NFL: What’s Wrong With The Colts? (Part 1)
After years of spoiling their fans with incredible success, the Indianapolis Colts were actually booed during Sunday’s game. And that was at their home stadium. What happened to Indy?
Four years ago, the Colts won a Super Bowl. In last year’s Super Bowl, they almost won until a last minute quarter scoring frenzy by their opponents, the New Orleans Saints.
In the last eight years, the Colts have had at least 12 wins in each season, one of the few teams to do so in NFL history. Jeff Saturday and Peyton Manning are both destined to be in the Hall of Fame and a few others like Dallas Clark and Dwight Freeney
are on the road to do great things.
And yet, their home stadium’s crowd was booing them. And very loudly.
It is apparent that the Colts’ fans are spoiled, and are used to supporting a winning team. And yet, they can’t understand that the Colts must have some big problems to be doing so badly, as compared to their previous seasons. We’re not talking about injuries
here. Every NFL team has to deal with injuries.
The San Diego Chargers have defeated the Colts in five out of six games. Since the 2010 Super Bowl, the Colts have won six games and lost six as well. Since then, Manning has had three interceptions that have been returned for touchdowns. Their rushing is
now ranked 30th in the NFL. They were once known as having a great defense, keeping the games close, but the Chargers scored 36 points in their game against Indy, while the New England Patriots scored 31 the week before.
So what went wrong with them?
First of all, the Colts have a predictable offense. In the Super Bowl, the Saints’ Tracy Porter said that he was able to return an interception 74 yards for a TD because he knew that the Colts would “run for the down-and-distance they were in.” Against the
Chargers, Manning threw two interceptions that were returned for TDs. One interception might be a stroke of luck, but two mean that the defense knew what plays their opponents were going to make and jumped routes to intercept the ball. Manning has always been
so good that it didn’t really matter if the Colts played the same formations with the same looks. But now, it does matter.
Besides predictable play calling, the Colts also seem to have an issue with their offensive line. In the past, Manning has not been pushed to hurry the play or been sacked; he is used to a solid, impermeable pocket. When he is hit or rushed, he becomes distressed.
In 2010, he’s been hit a lot more than he’s used to. Other quarterbacks, such as Michael Vick, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, and Philip Rivers seem to play better when they are pressured and enjoy the chaos of their pocket being broken. Manning is used to
everything going his way and staying safe within the pocket to pass perfectly. But this season, things are not going his way.
This is only the beginning of the Colts’ problems though.
The Colts are probably wishing that they still had Ryan Lilja. Teammates usually honor the policy “win as a team, lose as a team.” But general manager Bill Polian seemed to start a new policy after last year’s Super Bowl loss: “When you lose, blame it on
someone else.” He put blame on the entire offensive line, but most particularly on Lilja, a guard for the Colts. Lilja was the best run blocker that the Colts had and was blamed because there were two plays in the entire Super Bowl that Lilja allowed Manning
to be sacked, causing Lilja to be waived. While the Colts are struggling this year, Lilja is now leading the Kansas City Chiefs in being the number one rushing team in the NFL. The Colts must really be hurting for Lilja.
Some more factors of the Colts’ shoddy performance this season will be discussed in the next article. Take a look!
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