Welcome back to the Four Verts column! Teams are looking at themselves in the mirror at the halfway point of the season. The Indianapolis Colts appear headed towards a rebuild, the Green Bay Packers need a win against the best team in the NFL and the New England Patriots are messing around with Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe.
Colts finally turning the page from the Andrew Luck saga
The Colts finally did it. After years of chasing the ghost of Andrew Luck, they seem ready to accept their fate as a team that’s stuck in the mud and in serious need of a retooling.
The retirement of Luck caught the Colts off guard prior to the 2019 season and they’ve been rotating through veteran quarterbacks ever since then to try and find some stability at the position. Jacoby Brissett, Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan — none have really been what the Colts were looking for. And how could they be? Luck was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. That was the standard in the search. Those types of quarterbacks aren’t widely available each year in the NFL.
Now, it's Sam Ehlinger's turn to prove that he deserves a shot after the Colts benched Ryan for the remainder of the season. No slight to Ehlinger, but there should be modest expectations for the former sixth-round pick. Ehlinger is more likely to make the Colts end up with a top-10 pick in the 2023 NFL draft than a playoff berth, which might be better for them in the long run. This organization needs a reset at quarterback. That's a tough pill to swallow after being a playoff-caliber team over the last few seasons, but the current operation isn't working.
Next year's quarterback class appears to have a few guys with franchise potential. Ohio State's C.J. Stroud, Alabama's Bryce Young and Kentucky's Will Levis will likely hear their names called in the first round. Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson and Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker have the potential to be selected in the first round as well. It's not the worst year to give Ehlinger a chance to develop his skills while also putting the organization in position for a top quarterback prospect in a few months.
The timing on this move is a bit shrewd when it comes to the NFL standings. The Colts are in second place in the AFC South with a .500 winning percentage on the season at 3-3-1. This is very much a team that can be competing for a playoff spot based on where they currently sit within their own division. However, it’s also apparent that the overall quality of this team is closer to one in search of a franchise quarterback than one that seriously believes it can go on a run. According to Ben Baldwin of The Athletic, the Colts rank 30th in expected points added per play (-0.097) on offense.
Ehlinger's mobility will add some juice to a Colts offense that really needs it, but it seems unlikely that he will be the guy to orchestrate a great offensive renaissance in Indianapolis. There appear to be too many holes to patch up over the back half of the season for that to happen. Football is weird, so the Colts could meme their way to the playoffs (they did beat the Chiefs this year), but this is just a bad football team right now.
The interesting question is what’s next for head coach Frank Reich and general manager Chris Ballard. They’ve certainly had some success in Indianapolis, but maybe a pair of fresh faces is what the Colts need as they turn the page from the Luck era. It would be understandable either way whether they kept their jobs or lost them. Now all eyes are on Ehlinger to impact the immediate future of the Colts.
Mac Jones should be the Patriots starter if he’s healthy
We're doing the thing again. That thing where a backup quarterback comes in and disrupts the overall plan even if it's not really warranted. Just like Cooper Rush was not the answer for the Dallas Cowboys, Bailey Zappe probably isn't the answer for the Patriots either. Zappe has had some nice moments, but he hasn't played well enough to where the Patriots should lose sight of their immediate goal for this season: They need to find out how good Mac Jones is.
Zappe has played well for a fourth-round rookie in place of Jones over the past few weeks. Outside of his implosion against the Chicago Bears on Monday night, Zappe had been steady enough to guide the Patriots' offense to a couple strong performances against the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions and keep the playoff hopes alive with wins. That's all that a backup quarterback needs to be, and that's all he was. Now, it appears that Zappe is legitimately competing with Jones to be the Patriots' starting quarterback for the rest of the season.
That seems like a bridge too far, and it would be a startlingly quick admission that making Jones the 15th overall pick in last year's NFL draft was a mistake. Jones himself has not been lighting up the world since late last season, but to be out on him after 21 career starts, including a playoff berth, in favor of Zappe feels like jumping the gun. It would be reasonable for Bill Belichick to have doubts about Jones' long-term viability as the franchise quarterback, but Jones should at least be able to play out this season before making any hard decisions about that. If Jones is healthy, let him be the starter.
