DeForest Buckner hasn’t given up hope, with the Indianapolis Colts still clinging to a 15% chance to make the playoffs, per The Athletic’s playoff projection model. But deep down, the veteran defensive tackle knows his team blew its best shot at a postseason bid, and how it happened makes it even more difficult to accept.
Indianapolis was on the brink of taking a 20-7 lead Sunday before Jonathan Taylor prematurely dropped the ball on what should’ve been a 41-yard TD. Denver went on to score 24 unanswered points in a 31-13 victory that will likely keep the Colts out of the playoffs for the fourth straight season.
“We haven’t played a great complementary football game all year,” Buckner said Sunday. “Early on, the offense was hot. Then, all of a sudden, the defense we started rallying up with the run game and getting a little better. Then, all of a sudden, the offense struggles. Special teams has been pretty solid all year. Then, in this game, we had a bunch of penalties. We haven’t put a complete game together. That’s what’s most frustrating.”
Buckner emphasized that he still believes in his teammates and coaches, and he’ll fight alongside them until the end. But even if the Colts finish the season with three wins — a tall task, even against some very bad teams — they’d still only be 9-8 and likely on the outside of the playoff picture. Just like last year.
Fighting tooth and nail to sniff .500 isn’t the vision GM Chris Ballard sold Buckner on when the DT signed a two-year, $46 million contract extension earlier this year.
But maybe Buckner should have known better. This is the Colts franchise in its eighth year under Ballard. Mediocre.
Buckner didn’t need to chase the Colts’ money. He had already landed a huge payday, and he would’ve gotten another one elsewhere had he chosen to join another team via free agency or by requesting a trade. However, the two-time All-Pro chose to stay loyal to Ballard and the Colts.
“I see what he’s building,” Buckner said near the end of the 2023 season.
But one year later, Ballard hasn’t built much of anything.
The Colts have failed, once again, to win the AFC South. This marks the team’s 10th straight season without a division title. They lost a road game to the Jaguars, who are 3-11, for the 10th straight year. And they’ve likely squandered a playoff berth in an inexplicable fashion that’s reminiscent of the team’s collapse in 2021.
Remember, Sunday’s inexcusable defeat came after the Colts had two weeks to prepare for what Buckner dubbed a “playoff game” at Empower Field at Mile High. The Colts then proceeded to fall flat on their faces with five turnovers.
QB Anthony Richardson, whose inability to consistently make routine throws continues to raise serious questions about his NFL future, threw two interceptions. Taylor, who is in the first year of a three-year, $42 million extension, made the worst mistake of his career with a mind-bogglingly careless fumble. Wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., who is in the first year of a three-year, $70 million extension, lost a fumble, too, amid the least productive season of his career. And wide receiver AD Mitchell, who’s had several mental miscues this year, threw a terrible lateral that was returned for a Broncos TD. (It’s fair to argue Mitchell’s turnover falls more on head coach Shane Steichen than the 22-year-old rookie).
A prematurely dropped TD and now a trick play turned pick-six….
It’s not the Colts’ day.
🎥 @NFLpic.twitter.com/6IvtNoTsS4
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) December 16, 2024
But the overarching point is that Ballard brought all of these people to Indianapolis. So, if Richardson, whom Ballard drafted No. 4 overall in 2023, doesn’t look the part, that falls on Ballard. If the team’s stars fail to live up to their contracts, that falls on Ballard. And if the coach continues to make head-scratching play calls, that falls on Ballard.
He knows that, too. He’s been at this long enough to understand that every major decision is a part of his résumé. That’s not to say everything that goes wrong with the Colts is all his fault. Everyone must shoulder their share of the blame, but Ballard shoulders the most because he’s been at the center of every decision. Entering the 2024 campaign, he fiercely defended his team-building philosophy, only for it to crumble yet again under the weight of more unfulfilled expectations.
“The last three years, not making the playoffs, it’s a disappointment,” Ballard said in August. “I’m not going to sit here and say it wasn’t, but I still have a very strong belief in what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how we’re going to get there. … Either you believe in something or you believe nothing. It’s easy to vacillate, easy to vacillate and go with what the world wants you to do. You either believe in something, or you don’t. It’s what we believe.
“If it gets me fired, so be it.”
It’ll ultimately be owner Jim Irsay’s decision whether or not Ballard, who is under contract through the 2026 season, remains with the Colts moving forward. But it’s hard to argue that Ballard has earned the right to keep getting more chances. At this point in his career, he’s 60-68-1 (.469) with no division titles and just one playoff win on his ledger.
Last year’s 9-8 finish planted seeds of hope that this year would be better. Indianapolis, led by then-backup QB Gardner Minshew, fell one win short of a playoff berth following a narrow loss in Week 18 to the Houston Texans. After the season, the belief internally was that with a healthy Richardson, the Colts would be a playoff team with 10-plus wins in 2024.
That turned out to be a pipe dream.
Getting to ten wins is now off the table, and the playoffs are likely out of the picture, too. That sobering reality has left several Colts players grasping at straws and wondering why this all feels so eerily familiar.
“It’s frustrating because, obviously, being here for a while, you want to be on the other end, which is winning — winning the division, winning titles, getting to the playoffs convincingly,” veteran safety Julian Blackmon said. “But that’s not the case right now.”
Said Pittman: “I mean, coming close is better than not coming close at all, and it’s not over. Football is so crazy. I don’t know the odds or the percentages. They’re probably not very good, but who knows?”
The uniting thread through all of those lackluster seasons is Ballard.
“Sometimes the scars are good for you,” Ballard said in August. “Hard times can be good for you. Defeat, failure can be good for you, if you handle it right.”
But not if the scars never serve as lessons, the hard times never turn to good times, and the defeat and failure never turn to victory and triumph. With three games left in the regular season, the evidence suggests that these are the same old mediocre Colts they’ve almost always been under Ballard.
(Photo of Chris Ballard: Jeffrey Brown / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
