After another lost season, Colts face another crossroads: ‘There’s no vision here’

Back in July, the boss brimmed with his trademark optimism.

“It’s the best team we’ve fielded in a while,” Jim Irsay boasted. Weeks later, during a preseason game, the Indianapolis Colts’ 65-year-old owner spelled out his hopes for the coming season. “I think we have the kind of football team that can really make a difference and go beyond just making the playoffs, but winning playoff games.”

For a man who has never shied away from speaking his mind — be it on social media, in postgame scrums outside the locker room or in late-night calls to local reporters — Irsay has largely been invisible of late. No X posts of consequence. No state of the union videos from inside his office or outside his private jet. No mention of “all chips in,” probably because the chips were never really all-in to begin with.

On Sunday, for the second time in four seasons, the Colts sealed their playoff fate with a humiliating loss to the worst team in football. Three years ago, it happened in Jacksonville, where Jaguars fans showed up in clown masks to mock the home team on the final Sunday of the season, then watched them roll the Colts 26-11. Irsay was so irate that by the third quarter, he was asking confidants what it would take to rid himself of quarterback Carson Wentz’s contract.

Four days ago in East Rutherford, N.J., the two-win Giants lit up Irsay’s team for 45 points, the most New York has scored in nine years. The loss cemented Indianapolis’ fourth straight season without a playoff berth and sixth straight without a playoff win. The Colts haven’t won the AFC South — as wide-open a division as there is in the NFL — in 10 years.

“We sh— the bed,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said in the aftermath.

“The standard has to be raised,” running back Jonathan Taylor added.

“We just gotta do something different,” wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said. “I don’t know what that is, but — something.”

At the middle of it all is the general manager who built this roster and has repeatedly defended an approach that has netted a 61-69-1 record in eight seasons. “If it gets me fired, so be it,” Chris Ballard said in August. He believed his team was ready to compete. He was wrong. Again.

Irsay has long stood up for his GM, whom he once compared to Michael Jordan, believing strongly in Ballard’s ability to build through the draft. “I think a lot of Chris,” the owner said in 2022. “Young GMs make mistakes. He’s been up against it.”

But Ballard is no longer a young GM. And for Irsay, a man who’s always selling hope — in many respects, he’s the biggest Colts fan out there — there is little left. Fans are fed up, exhausted by false promises and underwhelming seasons. Ballard’s approach has grown stale. After a promising debut in 2023, head coach Shane Steichen regressed this year both as a play caller and franchise figurehead; his refusal to answer direct questions during news conferences created multiple PR messes.

Then there’s the 22-year-old franchise quarterback who tapped out of a divisional game in Houston because, he admitted afterward, he was “tired.” Anthony Richardson’s injuries, inaccuracy from the pocket and two-game benching have raised serious questions about his ability to become Indianapolis’ long-term answer at the position. For now, according to a team source, the Colts plan to keep Richardson under center in 2025 in hopes he continues to develop.

But who will be calling the shots above him? Are Ballard and Steichen’s fates tied together?

Irsay has yet to speak on the matter, and if the past is a prelude, that usually means change is coming.

“Everyone knows when you’re going in the right direction,” the owner said two years back. “Even if you’re 6-11, you can tell. That’s what I wanna see and feel.”

In a season full of storms, more could be coming. Over the past few months, conversations with team and league sources, many of whom were granted anonymity in order to speak openly without fear of reprisal, painted a picture of a fractured franchise stuck in a cycle of mediocrity since the night Andrew Luck walked out the door.

That was nearly six years ago. Irsay’s team still doesn’t know where it’s going.

“There’s no vision,” one veteran Colts player said. “From the top down — from the front office, to the coaches, to the players — no one is ever on the same page, and every year at the end, we’re sitting here losing. If you look at the best teams in the league, they all have a vision, and they commit to it. The Chiefs keep winning because they have a vision. The Lions turned things around because they have a vision.

“There’s no vision here.”

