If you haven’t heard yet, the Indianapolis Colts lost their star quarterback for the next month or so. Probably one of the toughest quarterbacks to play in recent memory finished out the Denver Broncos game with a lacerated kidney after taking an unnecessary hit due to a lack of sliding. All you had to do was slide Andrew…just slide. Okay moving on. So with Andrew Luck out for most of the rest of the season the team will turn to 40 year old phenom Matt Hasselbeck to lead this team as close to the AFC South title as he can take them. Now many people are saying that with Luck out that things are more uncertain than they have been in four seasons that the Colts might not easily run away with the AFC South. My question to those people is why? Because the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans won this week? The Texans beat an undefeated team? Newsflash, the Colts just beat an undefeated team also. Yes, not having Luck will make things difficult, but I have reasons to back up for why the Colts WILL win the AFC South this season.
Hasselbeck proved to everyone over a two game span that he can still manage a game with the best of them. Is he going to run a lot? Nope. Is he going to throw 50-60 yard bombs to T.Y. Hilton? Probably not. So what’s he gonna do then? He is going to get everyone involved on the offense and make almost zero mental mistakes. Hasselbeck has worked with the NFL’s best throughout his long tenure in the NFL. He has picked up quite a few tricks that a wily ole’ veteran can use to outsmart defenses. He is great at the short passing game and handing the ball off which is what the Colts will be doing a lot of the rest of this season and hopefully moving forward through the playoffs. He loves finding the five yard slant route with room for the target to run. He loves hitting the eight yard hook route that goes for an addition ten yard. Those are things that Hasselbeck excels at and Rob Chudzinski knows this. Chud worked with terrible quarterbacks throughout his time in the NFL (with the exception of Cam Newton) and has tailored his offense to what he had to work with. This will be no different.
Lets look at the opponents the Colts will face while Luck is out. They will face the Atlanta Falcons this week, Tampa Bay Buccaneers the next week, and then travel to Pittsburgh for a Sunday Night prime time showdown against the Steelers. After those three games it’s Jacksonville and Houston. All five are very winnable games. Pittsburgh is the one game that I’m on the fence with but I still feel with a banged up Ben Roethlisberger that the Colts can pull that one off. Now this isn’t me saying the Colts are going to go 5-0 in Luck’s absence but 3-2 or hell even 4-1 isn’t impossible. Hasselbeck already lead the Colts to wins against Jacksonville and Houston this season and can do it again. Tampa Bay is a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde team in that you never know what team is going to show up. Atlanta started hot, but have turned into pumpkins after midnight as of late. If the Colts go 3-2 over the span that Luck will be out that would put this team at 7-7 which isn’t bad for all the damn problems that have plagued this team.
I say to all you doubters out there that this can be done. This team can do this and have all the tools to do it. The running game is finally clicking and the receivers are starting to win their battles and fight for the ball. The offensive line has been pretty damn good since week three when you look at the teams they’ve faced and who they’ve mostly kept them in check. The wild card is the defense in my opinion. The numbers don’t show their grit, but the numbers that are being shown have to improve. It’s time for this defense to step up their game and get hot. Against Denver they played great. I don’t care what the final score was I know what I saw on the field and what I saw was a defense that was hungry. They get D’Joun Smith back this week, but are sans Henry Anderson for the season which is a massive blow to the run defense. Greg Toler has to stop being a welcome mat and Vontae Davis has to turn back into his All-Pro self. The weak link has been the secondary, but I feel they are finally around that corner and it’s going be going up from here on in. This can and will happen. The Colts will be AFC South Champs at the end of the regular season and will host a first round game. What happens after that is still up in the air but I feel that we are all about to see fireworks and we are going to love the show.
