Regular season grade for the Colts

[CR91]

Final Record - 11-5

 

2nd in Division 

 

7th seed

 

First and foremost, congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts for making the playoffs. Chris Ballard and his staff with great picks and additions to the team. Reich and his staff for being able to handle all the injuries and miss calls from the refs. Now while I am happy for making the playoffs, there are concerns that do worry me going into Buffalo next week.

 

The colts have been a 30 min team. You see one half of brilliance for most of the season where it was the second half where the team played tremendous, however lately its been the first half. There seems to be an issue the last two games where we are ahead and we take our foot off the gas pedal. You saw it yesterday and you saw it against the Steelers and we can not do that and expect to win against any playoff team. The colts imo, have one of the most talented rosters in the playoffs, but they need to actually play 60 mins and not just say their gonna play 60 mins. Reich needs to do a better job with the play calling for more then just the first 15 plays of the game. When our offense stalls, our defense imo gets gassed and that leads to them getting exposed. 

 

The defense continues to be bend, but dont break. I do see at times the coverage in the backend has miscommunications, but I still see a defense that can stop the run and create turnovers which will be a key point in the playoffs. Imo, Blackmon being mostly used in coverage has limited his playmaking ability as it seems he doesn't have the range to make up for our corners getting beat. We need to have him just go out and make plays that made him a potential defensive rookie of the year. He was a difference maker, but since the packers game, he's been pretty quiet.

 

Overall, I do believe this team can go into Buffalo and Kansas city and win because I feel like we have the perfect offense to play keep away and give them the Peyton treatment. Run the ball, control the clock, and limit their possessions. In no way can we go toe to toe with these offensives as we will lose. Run Taylor and complete short move chaining throws. Its boring its annoying, but its the best approach to stand a chance.

 

Final Grade - A -  

[csmopar]

B. Mainly for the 30 minute thing you’ve alluded told.

[GoColts8818]

B+  If they hadn’t lost to the jags and won the division I would give him them an A.

[Valpo2004]

B . . . a good season but it seems like the team had the talent to win a couple more games than they did.

 

[coltfaninnewyork]

solid B we won 5 more games than last year 

[CR91]

1 minute ago, Valpo2004 said:

B . . . a good season but it seems like the team had the talent to win a couple more games than they did.

 

 

11 games is usually good enough to win the division or the 5th seed. This was just a weird season. It's not very likely that you get 8 teams with 10 or more wins

[Luck is Good]

Definitely a B in the grade book. There were some games that should’ve been wins instead of losses. Other than that, can’t complain too much

[PrideOfAthens17]

I firmly believe that they had 1 game where they had the game given to them (in Houston), 2 games where they gave the game to the opponent (in Jacksonville and in Pittsburgh), and the rest turned out as they should have, with the other 10 wins being games they outplayed the opponent, and the other 3 losses being games where they were outplayed. How you look at those (which ones are the negatives and which ones are the positives) depends on your point of view. What it says to me is that 13 of their 16 games were decided by how good (or bad) the teams playing really were that day, and to me that's an encouraging sign moving forward. It says that, generally, they're well coached, well prepared, disciplined and do a good job executing their plans. Because I have unfortunately seen far too many teams in recent decades have most of their games determined by any number of pathetic reasons other than those, so this year has been a real joy for me, however it eventually ends up.

 

As a result, I grade it in a B+/A- range, but as I indicated, with the outlook being on the upward trend.

[Four2itus]

Dealing with everything from rotating QB's, to injuries to key starters, to viruses.....A.

 

In relation to not winning the division, B+

[coming on strong]

4 hours ago, CR91 said:

Final Record - 11-5

 

2nd in Division 

 

7th seed

 

First and foremost, congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts for making the playoffs. Chris Ballard and his staff with great picks and additions to the team. Reich and his staff for being able to handle all the injuries and miss calls from the refs. Now while I am happy for making the playoffs, there are concerns that do worry me going into Buffalo next week.

 

The colts have been a 30 min team. You see one half of brilliance for most of the season where it was the second half where the team played tremendous, however lately its been the first half. There seems to be an issue the last two games where we are ahead and we take our foot off the gas pedal. You saw it yesterday and you saw it against the Steelers and we can not do that and expect to win against any playoff team. The colts imo, have one of the most talented rosters in the playoffs, but they need to actually play 60 mins and not just say their gonna play 60 mins. Reich needs to do a better job with the play calling for more then just the first 15 plays of the game. When our offense stalls, our defense imo gets gassed and that leads to them getting exposed. 

