Can Indianapolis Colts Defense Fix Troubling Trend vs. Playoff Teams in 2015?

There is a perception that the Indianapolis Colts defense is terrible, among the worst in the league.

For example, Peter King of The MMQB recently ranked the Colts 11th in his offseason power rankings, behind teams like Kansas City, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Arizona, because of his lack of faith in their defense.

This is not an uncommon sentiment.

Do a quick Twitter search for "Colts no defense" and you'll come up with thousands of results.

Now, this isn't completely fair. The Colts defense, given their overall makeup, did an admirable job for most of last season, and the overall regular season stats reflect that.

Year	Rushing YPG (Rank)	Rushing DVOA	Points Allowed	Defensive DVOA
2012	137.5 (29)	9.1% (32)	24.2 (21)	14% (31)
2013	125.1 (26)	-0.1% (22)	21.0 (9)	0.9% (16)
2014	113.4 (18)	-6.5% (19)	23.1 (19)	2.3% (13)

For example, the Colts ranked 13th in Football Outsiders' defensive DVOA last season, including finishing 10th against the pass and 19th against the run. The team also finished 14th in Defensive EPA (Expected Points Added), per Advanced Football Analytics.

In more traditional statistics, the Colts still fared well, finishing 11th in yards allowed and 19th in points allowed—again, nothing to write home about, but not as bad as the reputation would have led you to believe.

Ask the Colts coaches about the defense, and those are the numbers they will parrot, that despite the reputation for having no pass rush, they managed 41 sacks, tied for ninth in the league, or that 26 takeaways tied for 10th in the league. They'll tell you that the numbers with Arthur Jones on the field were very good against the run last year, and that the team held rushers like Arian Foster, DeMarco Murray, C.J. Anderson and Jeremy Hill under 100 yards.

All valid points.

But while the overall picture may not look so bad for Indianapolis, most people aren't worried about the overall picture. The Colts are a virtual lock to win 11 or 12 games, win the AFC South and make the playoffs. That's not what's in question.

What's in question is how the Colts will fare in the playoffs, and it's a question that will remain until the team is able to slow down contending teams. While the Colts' overall numbers are passable, the team's splits against playoff teams are remarkably skewed.

The regular season, in games against teams like Tennessee and Jacksonville, isn't where the Colts need the defense to step up. The high-powered offense is plenty to put teams like that to bed.

It's during the playoffs—where the Colts often need time to figure out opposing defenses, especially when going up against Bill Belichick—that the team needs the defense to perform, and there are simply too many instances of that not occurring over the last three years.

In 2014, the Colts had a minus-47 point differential against playoff teams, with big losses to teams like Pittsburgh, Dallas and New England offsetting wins against teams like Cincinnati and Baltimore.

There were plenty of reasons why the Colts have had success against some and drastic failures against others. The most obvious is the level of quarterbacking, as the Colts shut down the Bengals twice last season by stacking the box and focusing on stopping the run game. The team also had success against Peyton Manning and the Broncos in the playoffs, taking advantage of a hobbled Manning by focusing all their attention on short passing and the run game.

Against a healthy Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Tony Romo, not so much.

But Joe Flacco had a good season last year and the Colts were able to shut the Ravens down very well, allowing just 13 points and one of 11 third downs to be converted.

The key in this contest, as well as the team's other defensive successes?

Jack Dempsey/Associated Press

Pass rush. The Colts sacked Joe Flacco four times in that win, and the team got 13 sacks overall in four wins over Baltimore, Cincinnati (twice) and Denver (postseason) last season. In the team's five losses to playoff teams—against Denver (regular season), New England (twice), Dallas and Pittsburgh—the Colts managed just three total sacks.

Since 2012, the Colts have not won a single game against playoff teams when they have just one or fewer sacks, going 9-11 overall. With multiple sacks, the Colts are 27-7 overall (third-best win percentage in the league) and 12-3 against playoff teams (fourth-best).

This is the single biggest key for Indianapolis defensively.

When they can get pressure on the quarterback, the Colts secondary is strong enough to keep opposing passing attacks limited, which is especially key on third down. This also allows the Colts to put a bit more focus on the run game, where they aren't necessarily dominant but keep things respectable.

Fortunately for Indianapolis, the pass rush has a chance to improve in 2015 with additions like Trent Cole, Henry Anderson and a potentially healthy Robert Mathis. Then, of course, there is the hopeful improvement of players like Jonathan Newsome and Bjoern Werner.

The Colts were forced to send blitzes at an alarmingly high rate in 2014, which opened them up for big plays, often to leaking running backs or tight ends.

With better individual personnel in 2015, the Colts should be able to dial their blitz rate back a bit.

There are other things to improve, of course—like run defense against the Patriots—but that boils down largely to a coaching matchup, one in which Chuck Pagano and his staff have continually been outwitted by Belichick. The Colts don't necessarily need to win this battle, but they have to mitigate the damage.

But the NFL is a passing league, and defense begins and ends with stopping the opposing quarterback.

The Colts have put pieces into place in the secondary to do just that, but pass defense is twofold. If your pass rush isn't quick enough, any secondary will crumble in time. If your secondary allows open receivers too quickly, no pass rush will ever reach an opposing quarterback.

The secondary pieces are there, now the pass rush must come.

If not, the Colts' troubling inconsistencies will continue to plague the franchise and the team will waste Andrew Luck's best years.