Aaron Rodgers looked like his vintage MVP self against the Colts, unfortunately a familiar sight for the Colts defense that has made it a habit of getting shredded by opposing offenses. The reasons for this recurrence go beyond just a simple fix.
In the Colts three losses this season, teams have averaged 36 points per game against Indianapolis’ defense.
What makes the 34-22 loss to the Steelers this past Sunday stand out is that the offense had no turnovers, meaning no short fields, no extra possessions, no pick-sixes, just an offense walking all over an opposing defense.
The thought amongst Colts fans and the franchise was that taking care of the football would be a clear fix and vastly increase the chances of winning games. We learned against Pittsburgh that will not be the case.
Against Pittsburgh, the defensive box score looked awfully familiar: 225 passing yards, 127 rushing yards and 6.5 yards per play. In addition, the Colts forced zero turnovers, and had only one sack, two quarterback hits and missed eight tackles.
Did the Colts defense put up an embarrassing performance against Pittsburgh? Absolutely. However, a single poor performance can be explained and corrected in the future. These problems are being treated like a temporary mistake and not a larger lingering issue.
That's what should be most concerning to Colts fans moving forward. After every loss, the message from the coaches and players is the same. We need to execute better. We need to improve. We need to prepare better.
The problem is that none of those things are the primary issue.
At some point, continuing to say that the defense needs to be better stops sounding like a solution and starts sounding like an admission that there is no solution.
When asked about the defense, head coach Shane Steichen defaulted to his usual lines.
“We got to get that cleaned up to go back to the fundamentals and technique.”
Answering a different question, he added, “Like you said, it was good last week and this week it wasn't as good as it needs to be. And so we got to keep harping on tackling. It's something we got to look out hard for sure. You know we do tackling drills every day in practice. We just got to hammer it home.”
Neither of those answers are wrong. The defense does need to tackle better. They do need to execute better. They do need to clean some things up.
The thing is that those explanations only would work when there is actually a solution.
Missed tackles can be fixed. A lack of talent and production is a much harder fix.
That’s why the discussion surrounding the defensive unit needs to be moved beyond the fundamentals and execution. The Colts have deeper problems, and they start with the pass rush that is ranked last in the league in creating pressure.
Pass Rush
The pass rush was a glaring issue for the Colts heading into the offseason.
Rather than attacking the pass rush market in the offseason, the front office elected to bet on internal improvement. There was a strong belief that there was talent on the roster that just needed reps to grow and that certain players come into their own.
Five weeks into the season, that bet is not paying off.
Entering Week 5, Aaron Rodgers had been sacked more than any other quarterback in the league. Against the Colts, he was able to operate from a clean pocket most of the day, only being sacked once.
Maybe that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Through five games, the Colts edge rushers have 1.5 combined sacks, one forced fumble, 15 tackles and zero tackles for loss. That’s abysmal production from a group that was supposed to be a bright spot heading into the year.
When a defense cannot get pressure on the quarterback, every other problem is magnified. Cornerbacks have a longer period of time they have to cover. Linebackers are forced into difficult matchups. Offenses are able to operate on schedule consistently.
That is why just simply demanding better execution is not a complete solution.
The tackling issues remain, as does the inability to create pressure on the quarterback. Improvement is of course possible, but the Colts are inevitably going to face the uncomfortable reality that their roster may just not be good enough.
The Colts could very well be practicing what they are preaching, but the results continue to be flawed. Every week, they insist on being better, but the stats look the same.
At some point, the questions become unavoidable: How many times can a team say they need to be and are capable of being better, before everyone accepts that this might just be what it is?
The abundance of issues are things that are not going to fix themselves, and may not even be fixable with the roster and coaching staff at hand.
