Last summer, when the Colts entered the 2021 season, there were serious health problems during the training camp period, losing to the Crows in overtime in the fifth week, giving them a 1-4 start. However, the final run in the second half gave them a great chance to enter the playoffs as a blank card. They entered the final week of the regular season with more than 90% of the winning expectations, facing the Jaguars at the bottom of the league record, the market gave the Colts away 14.5 points, and the playoff qualification was basically stable.
Later the story is known to everyone, the Ponies completely collapsed at the most critical moment, and could not be rejected outside the playoff gate.
The epic crash will bring more questions than answers, so let's try to understand what happened to the ponies and how they will move forward in the future.
Historical review
Any discussion about the ponies has to start with a summary of last season. Getting a reliable quarterback is a guarantee of a team's longevity in the league, and the Mas' selection of Andrew Lark in 2012 was enviable, but the Mas did not protect the core from injuries.
When Frank Lake was in his first season as manager, the Colts were eliminated by the Chiefs after the Wild Card Battle hit the Texans. Lack was supposed to lead the Colts back, but repeated injuries destroyed Lacker's will, and the talented quarterback chose to retire in less than a decade of his career.
Losing Rak has left Lake constantly looking for new cores in the quarterback position — first Jacobi Brisset, then Rivers Grande, and this season Carson Wintz.
Quarterback
At this point last year, Lake came to the Colts for the second time in three years to experience the retirement of the starting quarterback, and he sensed that he had to do something at this moment. Lake's knowledge of Wentz gave the Malts enough confidence to trade the Hawks for Wints with a second-round pick (promoted to the first round after playing time was up to standard). Some quarterbacks have had success after changing teams, but most quarterbacks have not performed well in the new environment. Over the past decade, 17 quarterbacks have played at least 250 pass offenses in the three years since the former owner changed.
Brady's extraordinary, good results are not unexpected, but Tannehill and Stafford also won big on PFF scoring and passing EPA. Usually, these levels of quarterbacks can't be obtained through free agents or trades, but the slightly lower-grade quarterbacks who change teams are not all bad.
Teddy Bridgewater, Magic Hu Fitzpatrick and Alex Smith all improved their passes after the change, but the actual results were not as successful as the data showed.
Winds' passing EPA in his final three seasons with the Hawks has shown a downward trend, and after arriving at the Colts, he also received the lowest passing EPA of his career. The Colts team ranked 11th in the passing offense EPA, the first in the rushing EPA league, and even one of the only teams in the league to have a higher EPA for the passing EPA.
Brown has performed well in every position except quarterback and has rightly received the most criticism, but the Mas have the same problems. Their fiasco in Week 18 can be traced back to the fact that the Jaguars did perform badly against the Jaguars, but the passing was not good enough, and they relied on the rush for many years, and they could not rely on passing to save the team in times of crisis. The Colts may have made a bad deal at the quarterback position, but if their goal for the new season is still to compete for the championship, then this position will have to continue to find ways to adjust.
Running back
Jonathan Taylor's performance this season has completely exceeded expectations, and Henry the Great has directly become the top runner in the league after being injured. He leads the league in every conceivable rush stats, and produces the league's best in both perfect and non-perfect cover. Many people are willing to call for his MVP campaign, which is enough to illustrate the runback's extraordinary performance this season.
Cutting through the massive highlights of the mid-season, just looking at the 18th week of the rush, you can prove his value, and even prove that "running backs are important".
Immediately after this attack, the shortcomings of relying on the road attack are obvious in the next attack, because Taylor needed a breathing space, and Neheem Haynes's 3-yard rush became a 10-yard backwards because of the foul on the offensive front. One reason the offense is so fragile is that the negative impact of a foul can cause more trouble with subsequent passes. While excellent pavement propulsion can usually lead to some positive-score EPA gains, their upper limits are too low, and once a negative-score EPA emerges, the impact on the overall offense can be significant.
Attack the front line
Among the running backs with at least 150 sprints this season, Taylor also ranks fourth in the league in terms of average advancement after encountering tackle contact, and the PFF score of the Ponies' offensive front is only the upper level in the league, not the only factor in the success of the road attack, but if a good cover can be implemented, it is also of great help to the road attack.
Conversely, the PFF score for team pass protection is only in the bottom ten. Just as Taylor wasn't the only reason they were successful with the ball, the end of the Masons' passing offense couldn't just fall on Winds' shoulders. In week 18 of the game against the Jaguars, Wintz was killed six times in the game, and 42% of the passing slots were under pressure.
From a team-building perspective, Winds has exceeded expectations in passing under pressure this season, but this statistic is volatile and unlikely to be repeated in future seasons. His pressure rate is as high as 36.7%, but he has an 11th in the league at the time of pressure.
His performance in clean pockets struggles, but it's a steady metric and one of the best predictors of how the quarterback will perform in the future. Wentz ranked only 27th in the league in the pressless passing ratio and 27th in the PFF pass score of 72.9.
If the story goes in the direction we imagined, it's more likely that Winds will fare worse in the new season. The Malts have exceeded expectations in every dimension this season, but at the NFL level it is difficult to maintain performance for two seasons and replicate the success of the previous season.
Defensive group
The problems with the Colts defensive group are also easy to overlook, they rely too much on making mistakes to convert, but they don't provide enough production overall, and although they have reached the eighth in the league in the PFF defensive rating this season, their defensive EPA is still below the league average.
The ability to create turnovers is a big part of why the Colts' PFF defensive ratings are so high, as droppings and interceptions produce higher expected ratings.
On the defensive end of rugby, turnovers are inherently random and lucky, as solid defense is often associated with the attacking group, and the Malts have also exceeded their expectations. Therefore, from the perspective of the defensive group, the Ponies are likely to usher in a regression in the new season, and the road to the playoffs in the new season is more thorny.
conclusion
Although the ponies' end run in the middle and late season is very exciting and quite fan-absorbing, the ponies are a flawed team, built on an unstable basis, and the success of this season is completely over the level of performance on unstable indicators, so our concerns about the new season of the ponies are also completely reasonable.
Winds only performed above the league average under pressure, which had to be worrying. In addition, the Colts' rush and defense far exceeded expectations, but still did not help them get their playoff tickets. If any of these dimensions regress, considering that this year's first-round pick was given to the Hawks, it will be difficult for the Maws to get an upgrade in the lineup.
Colt general manager Chris Ballard has been the biggest devil in the draft since taking over in 2016, and his draft performance ranks in the top five in the league from the perspective of PFF's victory contribution.
Unfortunately, not having a first-round pick means he doesn't have enough ammunition to rebuild the Colts' lineup, especially considering the only striking flaw is in the quarterback position. Thankfully, the ponies' salary is not bad, and the free market can make a move.
Both the Colts general manager and the manager are league leaders in their respective positions; however, it doesn't matter, and the Colts quarterback problem is enough to affect the team as a whole. Unless they can solve it, the new season will also have a lot of shocking cold spots in the 18th week of this season.
Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus went to the Bears as manager and Gus Bradley took up a new role, which will make the Colts defense completely change the style of play and become more unstable, until the quarterback problem is solved, we can only predict that the road ahead for the New Season may be darker for the Colts.