The Colts were one of the worst teams in the NFL in 2017, but they were a particular kind of bad: They were actually a decent team for the first three quarters of games, but they self-destructed in the fourth quarter.
Indianapolis had the lead at the start of the fourth quarter in nine of its 16 games in 2017. To finish with a 4-12 record when you’re leading most of your games in the fourth quarter requires some lousy fourth-quarter decision making, and that’s exactly what the Colts had.
Warren Sharp has laid out a litany of trends that show just how dumb the Colts were in the fourth quarters of games.
The Colts became incredibly predictable in the fourth quarters, all but announcing to opposing defenses that they were going to run the ball to protect their leads. In fact, when the Colts lined up with fewer than three wide receivers on the field while leading in the fourth quarter, they ran the ball 100 percent of the time. Those runs averaged just 1.9 yards per carry. Those are the kinds of trends that opposing teams notice, and you can bet that opposing defenses realized that they could sell out against the run to stop the Colts in those situations.
On those runs, the Colts went to Frank Gore much more often than they went to Marlon Mack -- even though Mack’s fourth-quarter runs were more successful than Gore’s. It’s not surprising that Mack, a younger player who got fewer carries than Gore over the course of the 2017 season, was more fresh in the fourth quarters of games. It is surprising that the Colts didn’t realize Mack was their fresher player, and kept going to Gore late in games even when Mack’s runs were more successful.
The result of that predictability is that the 2017 Colts are the only team in the last 27 years to lose at least seven games they led at halftime, and the only team in the last 20 years to hold a lead entering the fourth quarter at least nine times, but finish 4-12 or worse.
The good news for the Colts is that new head coach Frank Reich comes from the Eagles, a smart team when it comes to making key decisions late in games. If Reich follows an approach similar to his old boss Doug Pederson, it’s easy to envision the Colts being a lot better in the fourth quarters of games in 2018 than they were in 2017. With, they hope, a healthy Andrew Luck back on the field, and smarter decision making late in close games, they should be a lot better. When it comes to fourth-quarter decision making, they could hardly be worse.