As the offseason begins for the Indianapolis Colts, they will be evaluating the roster in order to determine what kind of moves they need to make in the coming months. That includes Carson Wentz and the quarterback position.
Wentz is currently under contract through the 2024 season. However, the lack of production and consistency during the second half of the season has many wondering what the future holds for the 29-year-old quarterback.
When asked about whether Wentz would be the quarterback in 2022, head coach Frank Reich was non-committal.
“As far as Carson (Wentz), again I mentioned this the other day just with individuals, we loved the team we had this year. We knew everyone we brought in this year we expected to play winning football. Next year’s roster will be next year’s roster,” Reich told reporters Monday. “I’m not going to evaluate or talk about any – I don’t want to just open it up with one player and then start talking about all of them.”
This kind of answer is to be expected. Reich isn’t one to divulge details of upcoming roster moves and given his relationship with Wentz, we shouldn’t expect Reich to say that the Colts are moving on from him.
That said, it was a peculiar answer if we’re going to compare it to recent offseasons. For instance, when Reich was asked last offseason if Philip Rivers would be the quarterback in 2021, the head coach replied with this:
“Yes, as I sit here right now, yes I want Philip Rivers to be my starting quarterback next year.”
During his year-end press conference following the 2019 season, Reich had this to say about the future of then-starter Jacoby Brissett:
“Yeah, I look back at the year with Jacoby (Brissett) and like I’ve said there was a lot of good stuff. Does he need to get better? Yeah, he needs to get better,” Reich said. “Everybody needs to get better so we will go through the evaluation process with Jacoby just like we will go through it with everybody else. He’ll be held accountable just like everybody else will be held accountable.”
We shouldn’t look too much into these quotes. Much has changed even from the offseason when Rivers retired. But it does feel, at least, a little different when it comes to the conviction Reich has with Wentz. To be honest, our expectation should have been that he would answer that question fully backing Wentz—as he has for the majority of the 2021 season.
But it was plenty more non-committal than that.
The most likely scenario is that Wentz will be the starting quarterback in 2022. Even if the Colts have plans to move on after that, there simply may not be better options for the upcoming season.
That said, we should keep an open mind to any kind of change this offseason as the Colts are coming off of arguably their most disappointing season in a decade.
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