Colts 2021 Season thread

[Sollozzo]

They would have still started out 0-3 regardless. The Seahawks, Rams, and Titans were all better than the Colts when we played them. This was before the Seahawks were decimated with injuries.

[Trader Joe]

At the end of the day though, hopefully missing the playoffs is what it takes to just realize Wentz ain't got it. Dude threw for 3500 yards. 600 less than Rivers did last year with an extra game and with a completion % that was significantly worse. I'll say it again, but Rivers will likely go down as one of the least appreciated QBs of all time. If he had been QB of a team like the Steelers instead of the Chargers, he'd have more rings than Roethlisberger, JMO.

More importantly before the two turds against LV and Jax, I wanna look at the 3 other games that were clues that this dude simply does not have the ability to be a high level QB

Both Tennessee games, Wentz barely posts a completion percentage above 50% against the best team in our division and loses both games even though they were winnable. He averages less than 5 yards an attempt in these games.

The New England game, 5/12 for 57 yards....with a pick. Yikes. We won the game on JT and the defense played ...ok, but also the Pats didn't really play their best and it still took a Taylor homerun to actually ice this game. Wentz ends up mostly skating by this horrific performance because well, the system won and it beat the Pats! Woohoo, right? Wrong.

[PacerDude]

They would have still started out 0-3 regardless. The Seahawks, Rams, and Titans were all better than the Colts when we played them. .

The Titans & Rams games were 1 score games in the 4th. They definitely had an opportunity to do something in both of those games.

And they had their chances in the 2 OT losses also.

Like the Pacers - the Colts just can't close things out.

[Bball]

I don't know that the first 3 games were unwinnable. I think Reich's questionable coaching comes into play in those games... and the less than full strength the team was at... A better, more strategic coach might've gotten 1 or 2 of those, even if the team wasn't at 100%. And Reich's coaching strategies might've survived had the team been in better health and preparation.

But what those 3 games really were was the reality of the season we were about to see. Perfect bookends to the season. Good starts, bad finishes. Questionable play calling and gambles. Weak QB play was never out of the question, even when he'd do something good or even great and have us thinking "Hmmmm maybe???". Never sustainably good enough to be certain of any win. A coach that can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory asking too much of a QB he has too much faith in.
Even games that felt like the Colts had them under control, turned into closer than they should by the end. The Bills game was such an outlier to every other game. And weather, JT, and PI calls helped with that national game against San Fran. Weather might've helped with the Bills too. Wind doesn't hurt runners and O-lines opening holes.

[Bball]

I'll leave the title off this so people can make up their own minds about the Reich quote.

Asked if Wentz will be the starting quarterback next season...

“We loved the team we had this year, we knew everyone we brought in this year, we expected to play winning football,” Reich said, via Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star. “Next year’s roster will be next year’s roster. I don’t want to open it up about one player and then start talking about all of them.”

That’s a very different answer than Reich gave a year ago, when he was asked whether the Colts wanted to keep Philip Rivers.

“As I sit here right now, yes, I want Philip Rivers to be my starting quarterback next year,” Reich said at the end of last season.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/01/11/frank-reich-wont-commit-to-carson-wentz-as-colts-starting-quarterback-in-2022/?utm_tags=nbcsemail1001&cm_ven=ExactTarget&cm_cat=2022-01-12_NBCS_Multi_NL__7114&cm_pla=NBC+Sports+-+MSN+-+Wednesday&cm_ite=%%%3dv(%40hero_category_id)%3d%%&cm_lm=PNIy3kkOmpo35qx&cm_ainfo=

[Doug]

I didn't see the whole last game (thank goodness) but it looked like the line was outplayed on both sides of the ball. Not enough protection, not enough holes to run through. Not enough QB pressure. That's kind of how the first games of the season went. We have too much talent for that to happen.

[Bball]

"When we made the decision, after Philip [Rivers] retired and we made the decision to make a move on Carson, at the time of the decision we felt good about it and I still don't regret the decision at the time," Ballard said Thursday. "Sitting here today, just so y'all know, I won't make a comment on who is going to be here next year and who is not going to be here next year. That's not fair to any player."

...
"I'd like to quit Band-Aiding it," Ballard said. "I'd like for Carson to be the long-term answer or find somebody who will be here for the next 10-12 years. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. I can dream about it, wish about it, do everything I can to figure out the solution, but you do the best with what you can do at the time."
...

"Make the layups. Make the layups. Make the layups," Ballard said. "Carson wants to win. He has a will to win. Sometimes when you carry the burden where you think you have to make a big play all the time. Sometimes let the team help you, make the layups, make the layups."

...
"At the end of the day, I think we have a lot of really good players and really good pieces," Ballard said. "You have to get stability at the quarterback position. That position has to play up to his potential to help the team win. I'm not blaming this all on Carson. I'm not because everybody else has to do their job, too.

"But the hyperimportance of that position, it's real. You have to get consistency there. The years we've gotten it we've been pretty good, and we thought we had it until the end of the season. Something we have to continue to work through."

