Colts earn a B-grade for their offseason from ESPN

The Indianapolis Colts post season is largely over, but have they done enough to retake the AFC South title? One ESPN analyst seems skeptical.

The Worldwide Leader in Sports are giving out grades for the offseason and the Colts have earned a solid ‘B’ from analyst Bill Barnwell. Barnwell grades out the entire AFC South in his piece, and all the teams get roughly the same grade (B’s across the board, but the Jags earned a B+).

Barnwell basically looks at what each team did right, wrong, and what’s next for the franchise. He starts off by praising the Colts for, in his words, not acting like the Colts anymore. That is, they didn’t spend big in free agency this time around. Barnwell cites the free agency swings from last season and how spectacularly they failed (specifically signing Andre Johnson and Trent Cole).

Here’s the issue with this assessment, it isn’t that the team made a conscious decision to build through the draft but rather that the situation is being dictated to them. They can’t afford to spend big anymore with the impeding Andrew Luck contract. You don’t get credit when you’re financially up against the wall.

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And as for all those big free agent spending sprees GM Ryan Grigson went on? They haven’t hurt the team financially. The one good thing Grigson has done is structure contracts that are easy for the team to get out of without being on the hook for a ton of money. Cutting Johnson was an easy financial move for the team and won’t hurt them going forward.

Barnwell also like that they let Coby Fleener walk, and will get a compensatory draft pick for it, and that they traded down in the draft to get more picks. The only issue with this is that these are the same talent evaluates who have whiffed on an awful lot of draft picks. Just look at the 2013 and 2014 draft classes (provided they’re still on the team). They’ve gotten just two starters out of those 12 picks. The 2015 class looks very promising, but it remains to be seen how those players will develop.

As for what went wrong with this Colts offseason? Here’s what Barnwell had to say:

"They retained both Grigson (and Chuck Pagano). It might be a little unfair to suggest that Grigson should have been fired, given how he did dramatically shift his tactics this offseason, but it’s also hard to argue that the Colts have done very much to surround Luck with talent during his time at the helm. They’ve had one of the biggest bargains in the league on their books over the past four seasons in what has almost surely been the easiest division in football, and they don’t have a ton to show for it."

We agree on this issue (except for the tactics, again, the decision is dictated to the Colts). There were also the reports (multiple reports, the same reports from dozens of people both locally and nationally) that Grigson meddled with the lineups and was generally involved in making decisions that should be left to the coach.

Grigson’s talent evaluation hasn’t been very good and there doesn’t seem to be an cohesion on what kind of team this is going to be. Coach Chuck Pagano wants one thing (run the ball, stop the run) while Grigson seems to want something that actually favors the team’s strengths. Maybe. The two clearly haven’t been on the same page for the past four seasons.

Barnwell doesn’t make as strong a case for firing Pagano, although there are plenty of reasons he should have been let go. Barnwell cites the Colts defensive DVOA as being better than advertised, but they’ve preyed on weak AFC South offenses and mediocre QBs outside the division. Anytime the Colts have faced a talented QB (Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, etc.) they’ve been soundly beaten. The Colts were only able to beat Peyton Manning the last two seasons because he was injured.

At the same time, the Colts haven’t had a lot of talent on defense. This side of the ball is old, slow, and lacks any playmakers. Vontae Davis had what should have been an All-Pro season in 2014, but struggled with injuries the following season. Mike Adams is great at being in the right place at the right time, but he’s also 35. Robert Mathis is also 35 and playing on an Achilles that’s been operated on 10 times.

"If you want to argue that the Colts should have fired Pagano, it’s going to revolve around that famously terrible fake punt against the Patriots (…) There wouldn’t have been many voices against firing Pagano if the Colts had done it in January, but I don’t think it was necessarily the wrong move to retain their head coach."

The fake punt was bad, but I’d fire Pagano more for his lack of game planning, getting blown out too often, not building an identity for the team, and his generally antiquated philosophy on football. The one thing Pagano had going for him was the adoration of the players. He is a very easy person to like and adore.

That said, there is a good chance the Colts are average or worse with Pagano and Grigson at the helm for another season. The roster seems more deficient now, especially in the wake of what the rest of the AFC South has done this offseason. This isn’t the same weak division anymore, and every outing against the South is going to be a much bigger challenge in 2016.

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