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Does Joe Flacco still give Colts 'best chance to win'? Hard to make case after another loss

11 November 2024Last Update :
Does Joe Flacco still give Colts 'best chance to win'? Hard to make case after another loss

INDIANAPOLIS — No, the sky isn’t falling in Indianapolis.

The sun will still come up even after the Colts were booed during a 30-20 loss to the Buffalo Bills, but when it does, it will cast a long shadow that stretches from Lucas Oil Stadium to the team’s practice facility at West 56th Street.

It’s hard to view this franchise in a positive light at the moment, and if there is a crevice for the light to seep through, what it reveals isn’t pretty. The Colts are an organization with major questions at QB, a coach who can’t seem to find any answers to what ails his team and, now, a team captain who is questioning everyone’s commitment.

“I don’t think everybody is working as hard as possible, and obviously it’s showing,” cornerback Kenny Moore II said after the Colts’ third straight loss. “I’m not the type to sugarcoat it, honestly. I don’t think the urgency is there. I don’t think the details is there. I don’t think the effort is there. And I don’t see everything correlating from meetings to practices to the games.”

Moore made it very clear that he wasn’t talking about the Colts’ QB conundrum and went so far as to say he doesn’t think who’s starting under center has “anything to do with us winning the games.” He labeled that as an excuse that he refuses to use, and while that is an admirable sentiment, it’s also not reality.

The quarterback play in Indianapolis hasn’t been nearly good enough this season.

Plan A was a failure, or at least that’s what the Colts admitted when they pulled the plug on Anthony Richardson — the No. 4 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft — just 10 starts into his career.

Plan B, benching Richardson in favor of 39-year-old Joe Flacco, may be even worse.

Flacco started Sunday’s game with a pick-six on the Colts’ first play of the game. The pass was intended for wide receiver Josh Downs, but Bills cornerback Taron Johnson jumped the route and returned for a 23-yard score.

“Just made a bad decision,” Flacco said Sunday.

It didn’t get much better from there as Flacco threw another interception seven plays later on the very next drive. This time, his pass was meant for running back Jonathan Taylor, but Flacco threw the ball too far inside on a screen play, and Bills defensive tackle Austin Johnson used one of his big hands to snag the ball out of the air.

Flacco would throw another pick in the fourth quarter, sailing a pass intended for wide receiver Alec Pierce that went off the outstretched hands of Pierce and into the hands of Bills safety Taylor Rapp. Flacco also was strip-sacked in the third quarter and lost a fumble.

For those scoring at home, that was four Flacco turnovers. All told, Flacco finished Sunday 26-of-35 passing for 272 yards and two touchdowns against those three interceptions. His four turnovers were the most he’s had in a game since 2022 and just the fourth time in his 17 NFL seasons he’s committed at least four turnovers in a single game. Yet, Colts head coach Shane Steichen said he never felt inclined to bench Flacco and put Richardson in the game.

“Until I say otherwise, Joe’s our guy right now,” Steichen said after the game.

That stance was easier to sell when Richardson was demoted. At the time, the second-year pro had the lowest completion percentage in the NFL this season when not pressured (48.1%), when pressured (38.9%), when not blitzed (50.5%) and when blitzed (26.5%). Richardson’s egregious tap-out at Houston certainly didn’t help his case to remain the starter, so Indianapolis pivoted.

Steichen’s reasoning at the time? Flacco gives the team “the best chance to win.”

But can Steichen still claim that now that we’ve had a larger sample size? Over the past two weeks, Flacco has committed six turnovers, thrown two touchdowns against four interceptions and been sacked seven times.

“He’s had two games that he’d like to have back,” Steichen said. “But we’ll keep battling through it and see where it goes.”

The irony in Steichen’s statement is that it hasn’t just been two games. Overall this season, Flacco has thrown nine touchdowns against five picks in six games, and he’s 1-3 as Indianapolis’ starter. Richardson, on the other hand, is 3-3 as the Colts’ starter. He has thrown four touchdowns against seven interceptions, plus one rushing TD against two lost fumbles.

It obviously wouldn’t be an easy decision to go back to Richardson, and it may not even be the right choice to pivot again, but for Steichen not to even consider it would be misguided.

“You’ve got to keep believing,” Steichen said of his QB change from Richardson to Flacco that’s been fruitless so far. “It’s never about one guy. It’s the ultimate team game.”

Steichen reasserted his position that Flacco is still his team’s best option at quarterback. Asked why that is the case, Steichen cited Flacco’s “veteran leadership.”

But how much is veteran leadership worth if it doesn’t lead to the one thing — winning — that Steichen said this QB swap was all about?

Perhaps the saddest part of this dilemma is that the Colts’ quarterback issues have masked the progress on the other side of the ball. Indianapolis’ defense still has its own problems, most notably missed tackles, but it generated two more takeaways Sunday with an E.J. Speed interception in the second quarter, and an interception from Moore in the third quarter in which he slipped on the return.

If he hadn’t lost his balance, Moore likely would’ve scored on a game-changing pick-six, Instead, Indianapolis offense turned it over on downs seven plays later.

“We have the ability to do what we want,” Flacco said. We’re just making too many mistakes.”

To be clear, it’s not just Flacco making those mistakes. Josh Downs, the Colts’ best wide receiver this season, dropped a wide open touchdown pass in the first quarter. Maybe if he makes that catch, it changes the tenor of the game.

“I take full responsibility,” said Downs, who totaled seven catches for a team-high 72 yards. “I should’ve caught that.”

After the boos rained down following a few of the Colts’ stalled drives, Steichen said the team must give Indianapolis fans “something to cheer about.” But as the Colts sit at 4-6, there just isn’t a whole lot to choose from.

“We are in November, and I just don’t see us making that jump from September to November,” Moore said. “I’m seeing the same things, so I think a lot of things we just gotta start addressing it and not sugarcoat or beat around the bush. I think that’s what we are lacking.

“Honestly, year to year it’s the same thing.”

(Photo: Grace Hollars / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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