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After the shock of Luck’s retirement wore off, the future came into focus. It was August 2019, and for the first time in 20 years, the Colts didn’t have a plan at quarterback.

“We’re going to draft one every year,” Ballard told his scouts the following spring.

So while the team churned through veteran stopgaps at the position to varying degrees of disappointment — Philip Rivers in 2020 being the lone exception — the Colts took successive Day 3 swings in the draft, hoping to hit.

In 2020 Ballard wanted Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, whom he graded as a third-round talent. “There’s something about this guy,” Ballard kept telling the room. Problem was, Eagles GM Howie Roseman felt the same way and took Hurts in the second round. Sixty-nine spots later, the Colts drafted a quarterback for the first time in eight years. Then-coach Frank Reich pushed for Washington’s Jacob Eason, a relatively raw prospect with a rocket arm, after the two hit it off during a pre-draft visit.

But Eason never made a regular-season start in Indianapolis. Two years later, he lost his job to Sam Ehlinger, a less-talented but more polished prospect out of Texas whom Ballard grabbed in the sixth round in 2021. Irsay pushed Ehlinger into the lineup during the disastrous 2022 season, but by the end of that campaign — one that began with Matt Ryan at the helm — the Colts found themselves in a familiar spot: aimless at the most important position on the field.

Ballard’s failure to find an answer at quarterback was costing the franchise. Stellar seasons from linebacker Shaquille Leonard, Buckner and Taylor, among others, were being wasted because the Colts couldn’t find stability on offense. Or, in some cases, even competency.

“Taking (a quarterback) will get y’all off my ass for a little bit, but the second that guy doesn’t play well? I’m gonna be the first one run out of the building,” Ballard vented after the 2020 season. “I promise you, we get the importance of the quarterback position.”

But he never got it right. And while Ballard has found success in the draft — something that has always endeared him to Irsay — the Colts’ top talent came at the wrong positions. Quenton Nelson has made three All-Pro teams at guard. Before a debilitating back injury, Leonard was an elite off-ball linebacker. Taylor was undeniably the league’s best running back in 2021.

The Colts have little to show for it.

No elite edge rusher since Robert Mathis in 2013. No true No. 1 receiver. Middling tight ends the past few years.

Ballard’s drafted some great players. He’s also failed to build a great team.

A frustrated fan base has been watching the same story on repeat: The Colts draft reasonably well, remain prudent in free agency, pay solid players solid money, underachieve in the regular season and narrowly miss the playoffs.

The gamble on Richardson, whom the Colts took fourth in the 2023 draft, was both necessary and justified. Irsay would later say the Colts would’ve taken him first overall if they had the chance. And had he not been there, Irsay added, the pick would’ve been Kentucky’s Will Levis, who ultimately tumbled out of the first round.

The Colts knew Richardson’s development was going to take time. He was 20 years old. He’d started just 13 games in college, where his completion percentage was a dismal 54.7. “Ten years ago, he’s not a first-round pick,” said one league source. “Five years ago, he’s not a first-round pick.” Assistant GM Ed Dodds was initially skeptical, calling Richardson’s one season as a starter at Florida “a roller coaster,” though he later came around on the quarterback.

Ballard had been preaching patience for years. Now he stressed it. “He’s not going to be Superman from Day 1,” the GM said of the new face of the franchise.

Over the next year-plus, the team would learn Richardson was as raw as they come. “The preparation stuff isn’t there yet. He just doesn’t know,” said one NFL talent evaluator.

“A good kid but naïve to what it takes to be a pro QB,” another added.

None of it should have been a surprise. Asked in March 2023 about where Richardson would need to improve most at the next level, Florida head coach Billy Napier offered a telling response: “Growing as a leader. Having conviction … with his voice, speaking with clarity … to be kind of the standard-bearer for the entire organization.”

One scout who studied Richardson in the draft was surprised to learn he was voted team captain after his first training camp. “They put a C on his chest, which is not him,” the scout said.

