Following a Week 2 loss to the Green Bay Packers to drop to 0-2 on the season, the Indianapolis Colts took quite the tumble down ESPN’s weekly power rankings.
The Colts entered the regular season at No. 18 in ESPN’s rankings. After an opening loss to the Houston Texans, they mildly fell to spot No. 20. However, following their most recent performance, the Colts now sit at No. 28, dropping a full eight spots in the rankings.
The only teams lower than the Colts are Tennessee, Denver, the New York Giants, and Carolina Panthers.
I imagine contributing to this slide was not only the all-around poor performance from the Colts, but the fact that their loss to Green Bay came with Malik Willis at quarterback, who had only been with the team for less than three weeks at that time.
Determining these rankings for ESPN are more than 80 writers, editors, and TV personalities evaluating each team’s performance and then ranking them from 1-32.
An 0-2 start is a difficult one to dig out of when it comes to making the playoffs, or at least that’s what the last 30-plus years tells us, but doing so for the Colts begins with a much improved run defense.
When struggling to slow an opponent’s running game, there is so much that also goes wrong elsewhere. A few of these items include the defense wearing down, the opening up of passing game opportunities in short down-and-distance situations, limited possessions for the offense which can result in difficulty finding a rhythm, and likely playing from behind, making it difficult to lean on the run game at times.
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did because the point is that the negative trickle-down effect of a poor run defense can be devastating.
There are certainly issues elsewhere for this Colts team. The secondary still has its question marks, the passing game has lacked consistency, and Jonathan Taylor needs more touches.
However, all of that takes a back seat until the run game woes get fixed. And the difficulty with that, is that there isn’t just one solution for that problem. It’s coaching, it’s the play-calls, it’s the players–everything has to get better.