is playing well if not magical. The d-line is good. The LBs have come around, Nick Cross has come alive, and the combo of Jaylen Jones, Sam Womack, and the incredible Kenny Moore hold down what is a pretty decent secondary.

But still, the offense sucks and can't hold onto the ball. Then the tap out heard ‘round the world happens on 3rd and 15, Flacco comes in to hand off the ball on a give up play, and really it just keeps getting worse from there.

As an aside, all throughout this, Jonathon Taylor is playing great ball. He can't block for shit (seriously he's like the worst pass blocking RB in the league by the people that count that), but he and the o-line are great. Especially when Steichen gives him a chance. But Steichen CANNOT stop inserting Trey Sermon or Tyler Goodson and even not running on pivotal 3rd or 4th and shorts, appearing to think he's out smarting the league. Ya know, not running because they think he's gonna run but they know that and he knows that but he knows that they know that he knows that but he knows that they know that he knows that they know that…and he doesn't even put in JT to make the quadruple psychological reverse play work. This in itself is a firable offense.

Also as an aside, the o-line is playing great through injuries. Raimman, Smith, Fries, Kelly. Four of five starters have missed time and the line has barely missed a beat. More on that later.

So AR taps out and he gets benched. Flacco is the promised one to represent the Colts against the Vikings on Sunday Night Football. Flacco plays alright I guess but ultimately doesn't get anything done against Brian Flores's defense in Minnesota. The defense does more than enough, but the Colts have the ball for 23 minutes to Minnesota's 37 minutes, which has been the problem with AR all season…wait Flacco played this game and the same problems are afoot. Is it maybe not an AR problem?

Disappointing but reasonable loss to a good Vikings team gives way to a home date against the Bills. The Vikings have a real tough defense and Flacco hasn't been great against Flores historically. The Colts have owned the Bills in Indy since 1998. Tough but winnable game…and it was just the absolute worst. The defense gets a quick stop on the Bills first possession after Buckner defers the coin toss. The place is rocking and ready to roll and Flacco tosses a touchdown on his first pass! To the other team. 😔 Somehow it gets worse from there in offense and time management? (I think, I drank too many Hoop Teas at the game and booed Steichen and Flacco for the rest of the game, so I'm not really sure, but I'm pretty sure. Hoop Teas are de 👏 lic 👏 ous.).

And early this week, Flacco is starting against Aaron Rodgers and the Jets. Should be a real barn burner. Shocked they flexed it out of prime time.

Wait, Flacco is starting? After throwing 3 picks and taking an egregious sack on 4th and 2 in field goal position. Wait, Jonathon Taylor wasn't on the field for that play and barely saw the field after destroying the Bills in the first half?

So now we are in this weird world where it seems like either:

• Irsay is calling the shots and football guying his way into Flacco starting.
• Ballard is calling the shots and hiding AR's growing pains in an effort to save his job (he who infamously noted that it's hard for a GM to pick a rookie QB because then his job's on the line).
• Steichen is tripling down on an awful decision by keeping AR on the bench, the only hint of excitement in the Colts fan's heart.
• AR is such a problem off the field that he's unstartable.
• All of the above.

From my perspective, it doesn't matter which is true, they all result in the Colts needing to clean house. It's time for Ballard, Steichen, and the staff to go. It's time for Irsay to pass the baton to his daughters too, but let's control the controllables here.

Update: Since the first draft of this blog, Steichen has come out and stated that AR will in fact be starting against the Jets. That's a step in the right direction. There was, I think, good reasons to move to Flacco temporarily. AR, and the offense was floundering. Moving to Flacco could, theoretically, give a pretty good team its best chance to win. That has now completely gone out the window. Time to let the rookie (second year, whatever) sink or swim. Which it was before, but now it is again. Maybe. Either way, I'm still on board with the Colts winning the Super Bowl this year so let's fucking go!

So I'm 1700 words into this diatribe, and I'm about to get to the point. I swear.

Given that the Colts clean house in 2025, what do they do with all these players? How do the Colts rebuild? Retool?

🔥 take #1: Ditch the O-line

Remember, I mentioned earlier that the line has done great despite injuries to 4/5 starters at different times in the season. That is the gift that Ballard leaves behind. He has done a phenomenal job of building depth on this line through the draft, and gives us the easiest tool to move on and move on quickly: Get rid of 4/5 of the starters on the line, leaving only Bernhard Raimman behind.

If Fries is available on a one-year prove-it deal, let's do that, but Kelly is beyond gone. Smith has been really good, but he doesn't fit the rebuild and he has trade value. Nelson has been great, but he doesn't fit the rebuild, has lost his edge as a leader, and has trade value. Trade Nelson and Smith for draft picks. Save $42,513,059 in 2025 cap space.

That leaves:

• C: Tanor Bortolini (already good), Danny Pinter
• G: Dalton Tucker
• G: Will Fries?
• T: Bernhard Raimann, Matt Goncalves
• T: Blake Freeland

This plus draft capital is a perfectly good start on a rebuild for the line without putting skill position assets at risk.

🔥 take #2: Keep the defense

On defense, honestly, I think you keep just about everyone. Well, almost everyone.

Let Julian Blackmon walk. He's been fine. I'm not completely against another one year deal, but he's not a multi-year signing. Also cut Rodney Thomas, just because. We maybe save negligible cap space here. The defense more needs a change in leadership and whole team than it does a change in personnel. This group of guys is pretty damn good.

🔥 take #3: Trade Pittman

The rest of the offense?

It's obvious that the Colts let Mo Alie-Cox and Kylen Granson walk. Josh Downs is the best WR on the team, Alec Pierce is well worth his value, and Anthony Richardson has at least another year to prove it. To me, you have to make a tough rebuild decision between Michael Pittman Jr and Jonathan Taylor. Cap wise, value wise, one of them has to go. To me, it's Pittman. Trade him, recoup some value, save $23,000,000 of the cap in 2025. Cut Matt Gay, that will result in $4 million in dead money, but it clearly has to happen and saves the Colts some money.

The result of these moves is:

• About $65 million in additional cap space plus draft capital return on Quenton Nelson, Braden Smith, and Michael Pittman Jr., and compensatory picks the following year on Ryan Kelly.
• A largely intact defense.
• A proven, if shallow, offensive line.
• A largely intact offense.
• A blank slate for a new GM and coaching staff.
• $50 million in projected cap space as is, for a total of $115 million.

Now I am not a cap expert, and the values above may vary, and I'm sure there's some dead money and trade considerations involved here I haven't even started to account for.

Still if the Colts take the young line that Ballard left as a parting gift, they might be in a really good position to give AR one more year to grow and/or find his replacements, while giving a new regime a chance to make their mark…maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe it's a quick rebuild with a lot of upside. Really, it seems like a pretty attractive situation for a new regime. Turns out this is an optimistic essay!

Neigggghhhhh!