A Colts' lump of coal: With the playoffs on the line, Indy falls flat in Atlanta

They couldn't run, they couldn't pass, they couldn't stop the run and they couldn't stop the pass. Other than that...

MY COUCH, Ind. -- Let’s be honest: There’s no way we figured the Colts would be in this position, playing meaningful football on Christmas Eve and beyond. We figured they’d struggle with a rookie quarterback in Anthony Richardson, and when he went down for the season, there was no earthly reason to suspect the Colts would be in the running for a playoff berth – which, by the way, they still are even after a listless 29-10 loss to the Atlanta Falcons Sunday.

So in a sense, there’s a reason to be mildly thrilled that Indy is even in a position to deeply disappoint its fan base with one of the worst – maybe the worst – performance of the season. (The Cincinnati loss two weeks ago was a close second).

But that’s what makes Sunday’s effort, or lack of same, so disappointing. Even if the Colts are playing with house money – Houston got rolled, Jacksonville got stomped by Tampa and it didn’t hurt to have the Broncos lose to the Patriots — you’d like to see them take some advantage when playing a team with its own backup quarterback and a losing record, not to mention a head coach on the hot seat.

This was, in a word, brutal. They were as bad this week as they were good last week, putting up 30 straight points on the Pittsburgh Steelers. One week they look like a team with reasonable post-season aspirations; the next week, they look like frauds. Go figure. A week to week league, as they say.

“We have to look at ourselves hard in the mirror after a loss like that, starting with myself, to get those things corrected,” Shane Steichen said. “You have a big win the week prior, and then you go do what we did today. We can’t have it. We have two
(games) guaranteed left to us, and we have to get it cleaned up in a hurry…”