Colts Offense Sputtering While Trying to Overcome Sacred Cows

The Indianapolis Colts struggled on offense against the Cleveland Browns. They turned the ball over four times, quarterback Andrew Luck completed just 45 percent of his passes and there was, again, no run game to speak of.

Thanks to a surprising Colts defensive performance, spurred by Browns quarterback Brian Hoyer's inability to hit the red side of a barn, Indianapolis managed to keep it close enough for Luck's monthly witchcraft comeback session to win the game. 

But don't let the win distract you from the context it came in. The Indianapolis offense is struggling, and it's struggling because head coach Chuck Pagano and offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton continue to carve out big offensive roles for players who don't deserve them. 

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but running back Trent Richardson was again hapless and a non-factor. 

After telling fans during the week to "watch the next four weeks," Richardson ran seven times for 30 yards, again splitting time with the clearly superior Dan Herron. Richardson looked completely disinterested in blocking blitzing Browns safety Jim Leonhard on a third-down play in the fourth quarter, leading to one of Luck's three sacks.

The sad thing is, seven carries for 30 yards is pretty much an average Richardson game. Richardson was averaging 40 yards per game on 12 carries over the first three-quarters of the season, and if you add five more carries at about 3.3 yards per attempt, you actually do a little better than his season-average yardage. You sure showed us, Trent.

Herron performed worse on the stat sheet (eight carries, 26 yards), but he dealt with worse blocking and also single-handedly saved the win for the Colts by breaking a tackle on 4th-and-1 with less than two minutes left inside the Cleveland 5.

If you're an NFL fan with any sensibility of logic in you, it's clear that Richardson is abysmal and needs to sit. This game was just the latest example. Maybe you don't believe the Colts need to break the Ray Rice public relations seal, and that's fair, but they sure as hell need to stop pretending that Richardson is ever going to not be who he has been for a year-and-a-half. 

However, there's also a sacred cow that needs to be talked about: Reggie Wayne.

It might not surprise you to learn that Wayne isn't having a great season. After all, he's missed a few games with an elbow injury, and he's a 36-year-old receiver playing a young man's game. It's not surprising that he's started to decline.

The problem is that once old receivers start to decline, they don't decline on a gradual curve. They fall off a cliff. Wayne was 56th of 75 qualifying receivers in Football Outsiders' DVOA metric going into this week. Since catching seven passes for 77 yards against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 5, things have gotten considerably worse for Wayne:

Timeframe	DVOA	DYAR	Catch Rate
Weeks 1-5	7.9%	72	67%
Weeks 6-13	-27.3%	-57	50%

Double that with Indianapolis' bizarre fetish with trying to make its failed Hakeem Nicks experiment work, and the rhythm of the passing game has been thrown off.

Luck can count on receiver T.Y. Hilton and (when healthy) tight end Dwayne Allen. Luck can coax solid play out of tight end Coby Fleener, even if Fleener's hands come and go. But it's hard to have an effective passing game if your offense can't rely on its secondary receivers to step up when necessary on a consistent basis. 

More to the point, rookie wideout Donte Moncrief has been phenomenal in limited snaps. Moncrief is a physical beast who can block well in the run game and has the tackle-breaking ability to hurt defenses on screens. Moncrief also boasted a 21.2 percent DVOA on 33 targets coming into Sunday's game, including a 73 percent catch rate. Moncrief snagged three of four balls for 33 yards against the Browns. 

Yet instead, Luck aimed 10 passes at Wayne and Nicks, who combined to catch one of them, a five-yard underneath route by Wayne. 

Wayne, Nicks and Richardson are far from the only problems Indianapolis faced in this game. Luck had a subpar first half and missed a few throws, as he does from time to time. The offensive line is still a mess that seems to shift and congeal into something new on a weekly basis, as it had to again Sunday with starting center Jonotthan Harrison and starting guard Joe Reitz both leaving the game with injuries. 

But by far the most frustrating thing about Indianapolis is that it continues to show faith and give playing time to players who have long since stopped earning it. A bad week or two? No problem. But Wayne has been bad for months. Nicks has never not been bad this season. Richardson has been bad for almost two years running now. 

When will this coaching staff learn that by being devoted to players who haven't earned it on the field, it develops a mediocre team? The Colts escaped a loss today because a superstar quarterback can cover up a lot of things and because the Browns aren't particularly good. But these are the kinds of games which can bite the Colts at the end of the season, when they're counting up their record and wondering why they don't have home-field advantage. 

It's long past time to put Richardson to pasture and integrate Moncrief into the lineup. The sooner the Colts do it, the sooner they'll have their optimal game plan for the playoffs. 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.