Colts 2019 season awards: LVP

We looked at the best of 2019 earlier today. Now we look at the player who underperformed the most this season.

It was easy to identify the best performer of 2019. Marlon Mack was the only answer because he was the only player to consistently provide offense. The worst performer is a little harder to find because the whole team underperformed from expectations.

The player who played the worst compared to his expectations was Adam Vinatieri. There’s no other player whose poor play directly affected the team’s results as much as his. He missed a total of 14 kicks in just 12 games of action this season, costing the team multiple wins.

Vinatieri missed kicks that were crucial against the Chargers, Dolphins, Steelers, and the Titans. All of those games were losses because of points left on the board by Vinatieri. He couldn’t be relied on, and it got to a point where the Colts had to work out other kickers.

Apparently he had been dealing with a knee injury since training camp. That injury probably affected his ability to repeat his kicking motion and make kicks consistently. But if that was the case, he should have sat games at the beginning of the year to let it heal.

That injury eventually put him on season-ending IR, but it shouldn’t have taken that long. In the end, Vinatieri cost the team a chance at the playoffs, and ultimately his trust in the fans.

He has a chance of coming back too, which isn’t exactly ideal. Chase McLaughlin was re-signed to a one-year deal, so we will see what the team decides to do at kicker next year.