Despite Win, Colts Need Much More from Andrew Luck to Catch Texans in AFC South

There's good news and bad news in Indianapolis.

The good news is that with a win over the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, the Colts got back to .500 and back into the race to win the NFL's worst division. If the Houston Texans lose to the surging Oakland Raiders in Mexico City on Monday, Indy will be one game out of first place with six to play.

The bad news is that while the Colts got the win against the Titans, they did so without playing especially well. If this victory is going to be the beginning of a turnaround for the Colts' season and not just a meaningless midseason victory over an up-and-down young team, that has to change.

Especially where quarterback Andrew Luck is concerned.

It isn't that Luck had a bad game against Tennessee. He finished the game 15-of-28 for 262 yards and two touchdowns. His passer rating for the game was just a hair under 95. And notably, Luck improved to 9-0 all time against the Titans.

Plenty of NFL teams would take that production under center and run.

But when you compare Luck's numbers at the end of the game to his torrid start to it, you begin to see why the Titans were able to make a game out of a contest the Colts led 21-0.

As Bleacher Report tweeted, Luck's first two drives against Tennessee were perfect. Literally perfect. As in a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

However, bust out the old abacus, and it doesn't take long to figure out that for the other three quarters and change, Luck was 5-of-17 for 102 yards. His passer rating over than span plummeted by over 100 points relative to that torrid start.

And Tennessee was able to get back into it.

Now, is all of that Luck's fault? Of course not. Wideout T.Y. Hilton and tight end Dwayne Allen had absolutely brutal, drive-killing drops in the game. It isn't Luck's fault that tailback Frank Gore averaged all of 2.8 yards per carry. And unless he's playing both ways, Luck isn't responsible for the Colts' defensive inconsistencies.

Former Colts great Reggie Wayne echoed those sentiments while speaking with the NFL Network (via ESPN.com's Mike Wells). "A lot of people are wanting to criticize Andrew Luck instead of really, in my opinion, going after what the big problem is," Wayne said. "I think that big problem is a lot of the front-office decisions. Whether it's draft picks or it's free-agent picks, they've missed on a lot of guys."

There must be an echo in here, because another former Indy great (center Jeff Saturday) told Wells almost the exact same thing—that as good as he is, Luck can't do it all by himself:

"

You can't lay it all on Andrew Luck. They have to do things around him. He's so valuable that he's counted on to do everything right. It's not that he hasn't made mistakes, because he has. But you're putting it on him every week to make something happen, and it's one of those deals where other areas of the football team are going to have to step up and meet that same level of performance and play if they want to be consistently in the playoff hunt and the championship hunt.

"

Everything they said is 100 percent accurate. It's also not important, at least where making the playoffs in 2016 is concerned.

The Colts are a flawed football team. They entered Week 11 ranked 23rd in the NFL in rushing and a woeful 30th in the league defensively. These are not problems that can be remedied overnight.

They also aren't new problems. The past few years have featured Colts teams that struggled to run the ball and stop anybody. In 2013 and 2014, they made the playoffs. Last year, they did not.

Because Luck spent much of the season dinged up and had easily the worst year of his professional career.

The simple fact is that as goes Luck, so go the Colts. It becomes readily evident when you examine Luck's performances in wins as opposed to losses in 2016.

Stat	Wins	Losses
Completion Percentage	65.36	60.71
Passing Yards Per Game	309.8	255.6
TD/INT Ratio	9/4	10/4
Passer Rating	100.0	88.4

Luck's completion percentage, passing yards per game and passer rating are all significantly better in victories than in losses. In only one of those wins did Luck have a lower passer rating than his best outing in a loss—his two-interception effort in Week 9 at Green Bay.

Yes, it stands to reason that quarterbacks would have better numbers in wins than losses, and there are other factors that contribute to those splits. But they don't change a simple truth for the Colts: When Luck plays well, the team plays well. If he struggles, not so much.

There's another simple truth in the AFC South in 2016. Every team in the division has warts. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. And when it comes to the division-leading Texans, the Colts have one (and only one) significant edge.

I'll give you three guesses where that is.

It certainly isn't on defense. Even without superstar J.J. Watt, the Texans sported the NFL's fourth-ranked defense entering Week 11.

It ain't on the ground either. Lamar Miller hasn't been quite as good as the Texans hoped when they signed him in free agency, but he's outperformed Gore.

It certainly isn't in pass protection either. Per Football Outsiders, the Texans are eighth in the NFL in that regard. Only the Cincinnati Bengals have been worse than the Colts.

But at the game's most important position, the Colts have Luck. A Pro Bowler. A former No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft. The game's highest-paid quarterback.

Houston has Brock Osweiler—the NFL's most overpaid quarterback.

Yes, Gore's going to have to do better than 2.8 yards a pop. And the defense is going to have to make some stops when the Colts face the likes of the Pittsburgh Steelers next week and the Oakland Raiders in Week 16.

But if the Colts are going to beat the Texans on Dec. 11, take the AFC South lead and get back to the playoffs in 2016, it's going to be because Andrew Luck put them on his back and carried the team there.

It might not be fair to expect him to do that.

But that's what it's going to take.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter @IDPSharks.