Following an abysmal performance by the Indianapolis Colts offense on Sunday night football, head coach Shane Steichen was asked if Joe Flacco will remain the starting quarterback.
“Right now, yes,” Steichen said after the game via ESPN’s Stephen Holder.
With Anthony Richardson having completed a league-low 44 percent of his passes this season, the Colts made the decision this past week to bench him in favor of Flacco.
As Steichen said earlier in the week, Flacco gives the Colts the best chance to win. However, at least in this one-game sample size against Minnesota, that wasn’t the case.
Against what is a good Vikings’ defense, the Colts’ offense mustered only six points–a season-low. In addition to that, they had no red zone possessions, just 13 first downs, 227 yards of offense, and averaged -0.35 EPA/play–all of which were season-lows.
The struggles in the run game coupled with a disjointed passing game resulted in the Colts’ offense facing numerous second and third-and-long situations.
On these obvious passing downs, the defense has the upper-hand and that proved to be far too much for the Colts’ passing game to overcome against the disguise-heavy Vikings, who throw a variety of looks at opposing offenses to cause confusion.
When the Colts made the decision to start Flacco, it wasn’t made out to be a short-term move. Instead, from the sounds of it, the Colts were prepared to ride out the rest of the season with Flacco at the helm, and at least for now, based on what Steichen said post-game, that will remain the plan.
Although, as we all know, things can change.