Andrew Luck, Colts Will Only Go as Far as Indy's Defense Allows

The Indianapolis Colts have a New England Patriots problem. 

In last season's playoffs, the Colts washed out in the divisional round. The Patriots rushed for 234 yards and six touchdowns on 46 carries, dominating the Indy run defense both physically and schematically. 

Colts general manager Ryan Grigson made the run defense his highest priority in the offseason. The Colts imported D'Qwell Jackson, formerly of the Cleveland Browns, on a four-year, $22 million contract with $10.5 million in guarantees. They also brought in defensive lineman Arthur Jones from Baltimore for five years and $33 million. 

All that tinkering did help the Colts. They managed to hold the Patriots to merely four touchdowns on the ground on Sunday Night Football, though they allowed 244 yards this time around. (To be fair, Jones did miss the game with an ankle sprain that has left him gimpy for most of the season.)

This was as pure a display of hat-on-hat football that you'll see in the modern NFL. The Patriots won this game even though quarterback Tom Brady gifted the Colts a pair of horrendous interceptions, swinging the turnover margin in favor of Indianapolis. 

For the Colts, this game was the emphasis point on the failures of their basic identity. The Colts want to be a team that stops the run, so they spent heavily on that even though run defense is one of the least consistent parts of an NFL team.

They finished the 2013 season with the 22nd-ranked rush defense in the NFL, per Football Outsiders DVOA. Through 10 weeks, they had the ... 22nd-ranked rush defense in the NFL, per Football Outsiders DVOA. That will, obviously, be getting worse. 

Coaches can't play the game, and it's true that none of Indianapolis' defensive linemen were able to win one-on-one battles against New England's offensive line. But coaches also control the playing time, and if these players are failing, the coaches need to be more open about seeking out new solutions rather than letting the same players get gashed down after bloody downs. Pagano acknowledged the Patriots simply beat his team, per George Bremer of The Herald Bulletin: 

Some teams are hard to figure out on a weekly basis. Indianapolis is not one of those teams. Unless the Colts pull out a no-huddle package on offense, they aren't going to try to throw opposing teams off balance. 

This season has been a fun ride for the Colts, and the weapons Indianapolis has added on offense have made quarterback Andrew Luck a more effective quarterback on a down-to-down basis. (An aside: losing tight end Dwayne Allen and running back Ahmad Bradshaw to injury were both killers for the Colts in this game.)

But there's still a very consistent undercurrent of trying to establish the run despite the fact that the Colts have an ineffective run game. 

The Colts have also put together an aggressive pass defense that will challenge every receiver at the line of scrimmage, keyed by a terrific season by Vontae Davis. But if an offense can scheme past that, either via stack formations that make it hard to play man coverage or with a run game that can out-physical the Colts at the point of attack, they have no real changeups.

When it comes to challenging the Colts, ESPN's Field Yates noted that Patriots RB Jonas Gray did just that Sunday night:

Indianapolis is probably going to make the playoffs again, even after this loss brings Houston within a game of them in the AFC South race. 

But the Colts haven't really shown any reason to believe that their defense has improved from where it was last season when playing good offenses. And if it can't avoid creating enormous deficits, even Luck can only throw pass after pass in game scripts that are impossible to climb out of.

As these things go, Luck continues to give the Colts a puncher's chance in any shootout. But time has become a flat circle in Indianapolis, one where the rest of the roster continues to be no-shows against better competition. The formula the Colts roll with is conducive to an early playoff exit, just as it was last year.

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.