What Went Wrong: The Colts Need a Quarterback

In a moment that would even make members of the 2003 Minnesota Vikings pull a Billy Madison and shout, "You blew it!", the Indianapolis Colts entered Week 17 of the 2021 season with a 90% chance of making the playoffs. In each of their final two weeks of the season, the Colts had the simplest clinching scenario: win and in. The most beautiful thing in the NFL is controlling your own destiny and not relying on other teams to help you, but even then, one has to capitalize on it. The Colts didn't do that. Now, I can understand losing to the Las Vegas Raiders; all of the negative stuff, that's off the field. On it, the Raiders are a good team, so the Colts losing to them in Week 17 isn't shameful. Week 18, however, that's another story.

The Colts had the easiest path to the playoffs in the final week; all they had to do was defeat the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jacksonville Jaguars. Two wins all season; three since the start of the 2020 season. Yes, one of their two wins this season was against the Buffalo Bills, and yes, the Colts have problems winning in Jacksonville, but this team was a mess in the worst way. The Colts should have absolutely flattened them. It ended up being the other way around. Not only did the Jaguars win, they dominated them. No one could do a thing against Jacksonville. Even Jonathan Taylor, who has made waves for his stellar play at running back this season, was stopped--only 77 yards rushing. So not only did the Colts had Jacksonville their third win of the season and their fourth since the start of 2020 (two of them were against the Colts), but with the Pittsburgh Steelers' OT win in Baltimore, the Colts ended up eliminated from playoff contention.

How could this be? How could a team with so much to offer suddenly miss out like that? They ended up having the league's best running back in Taylor, and they were running on all cylinders, yet lost to a very, very bad team and got eliminated. So how could this happen? The answer to "What Went Wrong?" comes in the from of only two simple words: Carson Wentz. I could end it right there, but I have to speak about this.

One thing that drives me up the wall as a sports fan is how so-called "experts" make excuse after excuse after excuse for bad players, and refuse to admit that these players just flat out suck. No QB was on the receiving end of these excuses more than Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz was horrendous as the QB of the Philadelphia Eagles. He couldn't stay healthy, and when he was, he was always blowing games for the Eagles. In back-to-back years, Nick Foles had to lead the Eagles in place of Wentz, and in both years' Foles' efforts got them to the playoffs--the first time led to Foles winning Super Bowl LII. Yet despite Foles being Super Bowl MVP, the Eagles decided to keep Wentz, and drop Foles, who has been in Jacksonville and Chicago since then.

The Eagles won the NFC East in 2019, but that was in spite of Wentz, not because of him, but the excuses kept coming for him. He continued to fizzle in 2020, and it was late in the season where I lost all respect for him. Wentz got benched in favor of Jalen Hurts, and despite knowing that he was sole cause of the Eagles' downfall, Wentz had the nerve to complain about being benched. Seriously? Of course, Wentz is in Indy now, and his game hasn't improved. Same bad passes, same bad turnovers, same habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I've seen Wentz lose to teams like the Lions and Jaguars; that, alone, says he's incompetent. And as for the Eagles, well, they're in the playoffs this year in their first full season with Hurts. Still think Wentz wasn't the problem in Philly? 185 passing yards in that final game against Jacksonville. Absolutely subpar.

Bottom line, as the title of this story says, the Colts need a QB. Badly. The AFC is getting better now; teams are improving, and if the Colts want to keep up with teams like the Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, the resurrected Patriots, and especially the Titans, they need someone reliable passing the ball, and that someone is definitely not Carson Wentz.