Indianapolis Colts: How short is road to the playoffs in 2018?

The Indianapolis Colts obviously need Andrew Luck healthy to be competitive in 2018, so how short is their road to the playoffs? The AFC South is damn competitive, but the Colts fortunes point straight up.

No matter how poor or successful a team’s season was, there are always major offseason questions on the front burner. The NFL turns over too much for even the best teams to advance a calendar year unscathed. Let’s continue the team-by-team overview with the Indianapolis Colts.

Despite a disappointing defense and disappearing offensive weapons from 2017, the Colts prospects look strong. They’ve retooled and reloaded for 2018. Andrew Luck must be healthy, so how short is their road to the playoffs?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the Indianapolis Colts in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

The defense for Indianapolis hasn’t been good in a couple of years now. It was a bottom-tier unit in DVOA each of the past two seasons. The skill players on offense are also disappearing. Outside of TY Hilton, not a single reliable player exists on the depth chart. Can Eric Ebron ever live up to his old draft status? How many undrafted free agent wide receivers is too many? What type of workload can Marlon Mack and Nyheim Hines stomach?

With an underachieving offensive line filled with yet another first-round pick to go along with all these major issues, it is no wonder that the Colts were super bad at football last season and earned the third overall pick in the draft. Oddly enough, though, none of that even matters! This is still a playoff team, in my mind, if Andrew Luck is healthy. He’s that good. And if he’s not healthy, the rest of the roster hardly matters this season.

Everything hinges on Luck, and we have zero idea what his status is. He was supposed to return from a shoulder injury last training camp. He never did, had surgery, and missed the entire season. Now, again, he is expected to return for camp. But as recently as a few weeks ago, he still hadn’t even thrown a football.

There are two parts to this Colts question. One, do you agree that this is a playoff-caliber team with a healthy Luck? We all have short memories as sports fans, but Luck was essentially peerless for three years running in terms of young signal-callers you would want to start a franchise with. He led the NFL in touchdowns and finished seventh in yards per attempt and quarterback rating as a 25-year old.

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It isn’t hard for me to imagine Hilton, Jack Doyle and a running back committee exploding with Luck at the controls, especially with Quenton Nelson anchoring the line. Defense should still be an issue, but the team spent an awful lot of draft capital on that side of the ball. It drafted three defenders in the second round alone.

Two, if Luck is not healthy, what does Indy do? Jacoby Brissett showed some signs as Luck’s replacement last year. The team also signed Brad Kaaya as perhaps a long-term project. With no Luck, the season has to be another complete write-off, right? But then the question resorts to drafting a quarterback atop the 2019 draft. It is an ugly scenario for a roster without many blue-chip pieces.

I suppose there is also a third option; one that may be the most likely outcome of all. Luck does indeed return to the field, but he is not the same player he once was. He lacks arm strength and looks ordinary, or worse. Then, it would become obvious how lacking this roster is. The Colts wouldn’t sniff the postseason, and the question about the future would be even harder to answer. I’m hoping for a healthy Luck, but a clean break from him may end up being preferable than a diminished version. If you’re curious, the Colts would only be on the hook for $12.8 million after this season of his three year and $75 million remaining contract.

Dan Salem:

When Andrew Luck returns to play football for the Indianapolis Colts, I believe he will do so at 100 percent. That being said, I’m not confident in this happening for week one of the 2018 season. Luck will return this season, but it might be mid-October rather than during the preseason in August. Unfortunately for the Colts and their fans, this team is not making the playoffs no matter when he comes back to the field.

Despite Indianapolis’ best efforts to remain playoff ready upon Luck’s return to action, they could not control one critical piece of their mission, their AFC competition. The Jacksonville Jaguars are the best team in the AFC South right now and because their success is predicated on great defense, I see little reason for that to change in 2018.

The Tennessee Titans should remain above average and the Houston Texans with a healthy Deshaun Watson are in a similar position as the Colts. That is just in their own division! A look around the AFC provides even more tough competition for those prized wildcard spots. What about Indianapolis’ schedule you might ask? Things don’t look any better there either.

The Colts face the NFC East and AFC East this season. This leaves few easy games on an already difficult schedule, because this team’s divisional foes are very good. If Andrew Luck immediately plays at his Pro Bowl level of before, then the Colts will be in every game this season. They will need excellent defense to win more than 50 percent of the time, but they will be very competitive. Yet my money is on Tom Brady, Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott, Derek Carr and Eli Manning getting it done when they play the Colts. Let’s talk best case scenario with a dose of realistic expectations.

Let us assume Indianapolis splits all of its divisional games this season. That leaves the Colts at 3-3 thus far. Let us also assume they beat each team on its schedule who had a losing record last year. That brings Indianapolis up to 9-3, which is darn good, having won all the games against previously weak opponents. I’m giving them losses to New England and Philadelphia, making them 9-5 thus far. Assuming every team is like they were in 2017, which won’t happen but still, that means the Colts must beat either Buffalo or Dallas to get ten wins and a shot at the playoffs.

More AFC South: Can Watson and Watt Return Healthy for Texans?

The Bills might be bad, but one of our other teams like the Giants or Raiders might be good, so this is a pretty solid argument. I enjoyed breaking down the Colts schedule in this way, but I’m sorry, it does not leave me feeling good about their chances. I made too many positive assumptions, predicated on them having an elite offense to begin with. I see improvement, but the playoffs appear another season away.