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...arting-qb-2022

[Bball]

"We embarrassed ourselves. Embarrassed our owner. Embarrassed our city." — Colts GM Chris Ballard

[Bball]

Some more things I found in the fallout of the Colts' season. This is talking about the Eagles not being surprised in Wentz's issues as a Colt and some of their own analytics. This one is REALLY telling because for all the analytics people, it's one that should resonate. Some of us (me!) have been saying Wentz is one lucky SOB when it comes to INTs because he should have many more than he does. So the stat is skewed from the reality of the play, and the throws. It might look good if you ONLY read the stat, but the games are more telling... and so, apparently, was some advanced internal Eagles' analytics that I bet would look much the same this season:

And most of all, Wentz had a penchant for making things more complicated than they had to be in the offense, either failing to embrace the simple plays or forcing bad decisions. So much so that the Eagles' internal data on dropped interceptions placed Wentz among the NFL’s worst.

[Sollozzo]

I listened to Rick Venturi on JMV this week. I like Venturi because he is very blunt and doesn't sugarcoat things just because he works for the Colts (his takes when Luck quit a couple years ago were really good too).

He obviously talked about Wentz and said pretty much what everyone else has said.

He said the Colts have too much invested on the inside, which I thought was interesting. He thinks our talent at the outside and in the skill positions is very weak when you take away Taylor and Leonard. That is probably true. Our receiving talent is extremely mediocre and we can't get any sort of pressure on QB's.

He said even though it doesn't look like Reich will be canned right now, if Reich ultimately is canned at some point down the road this meltdown will probably be top of mind for Irsay. I agree with that. Regardless of whatever roster flaws we have, this team was still in the driver's seat at the end of the year and completely blew it. It just seems like the ugly shadow of this season will always haunt Reich unless this team has some massive success moving forward.

Good segment overall.

[Trader Joe]

Seems like Wentz is done, just a matter of what they do to replace him. I honestly think Reich or Ballard has to take the fall alongside him unless they pull out some kind of miracle.

[Trader Joe]

There is no doubt our perimeter talent is crap.

Our nickel corner gets more hype than either of our outside corners. Our safeties are all extremely mediocre (Caveat being that Blackmon was hurt ealry in the season.) Kwity Paye got a lot of hype but ultimately didn't produce at a high level.

Receiving talent has been an issue for years. Remember all the hype Michael Strachan was getting in training camp? What'd he do this season? Nothing and then I heard his name again in the closing pressers. This team has weirdly undervalued receivers ever since they whiffed on a couple guys like Anthony Gonzalez.

[Bball]

Well, you also have to consider the mindset when building the team of the QB making the receivers better. "Throwing them open". Getting them the balls they can catch. Learning the receivers and playing to their strengths. Being a team leader and demanding more of the receivers and trying to get the best out of them.

Maybe they took it too far the other way. Or maybe, our QB play has just declined to the point it's not viable. But then, would any receiver look his best with the ball sailing over his head, into the dirt, or hitting closer to one of the two defenders surrounding him than the receiver (AKA throwing into double coverage... AND... a poorly thrown ball at that)?

Wentz reverted to being Wentz pretty quickly. The question of what would happen if we needed Wentz to win a game for us was answered: More pressure = Wentz being Wentz, only magnified.

I'm still not sure the NFL did us any favors when it changed the rules just in time for Wentz to get cleared to play vs Vegas. That might've been a good time to get Ehlinger on the field and just see what he's got. Heck, it might not have even done Wentz any favors because it meant ultimately Wentz got TWO bad and losing games on his resume he could be blamed for rather than just one. But it also increased the sample size for Colts coaching and management. And ownership.

Irsay is not Simon (thank God!) and so it's much harder to predict how this will go. Wentz came to the Colts with a reputation of damaged goods and some question of whether he ever really was what he at first seemed when he first got into the league. It's not like he really had no question marks, but underperformed once he got here, so leaving hope he could get back to the previous level. Worse, he didn't improve as the season went along. He got worse. Reich was supposed to negate that issue.
Irsay isn't going to be driven by the salary ramifications of what it's going to take going forward to shore up the QB spot. Cap situation, yes... but if there's a better option, he's MUCH more likely to want to cut losses.

At the least, I have to think Wentz is not going to enter next season as the guaranteed QB1. But I also have to wonder if he will be here at all, and just what other options the Colts can come up with. I'm not sure they'll want Wentz in another season of questioning if Reich can be the Wentz whisperer... I'm not sure Reich or Ballard want to put their reputations on the line holding out hope in Wentz after this past season.

[Sollozzo]

We know that the result with Ehlinger couldn’t have been any worse against Vegas. It would have been interesting to see what he could have done. I doubt he sails one over Hilton’s head (you’d expect a HS QB to hit that).

[Bball]

Well, Kurt Warner probably won't get a Christmas card from Carson Wentz. He's making Carson look like the Trent Richardson of QB's....