The NFL Winless Watch

As the Green Bay Packers chase a perfect season and a second straight Super Bowl championship, another team is chasing history – although not as glamorous. The Indianapolis Colts are trying to avoid being the second team in just three years to finish the season 0-16. It seems like just yesterday we were watching the Detroit Lions complete one of the worst seasons in the history of the National Football League. If the Colts don’t win one of their next two games, history is likely to repeat itself this season.

If nothing else, this season has proven the greatness of Peyton Manning. Over the past few years high profile quarterbacks have missed time, but their team was able to remain competitive. Aaron Rodgers missed a game against the New England Patriots and the Packers almost pulled off the upset. The Patriots played a whole season without Tom Brady and they almost made the playoffs. Even the Steelers were able to stay afloat when Big Ben was suspended. The Colts, however have fallen on their faces.
Part of the reason for the fall is because of all the quarterbacks in the league, Manning is the most like a coach on the field. The offense has been built around an elite quarterback who not only can execute the offense, but run it basically the entire game. When Manning got hurt, the Colts had no back-up plan. We found out fast that the rest of the Colts were not as talented as we thought.

The Colts offense was going to struggle without their leader, but with the talent people thought the Colts still had on offense, no one could have expected this big of a drop off. They are ranked 31st in total offense and 30th in scoring. The front office didn’t plan ahead very well and acted as if Manning was going to play forever. Curtis Painter has improved over the past few games, but they had so much faith in him that they felt obligated to bring in Kerry Collins to try to salvage the season.

The defense has also been exposed. With Manning behind center the Colts’ defense could count on the offense to score points and not turn the ball over. The defensive game plan would never have to be ‘how do we stop the other offense’, but would be ‘how do we slow them down’. Now with the offense grounded, the defense has been exposed – especially against the run. The Colts are 31st in the league against the run and 31st overall as a defense. In the past they never had to worry about the run because the opposing offenses always had to try to keep up with the Manning led offense.

I would never say the Colts players are trying to throw games. With a prize like Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck to eventually or instantly replace Manning losing at this point might actually be winning. Some of their uninspired performances sure make it seem like they wouldn’t mind going winless. Not very often do the expected first pick in the draft and the team who right now would be in line to get the pick match up so perfectly.