 

The defense continues to be bend, but dont break. I do see at times the coverage in the backend has miscommunications, but I still see a defense that can stop the run and create turnovers which will be a key point in the playoffs. Imo, Blackmon being mostly used in coverage has limited his playmaking ability as it seems he doesn't have the range to make up for our corners getting beat. We need to have him just go out and make plays that made him a potential defensive rookie of the year. He was a difference maker, but since the packers game, he's been pretty quiet.

 

Overall, I do believe this team can go into Buffalo and Kansas city and win because I feel like we have the perfect offense to play keep away and give them the Peyton treatment. Run the ball, control the clock, and limit their possessions. In no way can we go toe to toe with these offensives as we will lose. Run Taylor and complete short move chaining throws. Its boring its annoying, but its the best approach to stand a chance.

 

Final Grade - A -  

I cant give the colts an A  for having a losing record against teams with winning records  2-4  .  To me an A minus would be 12-4 with at least being 3-3 against teams with winning records .    B minus

[Myles]

I give it a B+.

Nice job going 11-5.  New QB without preseason.  Lost RB in game 1.  

[compuls1v3]

I give them a solid B, as they made it to the playoffs, although they needed help.  I feel our ground game is finally finding it's identity, however I'm not sold on this defense against the air attack.  Unless they mix up with some more pressure looks/disguises, these better teams we'll play won't have players that drop the ball or QBs that miss an easy first down throw.

[Two_pound]

What is incredible is we played 16 games and played just 1/2 in pretty much all of them, and yet, won 11 of the 16. How could we have gone the whole season without playing a good solid 60 minute game???? But, you can't complain about being 11-5. I had predicted 13-3. or 14-2 so I was close. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I wouldn't trade this roster for any other one in the nfl. That includes the chiefs, titans, bills, of course that awful steeler team, not one team in either conference, this team is solid, we just need to play 60 minutes. So my grade is an A, because we went 11-5 without playing a full 60 minutes for even one game.

[pacolts56]

B+ ..... had we finished off the Steelers and won the South I would have given us an A.

 

[Colt.45]

A-

 

This isnt an A because they lost some games they had no business losing (*cough Jags. **cough cough Browns ***coughs up lung - STEELERS). However, at the start of the year, 11-5 is a record most would have gladly taken. Much like the bend-but-dont-break defense, the end result is what matters. And in this case, this isnt a flukey 11-5. They won some single score games they could have lost (think the two Texans games and that Bengals game but that balances out with the close losses). If Rivers stays healthy and they load up on offensive weapons, there's every reason to believe it's repeatable next year.

 

 

[NewColtsFan]

B+
 

I’d like to hold off comments for now.   We’re in the playoffs and I want the focus to be positive.   We can get more into specifics once the total season is over — whenever that is....

 

What I will say is something I wrote 7-10 days ago.....   I’m not going to bag on an 11 win team because they didn’t win 12.   This game, this league,  is really, really hard.

[Dogg63]

Solid B from me

 

9th in scoring

10th in Total offense

11th in Rushing

11th Passing

 

That's top 3rd of the league, which for me is a solid B.

 

If I were to grade them on a curve based on where we were last season, I'd give them an A- for effort/improvement.

[polk_high_allstar]

Would give them a B.  Things could of gone totally off the rail after the week 1 loss to the Jags.  They were able to pull off some quality wins this year but only the Green Bay game really sticks out as a memorable one.  If this was a regular year and only 2 wildcards get in i think a lot of us would be saying they're in the C category.

[CR91]

4 minutes ago, polk_high_allstar said:

Would give them a B.  Things could of gone totally off the rail after the week 1 loss to the Jags.  They were able to pull off some quality wins this year but only the Green Bay game really sticks out as a memorable one.  If this was a regular year and only 2 wildcards get in i think a lot of us would be saying they're in the C category.

 

I don't agree with that. It's hard getting 11 wins. This was a weird year. You don't see 8 teams getting 10+ wins

[piscean]

B- inconsistent with 2nd half in last few weeks. The steelers loss was horrible so was the jaguars and ravens. The browns I can understand without left tackle. The only bright spot was they were down few tds against bengals and we won. Our strength of schedule is also easier this time. Considering all these things we should have won the division. I hope we at least put up a fight against bills but after seeing what bills did to one of the top defense in the league I am not so sure. Offense need to play really well against bills. 

