Colts Blunders vs. Broncos Indicative of Cultural Issues for Franchise

The Indianapolis Colts' problems run much deeper than in-game mistakes.

Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen in the second quarter against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

The Indianapolis Colts came into this weekend's matchup with the Denver Broncos as a four-point underdog with their season on the line.

Not many were expecting the Colts to win the game on Sunday. The team was on the road at one of the toughest environments to play in the league, going against a team two games ahead of them in the standings. While their playoff hopes were still alive, it would not have been shocking to see Indy fall in a close, hard-fought contest.

But the Colts actually gave fans hope, taking a 13-7 lead into the half after dominating the Broncos on the ground and playing staunch and opportunistic defense. Were they really going to play a full game of complimentary football and take control of their future?

The answer, like has become the norm for the Colts over the years since Andrew Luck shockingly retired, was an embarrassing no. An inexcusable fumble at the goal line, an ill-advised trick play, and poor execution plagued the Colts in the second half on the way to 24 unanswered points for the Broncos. The Broncos won 31-13, realistically ending any chance the Colts had at making a run to the postseason.

The Colts simply falling to the Broncos is not the issue, rather it is how the Colts lost that speaks to the continued cultural problems within the organization that have been prevalent for years. And unless changes are made, the Colts will continue to find themselves in these situations as a laughing stock to the rest of the league.

Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (28) runs the ball in the first quarter against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

The downhill spiral for the Colts started when Jonathan Taylor made the biggest mistake of his career. On the Colts' first possession of the second half, Taylor took the ball through a hole on the right side of the offensive line and exploded for a 41-yard touchdown to put the Colts up 20-7.

However, after further review, it was found Taylor dropped the football just before he crossed the goal line, resulting in a fumble out of the end zone for a touchback. It was a complete and total gut punch as all of Indy's momentum vanished instantly.

“You go over those scenarios, but it just can’t happen," Taylor said after the game. "No matter the game, no matter the scenario, you could be up 50, down by 50, in a playoff game, the first game of the season. That should never happen.”

Dropping the football at the goal line on the way to an easy touchdown has been done before, and each instance is met with the same criticism. It is one of the dumbest plays anyone can make during a game and is unexpected from a veteran and one of the best players on the team.

Taylor could not believe what he had just done. He had let his team and the fan base down when they needed him the most.

“I told them, I apologized, and I just know that it will never happen again," Taylor remarked. "That has never happened to me before, and it will never happen again.”

The fumble took all of the wind out of the sails of the Colts, and they were never able to regain it. While teammates tried to come to his defense, Taylor's boneheaded play was the turning point in the game.

"It was a mistake, Obviously it hurt us, but he's one of our leaders," Shane Steichen said about Taylor. "Sometimes that happens in football, but he's our guy, and that's where it's at."

"JT's play doesn't determine whether or not we lose because I also threw two interceptions, so we also look at that as well," Anthony Richardson stated. "We've just got to clean it up."

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The Colts began to spiral after that. Poor execution and turnovers, including a fumble by Michael Pittman Jr., led to the Broncos taking a 17-13 lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Steichen felt his offense needed a spark, dialing up a trick play to have Richardson throw to AD Mitchell, who would throw it back across the field to Richardson to either throw or run the ball.

But Mitchell did not see Broncos linebacker Nik Bonitto making a break on the ball as he got ready to throw. Bonitto intercepted the backward pass from Mitchell and took it back for a fumble returned for a touchdown. It was another embarrassing and inexcusable moment for the Colts in their biggest game of the season.

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"We worked on that play all week, and it was great," Steichen admitted. "It looked great all week. We padded up, and it was good in practice. (Mitchell) threw it great. Obviously, he's thrown double passes before that he's had success with, and that one didn't work out."

“I was just executing the play call that I had executed about a million times before," Mitchell explained. "Shane came over and talked to me and said, ‘If it’s not there, throw it away.' So if you look at it from
my perspective, it was there pretty much until 15 (Bonitto) turned into Ed Reed, and just came through out of nowhere. I mean, it was a great play by him. We just have to execute better.”

Executing better would have meant Mitchell throwing the football away instead of trying to get it back to Richardson with Bonitto in the vicinity. Steichen confirmed as much after the game.

"I don't think he saw the guy, to be completely honest," Steichen stated. He didn't have it, (he should) throw it away."

However, the entire fiasco could have been avoided had Steichen not tried to call a trick play when the Colts were only down four at the time, let alone a trick play that relied on a rookie wide receiver making a crucial throw across the field. It was a poor decision by Steichen and one that put the final nail in the coffin for the Colts.

The dropped football by Taylor and the dumbfounding call by Steichen will grab the headlines, but the failures of the Colts on Sunday do not stop there.

Penalties led to stalled drives for the Colts offense. Five turnovers sunk any chance the Colts had at a comeback. Poor play by Richardson, who was under pressure for much of the day, took away any remaining hope the young quarterback could put the team on his back this time.

The Colts came up drastically short in their most important game of the season, yet again. Despite the defense holding the Broncos to under 200 yards of total offense and forcing three turnovers, the offense looked broken and without answers. The Colts are 14 games into the 2024 season and have yet to play a game where both sides of the ball played complementary football. And that is a major problem.

The issues the Colts are having go far beyond one game. These issues have been around for years, where the Colts are good enough to win against the awful teams in the league but lose to the better teams in the NFL. Even when Indy looks to have the game in hand against a better team like they did on Sunday, they find a way to give it away.

Indianapolis Colts General Manager Chris Ballard speaks to the media Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024 at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center, the Colts Complex. / Kelly Wilkinson/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Because these same issues continue to rear their ugly heads year after year, it points to a cultural issue within the building. We may never know exactly what that cultural issue is. But to have the same types of things happen over and over again signals a failure from leadership at the highest levels of the organization.

Many are calling for general manager Chris Ballard to be fired after this latest collapse. Ballard has been at the head of the Colts for eight seasons now and has just one playoff win and zero division titles to show for it. The Colts will miss the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season this year under Ballard, and they do not seem to be getting any closer to competing.

If Ballard is fired, what are the repercussions of the move? Is Steichen gone as well? Will the Colts move on from Richardson? Will a new general manager be forced to work with Steichen and Richardson instead of selecting their own head coach and quarterback?

Or do the Colts run it back with the same leadership intact and attempt to make changes internally? That approach will only work if seismic changes are made. Those changes would include to the culture, team-building philosophy, coaching staff, and player personnel. And if history has shown us anything, Ballard has not changed much over the last eight years.

Whatever happens this offseason, the Colts have proven what they are doing now and have tried to do for years is not the answer. If massive changes are not made from a cultural standpoint at the very least, Indy will remain a middling team with no obvious path to a winning future.

And if that is the case, it would be best to blow it all up and start the rebuild from square one.

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