Entering the 2023 season, the Colts added veteran Gardner Minshew, who could start while Richardson acclimated to the pro game. Privately, Irsay wanted Richardson to play. After just one preseason game, Steichen made the call: the rookie was named the starter.

A year later, Ballard would come to question the decision, wondering if the young passer would have benefited more from watching and waiting. Because 10 starts into the QB’s career, Steichen sent Richardson to the bench.

“I wish we hadn’t played him as a rookie,” Ballard told The Athletic last month.

The Colts needed to clean up Steichen’s mess. Hours after Richardson was ruled out of last week’s game against the Giants, a team source contacted local reporters to clear the air the coach had filled with a smokescreen all week.

The source revealed that Richardson wasn’t just “really sore” with back and foot injuries, as Steichen said. The quarterback was dealing with severe back spasms, resulting in a “lack of mobility and movement.”

Translation: Richardson wasn’t quitting on the season or his team, which at the time still had a shot to make the playoffs. He’d missed practice all week. He couldn’t play.

“I should’ve said spasms,” Steichen admitted after the Colts’ loss. “It was soreness/spasms.”

On Wednesday, Richardson revealed that last week’s back pain was so severe he “couldn’t even stand up.” An MRI revealed “a disc thing” that the quarterback said “might be chronic,” though he doesn’t think he’ll need surgery. Richardson’s status for Sunday’s season finale against the Jaguars remains uncertain.

The episode wasn’t the first time Steichen’s reticence to share information left his young QB exposed. After benching Richardson in late October, Steichen refused to explain the decision other than to say Richardson was going through “a process” and that he believed Joe Flacco gave the team “the best chance to win now.”

Asked if his players were on board with the decision, Steichen demurred, saying “I can’t speak for our team.” He wouldn’t even commit to Richardson ever playing for the Colts again. It wasn’t until two weeks later, after Richardson was thrust back into the lineup following back-to-back flops from Flacco, that Steichen explained himself. Sort of.

“It’s the attention to detail in everything he does. From the classrooms to the walk-throughs to practice to the weight room, all those little things, it’s just gotta be at a higher standard,” the coach said. “He’s shown strides. He really has.”

What Steichen didn’t say: Flacco had been so awful there was simply no way he could keep playing him. While the coach flip-flopped, several players privately questioned the direction of the franchise.

“They were trying to hold (Richardson) accountable, which is understandable, but then the guy they put in wasn’t the guy either,” one Colts veteran said. “So when they went back to A.R., at that point it’s like, ‘OK, but what are we doing?’ That really affected the team.”

Multiple players met with Richardson privately to tell him he wasn’t meeting the standard, Buckner among them. “I signed an extension here because I believed in you,” Buckner told Richardson, according to The Athletic’s Jim Trotter. “But you’ve got to do your part.”

All of it — the benching, the waves of criticism, the harsh words from veteran teammates — appeared to resonate with Richardson, who around this time began reading James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” at Ehlinger’s suggestion. The third-string QB implored Richardson to reconfigure his “system” in order to maximize his potential.

In other words, put in more time. Commit.

“The guys ask me to do certain things,” Richardson said after being named the starter again. “Even if I didn’t feel like doing it, man, you gotta do it.”

Days later, he capped the best outing of his young career with a six-play, 70-yard game-winning drive to beat the Jets at MetLife Stadium, plowing through New York cornerback D.J. Reed on a designed run for the deciding score. It was one of Richardson’s three touchdowns that day, and he finished with a career-high 66.7 completion percentage.

In the locker room afterward, tears welled in his eyes.

“Lord knows, the last couple of weeks have been a little challenging mentally,” he said. “But I stuck with it.”

Richardson led another game-winning drive at New England two weeks later, convincing his teammates and some in the building that he’d turned a corner. “He’s a superstar in the making,” linebacker Zaire Franklin said.

