Horseshoe Huddle

Colts' Defense Continually Fails Against Inferior Offenses

The Indianapolis Colts' defense has failed time and time again this season against bottom tier offenses.

Zach Hicks

Indianapolis Colts General Manager Chris Ballard speaks to the media Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024 at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center, the Colts Complex.
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
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The Indianapolis Colts just suffered one of the more embarrassing losses of the past decade, falling 45-33 to a New York Giants team that released their starting quarterback halfway through the season.

The Giants were a completely helpless team coming into Sunday, mustering up a grand total of 32 points in the three games prior to the Week 17 matchup. Those lackluster offensive performances didn't stop journeyman quarterback Drew Lock from looking like 2004 Peyton Manning on Sunday, though.

Lock, a quarterback with just one touchdown pass and four interceptions entering yesterday's game, put up a near-perfect passer rating against the Colts' overwhelmed defense. He tossed four touchdowns to just six incompletions while also rushing for the put-away score late in the fourth quarter.

The Colts' defense was simply helpless to stop the superstar wide receiver trio of Malik Nabers, Wan'Dale Robinson, and Darius Slayton from slicing and dicing their way to season-best performances. Sarcasm aside for a moment, it was like watching someone play Madden 25 on rookie mode. Everything came easy for the Giants' offense.

The truly sad part for fans is that this type of game isn't the first of this nature in 2024. This performance against the Giants may be the cherry on top, but the Colts' defense has consistently played down to their opponents this season.

In seven games against teams averaging fewer than 20.0 points per game, the Colts have allowed an average of 28 points per game. The New England Patriots and the Tennessee Titans both came one point shy of their season-high mark in their match-ups with the Colts, while the Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars set their highest scoring mark in years against this defense.

Essentially, the matchups that look like get-right games for the Colts' defense end up being get-right games for inept offenses that want to find any semblance of rhythm.

The frustrating aspect in all of this is that the Colts' defense isn't some horrid unit. They've performed admirably against the Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills, and Minnesota Vikings this season and gave the team a chance to win those games. The problem is the defense only showing up for those big match-ups and taking their foot off of the gas in lesser games.

So, who is to blame for this disaster? Frankly, there's plenty of blame to go around with everybody. General manager Chris Ballard continually rewards players who play down to inferior opponents with big paydays, causing this complacent culture to linger like a decaying corpse. Shane Steichen and Gus Bradley also deserve their fair share of blame as well for their roles in these lifeless performances.

The other aspect of blame also needs to shift to the players. Players like Zaire Franklin, E.J Speed, DeForest Buckner, Grover Stewart, Kwity Paye, Dayo Odeyingo, Kenny Moore II, and Julian Blackmon have been major role players/starters since the infamous 2021 collapse with Frank Reich and Carson Wentz. Those players have held supreme job security, despite missing the playoffs in four straight seasons and continually getting killed late in the year by putrid offenses.

Here is team captain and leader Zaire Franklin talking about the Giants prior to the season on his podcast:

This type of complacency and lack of care for an "inferior opponent" leads to what we saw on Sunday. A truly embarrassing game from a team that used to have a little bit of pride. This defense has too many veteran players on big contracts to have games like this against Lock, or games like 2023 against Jake Browning, or games like 2023 against Taylor Heinicke...

This is a cultural issue with the Colts. The best way to treat a decaying situation is to tear it up by the roots. The Colts need to make a change, and it starts with Ballard. This type of performance has become commonplace in his time with the Colts, and it is finally time to move on to a different man in charge.

The Colts have suffered far too many embarrassing performances like Sunday to continue on with this current trajectory. He survived the 2021 Wentz collapse. He survived the Patriots game that cost Reich his job. He survived the largest comeback allowed in NFL history. He survived the Jeff Saturday fiasco.

Chris Ballard shouldn't keep his job after this latest embarrassment.

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Zach Hicks
ZACH HICKS

Zach Hicks is the Lead Analyst for HorseshoeHuddle.com. Zach has been on the NFL beat since 2017. His works have appeared on SBNation.com, the Locked On Podcast Network, BleacherReport.com, MSN.com, & Yardbarker.com. 

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