The Indianapolis Colts appear to be allergic to creating the playoffs.
With their 45-33 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday, they have been formally eradicated from playoff competition for the fourth season in a row. In three of these seasons the Colts have suffered devastating, embarrassing losses in must-win video games.
It has been such a nasty run that Sunday’s loss to a beforehand 2-13 Giants workforce may not even be the worst of all of them.
A fast rundown of the current historical past for the Colts in these must-win video games:
— In 2021 they entered Week 18 of the season merely needing to beat the 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars to clinch a playoff berth. They ended up dropping 26-11 (after falling behind 26-3) and missed the playoffs.
— In 2023 they entered Week 18 needing a win over the Houston Texans to make the playoffs and win the AFC South. They misplaced when operating again Tyler Goodson dropped a large open cross on a fourth-and-one that might have stored a possible game-winning drive going.
Then there was Sunday in opposition to the Giants.
The Colts nonetheless wanted some assist to get within the playoffs even with a win this time round, however a win was an absolute should to maintain their probabilities alive. They not solely didn’t get it, they have been humiliated.
The two-13 Giants entered the sport with out having gained a single recreation at house all season. They’d misplaced 10 video games in a row. They’d not scored greater than 22 factors in any of these video games, and solely as soon as scored greater than 20 factors. They have been beginning Drew Lock after he entered the season as their third-string quarterback.
You hate to say that any recreation within the NFL must be an assumed win, however this could have been as shut to 1 as you can get for the Colts.
Sure, the Colts have been additionally taking part in with a backup quarterback, as Joe Flacco began instead of the injured Anthony Richardson, however there’s most likely an argument to be made that Flacco is a greater quarterback at this stage of each participant’s careers. The Colts additionally scored 33 factors.
Sadly for them, they allowed 45 factors with Lock accounting for 5 touchdowns (4 passing and one speeding) and posting a 155.3 passer score in what may need been the most effective recreation of his profession.
When it comes to worst losses, the 2021 recreation in Jacksonville remains to be probably the most humiliating as a result of that was a win-and-in recreation. The 2023 recreation in Houston was in opposition to a very good workforce that was most likely a coin-flip entering into. The loss damage, particularly with the essential drop, however there was no disgrace within the defeat. The latest letdown most likely sandwiches in the course of the three.
Mixed with the sport in Denver two weeks in the past that swung when operating again Jonathan Taylor prematurely dropped the ball on the objective line celebrating a positive landing, the Colts are going to have a protracted offseason of “what ifs” forward of them.
