It sounds funny, doesn’t it? To say that a 3-5 team is alive in the playoff hunt midway through the season? Yet, here we are. The Colts who started 1-5, have won their last two and sit just two games out of a playoff spot behind the Texans.
The 1-5 Colts will be competing for the division title all the way through week 17 #BUFvsIND
— Matt Spirio (@MS_PerSources) October 21, 2018
Even at 1-5 playing Buffalo and Oakland, I never counted the Colts out and since they’ve checked both boxes. Keep in mind this isn’t me saying that the Colts are a big-time contender that everyone needs to watch out for. This is just my little PSA that’s letting everyone know that the Colts are more than alive in the AFC South.
So, let’s dive into it. I know it’d be easy to look at games against the Bengals, Texans, and Colts to say that the Colts could easily be 6-2 or 5-3 had those gone differently, but there’s no point in dwelling on past games when there are serious match-ups ahead.
Division Games
Following a Week 9 bye, the Colts will host Jacksonville at Lucas Oil with a chance to, not only improve to 4-5, but also pick up their first division win. As you’ll see in this outline the division games are the most important for Indy. At 3-5 the Colts stand tied for last in the division with the Titans and Jaguars, and should anyone run the table on division games, they’d be the likely favorite to represent the South in the playoffs.
So in highlighting other division games outside of Week 10, in Week 11 they host Tennessee, and in Weeks 13 and 14 they travel to Jacksonville and Houston, respectively. In those five division games, they’re going to need to be above .500, and most importantly, knock off Houston after failing to do so earlier this season in overtime.
The biggest key in games against the Jaguars is going to be takeaways. Indy has forced 16 takeaways, good for third in the league, while the Jags have turned the ball over 18 times, third-most in the league. If Darius Leonard and the Indy defense can get Andrew Luck a few more possessions, they should be able to beat Jacksonville, maybe twice.
Games against Tennessee will be a little tougher for the Colts. Tennessee has kept games close despite playing high-powered offenses like the Chargers and Eagles. The Titans’ defense is real, so again, the biggest key will be finding ways to fluster the Tennessee offense. If they can devise a game-plan that focuses on stopping the run and forcing Mariota, who’s thrown for less than 150 yards four times (I don’t care if he got banged up in some of those games), to beat them, they should have a chance.
Other Opportunities
They could win all four of those games, and they’d still be looking for games to make up on Houston. The easiest one to look at is the game against Houston themselves, but even outside of that there are multiple opportunities.
A big swing that the Colts could receive is if they could knock off the mighty 1-7 Giants, whose only win came against the Texans, while the Texans lose to the Eagles who are just now getting Carson Wentz back into his groove. Both of those games are slated for Week 16 at 1:00 PM EST and could make for an interesting finish in the South.
The only other place where the Colts could get some help without it coming for other teams in the division who’d pass them would be if Houston stumbles against any combination of Washington, the Jets, or Cleveland. I’ve explained that even if Houston were to handle those games and just drop a couple elsewhere they could still be in trouble, so that makes these games even more valuable. If Houston were to slip once or twice, it could allow the flawed Colts to lose to someone like Dallas or drop one of the aforementioned division games without falling way behind.
In Conclusion…
To basically sum up all of that speculation about what could happen, I’ll keep it simple. The Colts despite a bad defense have looked great on offense at times. With Luck, Marlon Mack, T.Y. Hilton, and the collection of tight ends led by Eric Ebron the sky is the limit
There’s a lot of football left to be played, specifically in the division. I said it at 1-5, I said it at 3-5, and I’ll keep saying it until the Colts are mathematically eliminated. The Colts have a legit shot to make the playoffs, and they’re far from dead.
Want to share your own thoughts or opinions with me? Hit me up on Twitter or Instagram @MS_PerSources.