IndyStar postmortem on Colts 22-23

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https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...n/69816000007/

Insider: 10 thoughts on why I was wrong on this Colts team

Nate Atkins
Indianapolis Star
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Ten thoughts on this Colts season' season, what went wrong and where we could try to learn: The Colts came into this season with a new quarterback in Matt Ryan and seven Pro Bowl players and the hope that they could avenge a year where 9-8 had felt disappointing. That collection of talent with a leader made them the favorites of the AFC South. So many of us were wrong on this team this year, and I will take that a step further: I picked this team to go 12-5. So as we enter this postmortem stage of learning lessons, here's what I missed and where they can grow.Everything for me starts with the offensive line. It was a group that felt easy enough to believe in after it ran over teams to the league's rushing title and brought back three bankable stalwarts in Quenton Nelson, Ryan Kelly and Braden Smith. New starters felt like they'd rise to the standard, with Ryan to protect for and Taylor to help save the occasional miss. But they had to be stars to make that work with left tackle Matt Pryor and right guard Danny Pinter in new positions, and I was betting as Chris Ballard did on his track record of it all working out. Regression hits in this league and it did to the No. 1 rushing team, and that all crumbled on a passing game that was a work in progress with Ryan on a new team for the first time in his life. Namely, the offensive line protected for the most valuable pieces to what this team needed for success in Ryan and Taylor, and both got hurt. All teams deal with injuries in this league, but the ones to them created a low floor.

The Indianapolis Colts offensive line did not live up to its billing in 2022, when it was the highest-paid unit in the NFL.

2. I can still understand why Ballard believed in the structure of his offensive line on a macro level. Even by signing a $5.5 million left tackle and letting two right guards walk, he still had the most expensive line in the NFL. He had no clear route to a strong left tackle within any kind of budget, so he bet on an internal player like he often does. Ballard has built enough parts of his team this way and was playing this player next to the best left guard in football. But it was a bet on potential with Matt Pryor, who had played one game at left tackle in his life. That came in addition to a bet on Danny Pinter to move from center to right guard. If neither worked, though, the depth wasn't behind them to pull the plug so early on it. These were bold moves at critical spots to the success of his two keys to the run, Ryan and Taylor. Bold moves don't always work. It's a good lesson that past performance is no guarantee of future success, and you can still look out for the worst to happen. Nobody is immune in the NFL.


'We put so much into it':Life inside a Colts locker room in a 2022 season unlike any other

3. Some of the offensive line issues were just so hard to see. The group had had so much success together in the run game and survived so much of the turnover of a new quarterback every year that it felt like it had a base line. The group played its two worst games in the final two weeks of 2021, directly after the entire group contracted COVID-19. It felt right to bet on Nelson and Kelly and Smith and them working well with men who grew up with their standard, which now included an NFL rushing title. Without injury issues affecting those three, it felt like the talent and chemistry were too high for the group to fall so low.


4. But offensive linemen live in a foxhole together, spending 70+ hours working in a very specific interest that can be more complex than it seems on the outside. They internalize pressure and success together as they form a five-man wall to protect a quarterback, in this case an MVP; and work on combination blocks to free a running back, in this case a rushing champion. A year after Taylor gifted his linemen with prizes for his rushing title, they shared in the frustrations to not let him show off those skills this year. They wore the losses of the free rushers and the hits leading to fumbles that were starting Ryan's play. These men share their energy, anger, disappointment and humiliation. And any group can bottom out.

As it turns out, the marriage between Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard and former coach Frank Reich had a disconnect in one critical area along the offensive line.

Misplaced aggressiveness

5. The aggressiveness of the Colts' coach and general manager didn't quite line up with the timeline owner Jim Irsay hinted at with his promise to restore the competitive DNA and to avenge the season opener and losses to the Titans. The Colts' schedule just so happened to feature five AFC South games and both Titans matchups in the first seven games, a time of the year when the Colts' offense was going to be a work in progress. Another slower start with another new quarterback should have been the expectation, and that was going to test the patience everyone had left. After another opener without a win and another dud in Jacksonville and two more losses to the Titans, the Colts felt like a repeat of their past flaws, and nobody felt that more than the man who owns the team.

Reich's ability to stay the course disappeared when the course was flipped upside down, first by losing his starting quarterback and then by getting crushed by a Bill Belichick team to fall to 3-5-1. It's not a shock in hindsight that a slow start could cost Reich his job.

6. But the other other main changes were shocking. The benching of Ryan for Sam Ehlinger and the hiring of Jeff Saturday were unprecedented decisions. Then they produced some unprecedented results, like the biggest collapse in NFL history and the worst fourth quarter in NFL history. The Colts went from 3-3-1 to 4-12-1 in the process. This was a flawed roster, but it was on a path by beating the Raiders to sneak back into AFC South contention. The Colts that landed Ryan because of stable leadership, elite players, a renowned work culture and a longing to win now. By midseason, it lost those pillars and simultaneously lost its way.


Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor fell well short of his rushing title from 2021, as he played just 11 games and suffered through a high-ankle sprain this season.

Injuries to Jonathan Taylor, Shaquille Leonard

7. A big component of believing in this year's Colts was about their best players. Last year's team led the NFL with seven Pro Bowlers and four first-team All-Pros, and the idea was that they just needed a leader at quarterback to take the next step. That idea banks on something that also isn't a given in this league: health. No matter how durable anyone appears, injuries and health scares can get to anyone, and they really sapped the Colts' best playmakers on both sides of the ball. Taylor played just 11 games and wasn't himself for most of them, pushing through a high-ankle sprain that limited his ability to cut and to hit those ball-carrier speeds that keyed his breakout. Shaquille Leonard had the nerve in his back flare up in training camp, which set up an agonizing season in which he played just three games and wasn't his fastest self in any of them.


8. Without Taylor's breakaway speed, the Colts couldn't end drives before they entered the red zone, and as the field tightened and the drop-backs piled up for a leaky offensive line and a 37-year-old quarterback, the turnovers grew out of control. Without Leonard jumping passing lanes, baiting quarterbacks and punching the ball out, the Colts couldn't get the ball back enough. They finished -13 in turnover differential for dead last in the NFL. What was their strength under Reich and Ballard had become their weakness. If you ever forget how much turnovers matter toward winning, remember these Colts.

Matt Ryan's season with the Indianapolis Colts did not go as anticipated, as he threw 14 touchdown passes to 13 interceptions and was benched two different times.
Matt Ryan wasn't the answer for all of this

9. Ultimately, the Colts overvalued what Ryan was capable of offering them this year. His leadership is for real, and it helped build a lot of the hope in the spring. His toughness is real, which allowed for some of the fourth-quarter comebacks, and for him to play through the separated shoulder. But that risk was always present for a player who wants to win from the pocket without the arm or mobility to bail him out of trouble. From Ryan to Tom Brady to Aaron Rodgers to Matthew Stafford, this year across the NFL offered plenty of lessons in the challenges of building a high-octane offense around a stationary quarterback. I'm not ready to say it can't be done anymore, but it decreases the margin for error of the pass protection, run game, chemistry and health of the offense. All of those pieces saw cracks on the Colts this year, and after a fifth Week 1 starting quarterback in five years, the hourglass simply ran out with ownership to try to fix all of them.


10. The Colts need a new path, and Ballard will lead the search for one. If Irsay can lean on his general manager to find the right coach to build a plan and a staff around a rookie quarterback, the Colts can work back to being a talented team but now with a future at quarterback rather than an hour glass