The Colts heart-breaking ending to a year that started shaky and ended quickly has left many fans, and yours truly, with a bitter, unsatisfied feeling. After a slow start, multiple injuries, and a nine-game winning streak, the Colts now find themselves at the beginning of an offseason that may change the fortune of the franchise in the years to come.
Adjusting to the retirement of Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison’s return (and ability), and the signing or releasing of unrestricted free agents Kelvin Hayden, Jeff Saturday, Dominic Rhodes, Tyjuan Hagler, and Keiwan Ratliff will be the first lines of business to take care of for this team. In the past few years, the Colts have concentrated their efforts on keeping the corps of the team together and improving the team in certain areas through the draft, and this has proved successful.
This offseason the Colts may find themselves going outside of their usual mediums to bolster this roster for another run at the Super Bowl, as the time is still now for this veteran team, and there are a few key areas that need improvement before another Super Bowl banner is lifted to rafters.
The Colts’ shortcomings are from the lack of ability in three important parts of the game:
1 — Stopping the run has been an achiles heel for the Colts defense for years now, and it starts on the defensive line. The Colts have lacked a good, big (and when I say big, I mean LARGE) defensive tackle since Tony Siragusa left the team almost ten years ago. The year the Colts won the Super Bowl was the one exception to this. When the Colts had Anthony MacFarland they had a player that was not so much a huge playmaker, but a gap-stuffer, a double-team drawer. This did not allow the opponents’ offensive linemen to get to the second level, allowing a good linebacking corps a chance to make a play without having to fight through someone to get to the ballcarrier.
The Colts have not had this luxury the last two years, and need to address this immediately. Whether this is done through the draft or through free agency is the only question. Drafting a young, talented player would be great if the Colts had a few years to develop him, but I think that the entire defense woul
d benefit greatly from the addition of a veteran interior lineman now. A few years from now Freeney and Mathis may have lost a step, and Indy’s pass rush would become less of a threat to teams that want to pass the ball. That is why getting that defensive presence on the line is so important right now.
2 — The second area the Colts must improve in the offseason is on the offensive side of the ball. Running the football was a problem for the Colts all year as they finished second to last in yards per game, ahead of only the Arizona Cardinals. The ability to pass the ball disguised this weakness well, but you must be able to run the ball to win playoff games in the NFL, and the Colts were not able to do that this year.
Injuries to Joseph Addai turned a Pro Bowl hopeful (and Fantasy Football 1st rounder) into one of the offense’s weakest links. He finished with career lows in rushing and receiving yards, and was missing the explosiveness that he showed early in his young career. The re-acquisition of veteran Dominic Rhodes was a safe move that helped give the Colts much needed depth in the backfield as well as a player that knew the system well, but did not prove to be a very dynamic pickup. Also, rookie Mike Hart showed great potential in the preseason but was lost for the season after hurting his knee in Week 6.
The Colts have plenty of playmakers in the backfield, but lack the big bodies on the offensive lines to open up holes for these playmakers. They have one of the leagues smallest offensive lines, and just cannot matchup with the larger defensive linemen that they face week in and week out. Targeting a few offensive linemen in the draft is the only way to address this, as veteran offensive linemen are more expensive than the Colts can afford this year. They have a great coach in Howard Mudd, and getting the most out of a small package has been something the Colts have been very good at, but it is mostly in pass protection that these smaller, quicker players excel.
3 — Lastly, special teams. As far as kickers go, the Colts are fine, but covering these kicks is where the problems start. The Chargers recent playoff win is just the most recent example of what happens to the Colts when their offense fails to move the ball efficiently. Hunter Smith does not usually have to take the field often, but when he does it doesn’t usually go well. He is a good punter, but coverage on punts (and an occasional kickoff) is usually horrible and rarely inspiring.
When it comes to the playoffs, some games are won and lost in the field position battle alone, and as the Chargers game showed, most of the time, the Colts lose these battles. The reason? The Colts have locked up so much money in their marquee players that being able to afford the second-tier guys that make winning these battles po
ssible is out of reach.
Is this a solveable problem at this point?
The Colts have a roster full of great players who could easily afford to jump ship for the money that they deserve, and I don’t blame them. It is a problem, but it is a problem that any team in the league would like to have. Chalk it up to Bill Polian’s psychic draft know-how. The Colts can only look to the future and decide what players must stay, and what players are just going to have to be let go. We cannot afford to be horrible in one facet of the game to go from good to great in another facet by signing a player that we could do without.
If there is one thing that the Colts have proven in the past few years it is that there is no lack of depth on the roster, but these guys are young. Try keeping them signed for a few more years than two or three and you start to assemble a group of hard-working, hard-nosed head hunters whose soul purpose is to seek out a punt or kick returner to concuss.
The Colts are still a perrenial contender. Finding ways to get better on the offensive and defensive line and special teams play will go a long way to improve this teams chances of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy again. They have a great corps of playmakers, and the amount of veteran leadership this team possesses will make the retirement of Tony Dungy less of an issue than it would with another team. It is going to be an interesting offseason, one that will be more important to this team than any other in recent memory.
