The Indianapolis Colts are preparing for their first preseason game Saturday against the Buffalo Bills where they will continue working on chemistry leading into the 2022 season.
With the preseason already here, the Colts were ranked 17th in the NFL in Touchdown Wire’s preseason power rankings, which was one spot behind the Tennessee Titans.
The 2021 Colts came into their regular-season finale looking for a postseason berth, and facing a Jacksonville Jaguars team still reeling from the Urban Meyer Experience. It should have been a walk. It was, but in the wrong direction. Indianapolis’ 26-11 loss, in which Carson Wentz took six sacks and gave up two turnovers — wasn’t just a season-ending disappointment. It bought about a full course correction that saw Wentz shipped off to the Washington Commanders, and Matt Ryan brought in from the Falcons to replace Wentz.
The Colts have tried and failed to solidify their quarterback situation ever since Andrew Luck’s bombshell retirement in 2019. Ryan might be the guy to take this team in hand in that regard. While he’s not quite what he has been at the peak of his career, he’s wickedly smart, relatively mistake-proof, and he’s worked well in just about every offensive system.
The Colts have just about everything else going for them to at least a pretty-good degree. With less quarterback variance in the building, maybe they can live up to expectations this time around.
The Colts have had a lot of optimism pushed their way throughout the offseason because of the moves they made in free agency and the draft. The additions of quarterback Matt Ryan, defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and cornerback Stephon Gilmore have made the transition well and appear to be upgrades that their positions.
There are still a lot of question marks the Colts will have to answer throughout the season, but they’ll be fighting for the top spot in the division for the first time since 2014.
We’ll see how far the Colts can go in 2022 but entering the preseason, Touchdown Wire has them ranked at No. 17.
[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbwdn1cy47y964q player_id=none image=https://coltswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
Like Colts Wire on Facebook
Follow Colts Wire on Twitter
Follow Kevin on Twitter (@KevinHickey11)
[pickup_prop id=”20769″]
[lawrence-related id=74070,74058,74037]
[listicle id=74075]