[polk_high_allstar]

2 minutes ago, CR91 said:

 

I don't agree with that. It's hard getting 11 wins. This was a weird year. You don't see 8 teams getting 10+ wins

C means average to me.  If you don't get into the playoffs your an average team.  You shouldn't have to count on another team to get you into the playoffs.  Losing to the Jags week one and blown out by Tennessee left a bad taste in my mouth this year.  We should of won the AFC south and we didn't

[CR91]

2 minutes ago, polk_high_allstar said:

C means average to me.  If you don't get into the playoffs your an average team.  You shouldn't have to count on another team to get you into the playoffs.  Losing to the Jags week one and blown out by Tennessee left a bad taste in my mouth this year.  We should of won the AFC south and we didn't

 

That's called sports buddy. Sometimes you get breaks sometimes you don't.

[chickenMan]

Overall- B

 

Reich- B

 

Eberflus- C

 

Ballard- A

 

Rock Ya Sin- F

[DougDew]

An A.  Any time an 8-8 roster plays to an 11-5 record, its an A.  And Frank, Rivers, and JT get an A+ for getting them there.

[aaron11]

I'll give it a B.  11-5 would usually be an A from me but they did play the weakest schedule in the league(by records) and we lost games against AFC playoff teams

 

would have said A if they took care of Jacksonville week one

[RollerColt]

It’s an A for me. We made it to 11-5 in an unprecedented year, with key injuries, a pandemic, and a short offseason on top of everything else. 
 

There’s problems and they aren’t perfect, but few teams are. We’re back in the playoffs. And at least for a week, that feels so good.

[Dingus McGirt]

23 minutes ago, DougDew said:

An A.  Any time an 8-8 roster plays to an 11-5 record, its an A.  And Frank, Rivers, and JT get an A+ for getting them there.

Wow.

[DougDew]

12 minutes ago, Dingus McGirt said:

Wow.

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that into something more acceptable around here.

 

Its an A grade.

 

It would have been an A+, if it wasn't for our near-superbowl quality roster being held back by Frank's bad play calling and Rivers' immobility.  Is that better?  

[Stephen]

Colts are a c. Don't  play both halfs. Edge pressure  needs improvement.  Te talent needs improvement.  Wr talent needs improvement.  Tackle depth needs improvement. 

[DownHillRunner]

It's a B for me. Rivers has really surprised a lot of people because we didn't know what we were going to get with him. There are areas for improvement like coaching, playing a full game, and red zone scoring is very important especially in the playoffs where there is zero margin for error. 

[crazycolt1]

I wonder how much these grades would have went down had the Bills not beat the Dolphins?

The Colts would have still went 11-5 but didn't make the playoffs? 

 

[Colt.45]

44 minutes ago, aaron11 said:

I'll give it a B.  11-5 would usually be an A from me but they did play the weakest schedule in the league(by records) and we lost games against AFC playoff teams

 

would have said A if they took care of Jacksonville week one

 

The weak schedule stat is one that's hard for me to stomach. Flukey wins somehow count for something. Wins don't tell the whole story. There's no way Houston (who lost 12 games) are weaker than some of the sides who finished with better records.

Those losses to the AFC playoff teams are grating for sure. The AFC North really took it to the Colts. Heck even Cincy will feel they shudda/cudda taken that W from Indy. 

[Sumo63]

Solid C.  2 houston wins via devine intervention.  2 (at least) epic meltdowns vs Baltimore and Pittsburgh.  Several mini meltdowns.  Inconsistent play game to game, heck half to half, suspect situational playcalling on both sides of the ball.......

 

I said it before the season tho, Rivers will hoist the Lombardi so we better get some * straightened out soon, lest I look the fool.  Go colts!

[Mr.NotSoCreative]

Man I quit school because of recess. I don't play games. Go Colts

[Dingus McGirt]

28 minutes ago, DougDew said:

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that into something more acceptable around here.

 

Its an A grade.

 

It would have been an A+, if it wasn't for our near-superbowl quality roster being held back by Frank's bad play calling and Rivers' immobility.  Is that better?  

Excellent!!   

[Defjamz26]

B-

 

Team still doesn’t play a full 4 quarters of football and it’s worrisome. 

[Fluke_33]

I predicted 16-0 so the best I can give is a B+

[indyagent17]

I would break it down farther

 

1. Running game A-

2. Passing B-

3. Run Defense B

4. Pass Defense C-

5 Special Teams B+
 

Overall B-

 

[Maniac]

5 hours ago, Stephen said:

Colts are a c. Don't  play both halfs. Edge pressure  needs improvement.  Te talent needs improvement.  Wr talent needs improvement.  Tackle depth needs improvement. 

 

Team goes from 7-9 to 11-5 and playoffs and you give them a C.

 

Damn.

[Stephen]

2 minutes ago, Maniac said:

 

Team goes from 7-9 to 11-5 and playoffs and you give them a C.

 

Damn.

Yep they get an f if they get blown out  by the bills