End-of-the-season Dopey Report Card

The run game was productive, but beyond that, it was a challenging, disappointing year for the 8-9 Colts. Here's how they fared:

RUN OFFENSE

It took 17 games, but we found something the Colts do reasonably well: Run the football. Jonathan Taylor finished with 1,431 yards rushing, fourth-highest in the league behind Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and Bijan Robinson. And he did it behind an offensive line that got scrambled by injuries later in the season. Despite that, Taylor was third in the league in yards before contact (859), which speaks to the work of the O-line, even after Matt Goncalves and Mark Glowinski were inserted. As dynamic as Taylor is, he’s not a third-down back, an unsure receiver and a less-than-enthusiastic blocker in pass protection. Chris Ballard desperately needs to upgrade his running back room and bring in a third-down back. When he was healthy, or not being benched, Anthony Richardson gave the Colts a dangerous rushing attack, finishing with 499 yards, a 5.8 yard-per-carry average. After the benching, Steichen took more advantage of Richardson’s running abilities. About time.

Grade: B+

RUN DEFENSE

Here’s all you need to know about this group: The Colts led the NFL in missed tackles, and by a pretty healthy margin. Nobody in the league dumped more money into the defensive line than the Colts did, and the payoff was distressing, to say the least. You would think a team with DeForest Buckner, Grover Stewart and Zaire Franklin populating the middle of the defense would produce better results. “Since I’ve been a Colt, it’s been our worst year defensively, for sure,” Buckner said. “There were times I feel like we were 11 individuals out there playing football. It didn’t look like a unit out there at times.” The Colts ranked 24^th against the run. Not even close to good enough.

Grade: D