Ahmad Bradshaw's Injury Will Be Too Much for Colts to Overcome

It's bad enough that the Indianapolis Colts lost a football game Sunday night, a humbling 42-20 beatdown at the hands of the surging New England Patriots.

However, not only did the Colts lose the battle, but they have lost the war as well, because the team suffered a devastating injury that could prove too much for Indianapolis to overcome.

As Mike Chappell of The Indianapolis Star reported, running back Ahmad Bradshaw suffered a fractured fibula in the game:

Head coach Chuck Pagano told Chappell that the loss hit the team hard:

Meanwhile, according to Bleacher Report NFL Medical Writer Dr. Dave Siebert, even a best-case scenario with Bradshaw's injury means he'd be sidelined until well into the playoffs:

There's just no way to sugarcoat it. Without Bradshaw in the lineup, the Colts are going to be very hard-pressed to emerge from a loaded AFC.

Granted, it's not like the Colts were exactly grinding out wins on the ground. Entering Week 11, the Colts offense was powered mainly by Andrew Luck's right arm. The team ranks in the bottom half of the NFL as things stand right now (17th) in rushing, at just under 113 yards a game.

The problem is that without Bradshaw, the Colts go from having a slightly below-average run game to no real run game at all.

With Bradshaw all but lost for the season, it will once again fall to Trent Richardson to carry the mail in the Indy backfield. Richardson admitted to ESPN that losing Bradshaw was a blow to the team:

"

To see a brother go down, especially one I'm around all day, every day, is real tough. That's a brother, and it's heartbreaking to see a guy down like that. We're going to see what they say [Monday], but at the end of the day, we have his back.

"

It's an especially savage blow because any hopes that Richardson was going to somehow salvage justification for the first-round pick it took for the Colts to acquire him have just about been crushed under the weight of Richardson falling forward for a two-yard gain.

Richardson still has yet to average even 3.5 yards a carry for a season. Against the Patriots Sunday night, Richardson carried the ball seven times for zero yards.

Player	Att.	Yds.	Avg.	TD	Rec. Yds.	YPT
Richardson	115	391	3.4	2	203	4.3
Bradshaw	90	425	4.7	2	300	5.7

Way to grind out the tough ones, Trentster.

Richardson is what he is—a plodder. He's Shonn Greene with a better pedigree and higher sticker price.

There isn't much behind Richardson either. Second-year pro Dan "Boom" Herron has shown the occasional glimmer of talent, but he's a career special teamer with 34 total touches so far in his career.

Expecting Herron to come anywhere close to replicating Bradshaw's production on third downs (especially in pass protection, an area in which Bradshaw has excelled throughout his career) is taking optimism to the extreme.

Bradshaw's loss leaves the Colts precariously one-dimensional on offense. It showed against the Patriots, with the Colts failing to top 20 points for only the second time this season.

Andrew Luck may well be having an MVP-caliber season, but it's going to be that much more difficult for Luck to maintain that pace if defenses know going in the Colts are going to be forced to the air constantly.

Grinding out leads in the second half goes out the window. So does trying to keep the ball out of the hands of quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady by dictating tempo and controlling the clock.

Mind you, it probably isn't going to stop the Colts from winning an AFC South where they are the only team with a winning record.

It might not even stop the Colts from beating the likes of the Cincinnati Bengals or Miami Dolphins to win a playoff game.

However, sooner or later the road to Glendale, Arizona, is likely going to go through either Colorado or Massachusetts.

And we got a preview of a one-dimensional Colts team's chances against the AFC's best Sunday night.

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