Taking Stock of Indianapolis Colts Ahead of Week 10 Bye

The Indianapolis Colts have yet to take their bye, so they have played nine games of a 16-game season. 

Still, the team's Week 10 bye makes for a natural break between the first and second half of the season. While the team will use this extra time to revamp for a critical stretch of games without quarterback Andrew Luck—who the Colts announced has a lacerated kidney and partially torn abdominal muscle—we will use it to take a broader look at the team's trends. 

Overall, the Colts' first half of the season was a massive disappointment. With a slow start and injuries to Luck, the team got off to its worst start of the Luck era and seemed in real danger in the AFC South. 

Things have gotten better of late, with a change at offensive coordinator and improved play from Luck powering a 27-24 win over the Denver Broncos. 

But now the Colts have to deal with a more serious injury to Luck, one that will keep him out for two to six weeks. Can the Colts overcome this injury? How will the team respond out of the bye week? 

Passing Offense: Stock Even

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The stock for the Colts offense would be pointed directly up if it wasn't for Luck's injury. 

The team got back on track against the Broncos, with a passing DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) of 85.2 percent on Sunday, per Football Outsiders. This was largely due to sustained success against the league's best passing defense, especially in critical areas like the red zone and on third down. 

This was completely unexpected after the team's slow start, but the move to Rob Chudzinski as offensive coordinator got the Colts in a better place to succeed against the blitz with more attention over the middle and a greater commitment to the run game. 

But Luck's injury changes things. Matt Hasselbeck played well in his two games as the starter this season, but that was against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, two teams with below-average defenses. The Texans are 21st in defensive DVOA this year, per Football Outsiders, while the Jaguars are 14th but have the 29th-ranked pass defense. 

Fortunately for the Colts, the upcoming schedule is also full of poor pass defenses. 

The Atlanta Falcons are ranked 20th against the pass and just got beat by Blaine Gabbert and the San Francisco 49ers. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are ranked 24th, and the Colts will get them at home. Then comes a difficult matchup in Pittsburgh, but after that are games against Jacksonville and Houston again. 

It's unfortunate, since the Colts should be excited about the passing offense getting back on track, but the upcoming schedule should make for a decent opportunity to stay the course.

Rushing Offense: Stock Up

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Rob Chudzinski's appointment as the new offensive coordinator can only mean good things for Frank Gore. 

Unlike Pep Hamilton, Chudzinski has a reputation for staying committed to the run, which the Colts did in their win over Denver. The Colts rode Gore to 13 carries for 59 yards and a touchdown in the first half against Denver, an efficient and effective strategy. 

The Broncos keyed in on Gore in the second half, but the Colts kept pounding him. With a penetrating blitz strategy, the Broncos limited Gore to just 24 yards on 15 carries in the second half. But the Broncos' attack opened things up for Luck and the passing game, and Chudzinski should continue to lean on Gore in the next few weeks. 

This was expected even before last week, as Kevin Bowen of Colts.com reported. But now, Matt Hasselbeck is running the show, and the team will undoubtedly try to lean on the run game to limit Hasselbeck's load. 

It's no coincidence that Gore's best game came in Houston this year with Hasselbeck at quarterback, coming just two yards shy of the Colts' first 100-yard rusher since 2012. 

Gore's efficiency probably won't improve, as teams will stack the boxes and dare Hasselbeck to throw deep, but the volume and opportunity should be pretty consistent. 

Pass Defense: Stock Down

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It might seem odd to have the Colts' pass defense trending downward after Sunday's win over the Broncos, where the team picked off Peyton Manning twice and was able to get consistent pressure on the quarterback for the first time all year. 

Vontae Davis is getting healthy and back to his lockdown level of play, and the pass rush is getting better!

That's the danger of taking a sample of just one game, however. 

Here's the thing: Peyton Manning and the Denver offense have struggled all year. Part of this is because of a horrific offensive line (far worse than the one in Indianapolis), and part of it is because of Manning's decline as he's aged. 

The Broncos have only had three positive DVOA performances this season, one of which was against the Colts on Sunday, per Football Outsiders.

A big part of that performance was the poor play of Greg Toler, who was roasted several times in coverage and has been all season. Toler allowed five catches for 115 yards on Sunday, per Pro Football Focus, including a 64-yard touchdown to Emmanuel Sanders. 

The Colts also allowed the Carolina Panthers and Cam Newton to have one of their better days throwing the ball in Week 8, and they would have given up a game-winning touchdown if not for a brutal drop by Ted Ginn. 

The schedule doesn't get any easier for them, either. They'll face Julio Jones in Week 11, Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson in Week 12, Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant in Week 13, Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns in Week 14 (the Jaguars' passing offense is one of their few positives) and DeAndre Hopkins in Week 15. 

Run Defense: Stock Down

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It pains me to say the Colts' run-defense stock is down, because that's been their best defensive trait this season. 

The Colts have been strong against the run in 2015, with long runs by LeGarrette Blount and Mark Ingram in Weeks 6 and 7 marring an otherwise stellar year. Against the Broncos, it was more of the same, allowing just 35 rushing yards on 14 carries. 

With an improved defensive line making plays and opening up space for D'Qwell Jackson and Jerrell Freeman to penetrate, the run defense has been one area the Colts haven't had to worry about all year. Freeman and Jackson, in fact, are both in the top five in run-stop percentage among all inside linebackers, per Pro Football Focus. 

But now the team has lost defensive end Henry Anderson, who suffered an ACL tear Sunday and will miss the rest of the season. Anderson was the most important factor in that run defense, as his penetration and playmaking on the defensive line were unmatched. 

Anderson was a top-10 3-4 defensive end this season, per Pro Football Focus' grades, and had the highest grade of any Colts defender. 

The Colts' other defensive linemen have played well this season, but replacing Anderson is not something that will just happen.

Coaching: Stock Up

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You hit rock-bottom as a coaching staff when you have to make in-season firings. 

Of course, with Pep Hamilton being replaced by Rob Chudzinski last week, there were still plenty of coaches on staff who could have felt pressure; Hamilton was not the only coach to blame for the slow start to the season. 

But after the team's improbable 27-24 win over the previously undefeated Broncos, all signs are pointed up for the Colts' coaching staff. 

That win ensured that the Colts coaches would be safe for the rest of the season. A win over Peyton Manning is always sweet for the Colts, and the fact that it "proved" the team right for making an offensive coordinator change makes a difference as well. 

Rob Chudzinski did a fantastic job tweaking the Colts offense for its matchup against the Broncos' league-leading defense, and the rest of the coaching staff did just as well in getting the team to block out the distraction and tensions following Hamilton's firing. 

With Luck now on the sideline for two to six weeks, the Colts coaches will once again get a chance to prove their worth. Every win without Luck is essentially just bonus points; prior to the season, nobody would have expected the team to win a single matchup with Luck out of the game. 

And wins should be plausible with the 27th-ranked schedule by Football Outsiders' DVOA during the second half of the season. How the Colts respond out of the bye week will be quite telling.