The Indianapolis Colts continue their push for the playoffs in Week 15 as they host the Mitchell Trubisky led Pittsburgh Steelers at Lucas Oil Stadium on a late Saturday afternoon game. The Colts struggled in all three phases of their Week 14 game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The offense was anemic, the defense struggled to slow down Cincinnati’s star position players, and the special teams struggled after delivering their best performance of the year the week before.
Even after that, Indianapolis can still make it into the postseason, but the team needs to be better. Lets discuss the key of areas of needed improvement if the Colts want keep their playoff hopes alive.
3. Colts need to get healthy
This needs to be priority number one for this team. The team was without star running back Jonathan Taylor, starting linebacker EJ Speed and rookie cornerback JuJu Brents last week. Braden Smith continues to battle some nagging injuries as well. While both Smith and Taylor will miss this week’s game against Pittsburgh, we will finally see the return of Speed and Brents.
The return of Brents will be welcomed as the secondary continues to struggle and Brents continues to miss key snaps in his rookie campaign. It does appear that tight end Jelani Woods will not be returning this season with his hamstring injury, after having a setback.
While getting Blake Freeland some quality reps is helpful for the long-term success of this football team, during a playoff run we always need the best players out there contributing to the success of the football team. When Smith is out on the field, he brings more production to the position than Freeland can. Speed will bring some leadership back to the linebacker core since the Colts cut ties with Shaquille Leonard and Brents will not only bring back the depth, but he is the most talented of the young defensive backs.