Steichen started calling games differently, leaning more on Richardson’s ability as a runner. Before the benching, the Colts dialed up 3.3 designed QB runs per game; after Richardson returned to the lineup, the number jumped to 6.4. It begged the question: Even weighing the quarterback’s injuries — Richardson has missed 16 games in two seasons — why didn’t the team employ a more run-friendly offense to start the season?

Because, to this point, he remains too inconsistent from the pocket, especially on short-to-intermediate throws. Richardson’s completion percentage is a league-worst 47.7, though drops from his receiving corps and uneven line play have factored into that. His EPA per dropback is the second-worst in the league, behind only Levis, who was benched by the Titans earlier this season.

Two years into his career — through injury, criticism and the occasional highlight — Richardson is very much the same player he was at Florida.

Leave it to one of the franchise’s most famous alums to dish on the sorry state of his former team.

Pat McAfee, the former punter and now ubiquitous host of his namesake midday show on ESPN, unloaded on the Colts organization after Sunday’s loss to the Giants. In a lengthy message posted on X, McAfee spoke to what he sees as a “cultural issue” inside the franchise.

“A blind person could see the red flags on this team,” he wrote.

He went off regarding Richardson’s tap-out in Houston: “Somehow A.R. thought it was OK to do that. That’s a locker room issue … that’s an indicator of a loser attitude radiating thru (sic) a building that was built by greats.”

He ripped the veterans on the roster. “Your unwarranted arrogance, laziness, and lack of professionalism has led you to ANOTHER early vacation … which is probably what most of you entitled bums have been hoping for.”

And he questioned their commitment. “Late to meetings, NEVER happens on good teams. Late to/skipping treatment, NEVER happens on good teams.”

Steichen and Buckner did little to dispel those accusations in the days after the loss to the Giants.

“I think with any team, not everyone’s gonna be on time every time,” the coach said. “But there is accountability, and guys are held to a standard, and that is talked about in-house.”

“We’ve had some issues where we haven’t had people being accountable and stuff like that,” Buckner admitted. “And we’ve called people on it. I mean, that’s what happens (on) almost every team.”

Not the good ones, as McAfee said. The Colts’ issues have lingered for months. Seven weeks ago, after a loss to the Bills, veteran cornerback Kenny Moore II called out the team’s preparation and intensity. “I don’t think the urgency is there,” he said. “I don’t think the details are there. I don’t think the effort is there.”

Moore was right, and the Colts’ most recent late-season collapse revealed this team was never a legitimate playoff contender to begin with. In Week 15 at Denver, Taylor dropped the ball inches from the goal line on what would’ve been a 41-yard touchdown run, a mistake that swung the game in an instant. Then came the embarrassment in East Rutherford last week.

Franklin, a five-year captain and one of the team leaders the Colts urged Richardson to learn from after he arrived in Indianapolis, had begged for the matchup on his podcast earlier this season.

“I wanna play a team I know we gonna spank, like the Giants or some sh—,” Franklin said in October. “I wanna play a team that ain’t good with a big market. I’m trying to get my rank up … Gimme the 4-11 Giants.”

The Giants — actually 2-13 entering Sunday — are now 3-13 after spanking the Colts.

“Obviously, something I shouldn’t have said,” Franklin said Wednesday. “Poor choice by me. … I just gotta be better with my words moving forward.”

McAfee hasn’t been the only former Colt to express his disgust. Former Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday, who played a role in the franchise’s downward spiral as Irsay’s out-of-left-field choice for interim coach in 2022, weighed in. “I didn’t like the tap-out,” Saturday said of Richardson on “The Domonique Foxworth Show” back in November. “As an offensive lineman, my QB ain’t coming out because he’s freaking tired.”

Saturday’s quarterback was Peyton Manning, who, along with a host of future Hall of Famers, used to set the standard in Indianapolis. The Colts were a model organization back then, contenders for a championship year after year.

It’s what Irsay’s been chasing for a decade. It’s never felt further away.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Justin Casterline, Michael Hickey / Getty Images)