INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts have the NFL’s highest-paid offensive line, a unit that is supposed to be the foundation of everything that happens on offense.
The draft horses who clear room for Jonathan Taylor to do what he does best. The wall that was supposed to give Matt Ryan the security in the pocket that he didn’t have in Atlanta, giving a 37-year-old
But the NFL’s highest-paid offensive line has been the team’s weak link instead.
Ryan has been sacked 12 times, the third-worst mark in the NFL. Only Washington’s Carson Wentz and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow have been sacked more often so far.
Taylor is somehow averaging 4.7 yards per carry, but he’s had precious little room to run against defenses stacked up to stop him, and the Colts have often struggled to get any kind of push in critical short-yardage situations, as Sunday’s second failed fourth-and-1 showed.
Colts head coach Frank Reich largely chalked up the lack of explosiveness in the run game to the way teams are playing Indianapolis early.
“Every defense comes in, and they get to play J.T.,” Reich said. “All eyes are on Jonathan Taylor. It’s going to bring a different level of focus, it’s going to make it a little bit harder. … That’s the challenge we’ve got to meet.”
The heat on Ryan is a bigger problem.
Protecting the passer has never been a crippling issue under Reich.
Not like this.
The Colts have finished in the top 10 in the NFL in sacks allowed in all four seasons Reich has been in charge of the offense.
When Reich has been working with quarterbacks who know how to get the ball out of their hands quickly, Indianapolis has been downright elite. The Colts finished first in the NFL in sacks allowed with Andrew Luck in 2018 and came in second with Philip Rivers in 2019.
Both Luck (2.63 seconds) and Rivers (2.52 seconds) got the ball out of their hands before the rush could get home.
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The two times the Colts had quarterbacks who held the ball a little longer — Jacoby Brissett got the ball out in 2.93 seconds in 2019, and Carson Wentz finished at 2.83 seconds in 2021 — Indianapolis still finished ninth in the NFL in sacks allowed.
That track record is part of the reason Ryan was excited to come to the Colts in the offseason.
But he’s been getting hit like no Indianapolis starter has ever been hit under Reich before. Prior to this season, the Colts had given up five sacks in a single game just three times under Reich, never in the same season, and one of those games was a game Rivers had to play against Pittsburgh without either of his starting tackles.
Ryan has been sacked five times and hit more than 10 times in back-to-back games.
What makes it worse is that it happened against Kansas City on a day that Ryan was getting the ball out of his hand faster than ever before. The week before, against Jacksonville, Ryan’s time to throw was an ugly 3.08 seconds, the second-longest time in the league, likely because the absence of Michael Pittman Jr. and Alec Pierce made it hard for Ryan to find open receivers right away.
With Pittman Jr. and Pierce back against the Chiefs, the Colts used more quick game, and Ryan’s average time from snap to throw was 2.52 seconds, the sixth-fastest time in the league.
He still got hammered.
“There’s a couple of uncharacteristic things happening here or there,” Reich said. “It’s not any one person or any one thing. It’s a combination of a couple of different things. We’ll get them cleaned up and get them right.”
The Colts have two new starters on the offensive line, left tackle Matt Pryor and right guard Danny Pinter, and although Pryor has had intermittent troubles, particularly against speed, Pinter has struggled in every game so far.
Pinter played well in relief of Ryan Kelly at center the past two seasons, but that success hasn’t translated to right guard. With Pinter playing poorly next to him, right tackle Braden Smith has also struggled more than ever. Kelly has also struggled,
Offensive line coach Chris Strausser tinkered with an alternate offensive line in training camp a couple of times — rookie Bernhard Raimann at left tackle, Quenton Nelson at left guard, Kelly at center, Smith at right guard and Pryor at right tackle — but Reich stepped around a question about potential personnel changes on Monday.
Raimann was held out of Sunday’s game with a left ankle injury, complicating the picture.
“That has not been discussed,” Reich said. “We’re always rotating guys through at practice, cross-training guys, but there’s been no discussion on that to this point.”
Reich is not the type of coach to announce personnel changes before they happen or to call out players individually.
What he did say was that one area of pass protection bothered him more than any other when he watched tape of Sunday’s win over Kansas City.
“When I watched the tape of yesterday, the one-on-one matchups, I felt like our protection was pretty good,” Reich said. “The fundamentals, the technique, the guys blocking one-on-one, it wasn’t flawless, but there was a lot of good stuff.”
What troubled Reich more was the Colts’ inability to handle the blitzes and pressures the Chiefs dialed up to get to Ryan.
“I felt like there were more free rushers yesterday than I felt like I’ve seen in a long time against us,” Reich said. “We’ve got to get that cleaned up. I know what the answer is; we just have to get it done. We have to coach better, we have to communicate better, and we have to play better. It’s always going to be that combination of things. … When we say 'communication errors,' sometimes it covers a variety of things. You guys are asking the exact right questions. It’s uncharacteristic of what we do, and we’ve got to get it corrected.”
Reich has always placed an enormous amount of importance on handling blitzes and other pressures, i.e. stunts and twists.
The Colts have an entire meeting dedicated to the subject each week, going over the team’s standard operating procedure, its set of rules and guidelines for setting the team’s protections, and tailor it to each team’s pressure packages.
Ryan and Kelly bear the chief responsibility on the field for setting the protections.
“This is something that we take a lot of pride in,” Reich said. “That’s why it’s a little discouraging. We have to collectively pull that together and find ways to be more consistent there.”
An experienced quarterback often helps the Colts to recognize blitzes.
When teams brought pressure against Indianapolis last season, Wentz sometimes had trouble identifying them, a problem the Colts expected Ryan to help fix this season, given his knowledge of the game.
From what Reich said on Monday, Ryan has handled his responsibility well.
“A guy like Matt who’s got a lot of experience, it’s not a problem for him, seeing it or understanding it, ” Reich said. “Matt’s been pretty good on it. Maybe in the three games he’s had one or two that he’d like to have back, but he’s been pretty good with it.”
That places the blame squarely up front — and possibly with the running backs — and although Reich isn’t revealing exactly what the problems are, he repeatedly said the same thing.
The Colts have to get it fixed.
Until they do, the Indianapolis offense doesn’t have a chance.
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