I think Flacco gets us into the playoffs and then retires....AR and Steichen meet and AR vows to work his ass off in the off season and come back ready to lead this team....Colts draft Kurtis Rourke in the 3rd round, AR shits the bed so bad that Rourke is inserted as the starter by week 6.....A STAR IS BORN!

I hope the offense explodes, but Bradley's piss poor defense holds us back, and he gets fired.

The defense has actually done really well this year considering the circumstances, and I noticed they adjusted the gameplan against Houston to do what GB did successfully against them, with great results. Given the major injuries on defense and that they've been on the field more than any other defense in the NFL, it wouldn't be surprising for them to have much worse results. I think the Colts are a low end playoff team if Flacco performs well, but likely not one that makes it past wild card weekend.

Hopefully AR takes whatever time he's on the bench and uses it to learn, study, and do whatever it takes to fix the minor flaws that are holding him back from success.

8 years of Ballard and the Colt's are where they are when he took over !! I say blow the whole fucking thing up !!!!!! Trade the guys that don't want to be here, get a GM that's not afraid to use free agency to help build a roster, and if AR is not his guy, start looking now for someone who is. 8 fucking wasted years !!!!!!!!!

My two cents is that the Colts are not a playoff team even with Flacco starting the rest of the season.

Everyone points to the fact that we have lost 4 games by a combined 18 points and that we "are close."

But they forget that we have won 4 games by a combined 17 points as well.

Statistically, we are closer to being 0 - 8 than we are to 8 - 0....sure, by one point but....

Flacco is not a giant in this game anymore if he ever was. While better than AR, he is not a top 15 QB in the league......heck, he may not be a top 25 QB in the league. He is competent but not a world beater. If he is the starter, then defenses will start dialing in packages specific to him and attack his known weaknesses and he will not be as effective as he has been in relief.

This move makes zero sense unless the Colts are 100% done with the AR experience in Indy. We are not a "win now" team and everyone knows it....except perhaps a Jim Irsay who will be handing over the reigns of the team to one of his daughters soon. He may want one more "glory season" to ride off into the sunset with. It might set the franchise back again but all signs point to this being his decision.

Flacco's weaknesses will be exposed Sunday night. I have no hope whatsoever that he will take the Colt's to the playoffs.

That's a pretty big stretch. While they had a bunch of injuries they were still a shit show for the first 5 weeks of the season. They did have a good game @Hou, but the Texans were without Collins and without Diggs for ~half the game. You can't really put much stock in the Tits and Phins games b/c the Tits O is a shit show, and the Phins without Tua are historically bad only scoring 2 TDs in 19 quarters w/out him (one of which was against our D).

Agree this has Jim wanting to see a playoff team before he's gone written all over it. Or maybe there's been a power struggle going on between Steichen and Ballard over AR where Steichen wanted to stick w/ Flacco after AR was back from his hip injury but Ballard forcing him to go back to AR.

12th in points allowed despite being put in so many bad positions by the offense, dealing with major injuries, and being on the field more than any other defense both in terms of TOP and plays. They're averaging nearly an extra minute and an extra play per game on the field than the second to last team. That seems pretty good to me.

flacco has said he wants to play for as long as he can

That just means he hasn't decided for sure if he wants to retire....I think this is his last year.