Colts mid-season awards: Best offensive player

The Colts have played half of their games. Through those first 8 games, who was the best offensive player?

The offense wasn’t expected to do much after Andrew Luck retired. Frank Reich deserves an enormous amount of credit for how he has called games this season. He has allowed the offense to succeed despite losing their best offensive player.

As for who the best offensive player has been so far this season, it’s been Marlon Mack. It has had to be. The Colts have transformed into a nice running team. Although he has yet to put up numbers that mirrored his opening day effort of 174 yards, he has still been solid.

Up to this point, Mack has 679 yards and 3 touchdowns. He is on pace for over 1200 yards, which is great for today’s NFL. Mack has opened up the play action pass for Jacoby Brissett. The offensive line deserves some credit for Mack’s production, but he has done a lot on his own too.

Mack has done a great job using his vision to find cutback lanes. He has run much more patiently this year, and that has allowed him to get this many yards this early into the year. He has started to remind me of Le’Veon Bell in the way he runs the football.

Mack needs to continue to be a focal point of this offense in the second half of the year. He has to be better than he has been, especially if Brissett ends up missing a few weeks with the sprain in his MCL.

If the first half is any indication, Mack will continue to be strong for a team that needs him desperately to perform.