Colts primetime loss exposes offense amid quarterback change

The Indianapolis Colts made a huge move at quarterback last week, choosing 39-year-old quarterback Joe Flacco over 22-year-old Anthony Richardson. Head coach Shane Steichen said he owed it to the veterans in the locker room to play the best option right now, and that best option was Flacco.

Well, that best option led to the Foals to their worst offensive performance of the Steichen era. The offense was simply awful in all phases on Sunday night, hitting season lows in points (6), total yards (227) and rushing yards (68) in the embarrassing loss.

In many ways, this loss exposed the fact that the Colts’ offense has been in disarray this season, beyond just the quarterback position. Richardson has been far from perfect (far from good, even) in his starts this season, but a performance like this in prime time shows he wasn’t the only problem on this side of the ball. The entire offense is in a disgusting place right now, and it starts with the play caller/head coach.

Richardson served as the perfect cover for the Colts’ failures on offense, both as a trap man and as someone who elevated the floor of the unit. It’s easy to blame the player who struggles to hit a receiver on time and on target, but the plays haven’t really been there to be made. Richardson’s issues were glaring on film, but the play-calling, play-sequencing and the receivers’ struggle to find open space were all major issues that surfaced Sunday night.

The misconception with starting Flacco is the idea that he is just an addition to the offense, rather than that he replaced the only aspect of the operation that was actually working. Under Richardson, the Colts had a dominant rushing attack (Jonathan Taylor averaged 5.2 yards per carry at quarterback), strong success on early downs (Richardson had a positive EPA on early downs) and one of the more explosive offenses in the football. .

The inconsistencies were there in a Richardson-led offense, and it was far from a sustainable winning formula, but an offense with him at the helm at least had stable ground, even with his terrible accuracy issues and his struggles on third down. Those depth-boosting aspects of the offense with Richardson not only transfer to Flacco with him as the starter, in fact, they disappear completely.

By making the switch to Flacco as the starter, the Colts didn’t add third-down efficiency as the final piece of the offensive puzzle; they sacrificed the floor Richardson gave them to chase Flacco’s completion percentage and unsustainably high third-down game. When Flacco’s success in the third division inevitably declined despite excellent Viking defense, the Colts’ offense lost all semblance of identity and rhythm and looked completely incompetent.

The offense was far from where you would want it to be this season under Richardson, but at least it had some things going for it. Under Flacco, without the unsustainably high third-down conversion rate, the offense simply wouldn’t have accomplished anything. Taylor is averaging almost 2.0 fewer yards per carry with Flacco under center this season. The pressure-to-sack percentage increases from 16% to 22% with Flacco in the game. The explosive playing speed completely plummets with Flacco.

Sure, Flacco completed a few more passes and made a few throws that Richardson would have ultimately missed, but was it worth sacrificing the explosives and run game to get a nicer completion percentage?

Which ultimately brings me back to the most important point of this conversation; Steichen. With a mobile quarterback at the helm, many play-calling and play-design issues can be glossed over. Mobile quarterbacks naturally impact the run game and create enough structure outside the structure that a play-caller doesn’t have to be perfect from top to bottom because the quarterback can save him.

That is not the case with a pocket passer like Flacco. For Flacco to work, everything around him has to be perfect for him to find success. The run game must be creative and diverse, pass catchers must be open, and there must be answers to what the defense throws at the offense at all times or disaster will strike. A play like this without a mobile quarterback to cover up the issues showed just how flawed this offense currently is from a play-calling perspective.

Steichen is a smart coach who has been doing this for a long time. He is a much better play-caller and play-sequencer than what he has shown this season. I don’t know how much of Richardson’s decision ultimately came down to him, but regardless, he made his bed with this move at quarterback. He needs to find an answer for this offense moving forward or he will be the one to pay for it this offseason.

Steichen is too good a coach for this offense to look so incompetent. Even with sub-par quarterback play, the results on the field are simply not good enough. The Colts asked Richardson to look in the mirror at his own shortcomings all week, but maybe it’s time for Steichen to do the same with himself and figure out some sort of identity or staple for his offense going forward.

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