Zappe is a quality backup quarterback. That’s a great asset to have and a great piece of information to know as the evaluation of Jones continues — but the evaluation of Jones still must continue.
Unless Belichick thinks Zappe can be the future of the Patriots, which, well.
Pray for the Packers
At 3-4, the Packers still have a chance to get their season back on track and make a push for the playoffs. Their playoff hopes are on alert, but still alive as far as the standings go. If the Packers can get to 4-4 and put some distance between themselves and the bottom of the NFC North, that would be huge for them as they attempt to regroup on what has been a disastrous start to this point.
All they need to do is get past the Buffalo Bills. That’s all! Beat the most overwhelming force in the NFL right now to save their season. Should be a breeze.
Based on how the Packers have played the last two weeks, it doesn't appear like they really have any hope of toppling the best team in the league — which suddenly gives them an ominous outlook for the rest of the season. Aaron Rodgers doesn't have too many more seasons to spare, so staring 3-5 in the face and fighting for a wild-card spot would certainly be disappointing.
The Packers' offense doesn’t seem capable of keeping up with the buzzsaw Buffalo has constructed. Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis have been unstoppable this year while the Packers have been anything but. They rank 21st in expected points added per play (-0.035) on offense this year and just generally seem like they’re out of sync. Rodgers isn’t reading plays out, the wide receiver play has been inconsistent at best and the offensive line has been banged up all season.
The vibes are bad, and there aren’t too many avenues for the Packers to start playing like an all-star offense this season. Perhaps some of these problems should have been predicted, but the Packers are really underachieving this season. In most circumstances, a bet on Rodgers to turn this around and get back to playing like an MVP would be solid, but the Packers just have the worst possible opponent to play against this week, one that already has multiple 30-point victories under its belt.
Maybe Rodgers and the Packers defense can pull off an unlikely victory over the Bills, but a loss this weekend would stamp their season as incredibly disappointing.
The NFC South is a dumpster fire
Let me say this as a fan of the Atlanta Falcons: No more NFC South games should be televised this season. The division is crap, it’s fine. Change the rules for one year so that the winner of this division is still on the outside of the playoffs looking in. Anyone that was exposed to these teams last weekend knows exactly what I’m talking about.
This past weekend of NFC South football was borderline unbelievable. The Falcons had lost to the Cincinnati Bengals before 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Joe Burrow had 325 yards passing and three touchdowns in the first half. Even though the Falcons were facing a 21-0 deficit 20 minutes into the game, Marcus Mariota only threw the ball 13 times.
The Carolina Panthers somehow beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21-3 this weekend and are now one game out of first place in the NFC South. The New Orleans Saints lost 42-34 to the Arizona Cardinals in a game where Andy Dalton threw pick-sixes on back-to-back drives and the Cardinals' offense finally came back to life.
In a year where there seems to be a lot of bad football, the NFC South was the embodiment of it last weekend. The Buccaneers made P.J. Walker look like a carbon copy of Patrick Mahomes on a few plays. It was weird. The Falcons, Saints and Panthers going through waves of inefficiency hasn't been all that surprising, but the Buccaneers joining them in the muck and the rain in the sewer wasn't foreseen by many people. The fall of the Buccaneers has resulted in the NFC South quickly turning into a feeble division feared by none and mocked by many.
There's going to be a lot of turnover in the coming seasons as well. The Saints went all-in on a roster that's been led by Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton. The Falcons need to revamp their passing game. The Panthers traded away Christian McCaffrey for a boatload of picks to kick off their rebuild. And who knows what could happen with Tom Brady over the next calendar year.
Let’s just give this division a year or two to get their act together and regroup before we really start talking about them again. No need for playoffs, just let them hide in the corner until they’re ready to join the big leagues again.