Colts running backs coach Scottie Montgomery is well aware that this season hasn’t gone as planned. The acquisition of Matt Ryan, paired with Jonathan Taylor’s ascension and Shaquille Leonard’s dominance, was supposed to make Indianapolis a playoff team with an outside shot of reaching the Super Bowl.
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But with a 4-7-1 record through 12 weeks, it’s becoming more likely the Colts will miss the postseason for the second straight year. Ryan, who was injured and benched for two games before returning as the starter, has had at least one interception or fumble in seven of his 10 starts. Taylor, the reigning rushing champ, has had just two 100-yard games and a career-high three lost fumbles. Leonard, a three-time first-team All-Pro, played only 74 defensive snaps before recently undergoing season-ending back surgery, his second back surgery in five months.
Not to mention offensive coordinator Marcus Brady was fired after Week 8 and head coach Frank Reich was fired after Week 9, replaced by former Colts center and ESPN analyst Jeff Saturday, who hasn’t been any better. Indianapolis has the second-worst scoring offense in the NFL at 15.8 points per game and has lost two straight under its interim coach and five of its last six overall. According to FiveThirtyEight, the Colts have a 2 percent chance of making the playoffs, so dropping the last five games of the season versus fighting for a near-impossible postseason bid would be beneficial for a franchise poised to draft a QB in the first round for the first time since Andrew Luck in 2012. But ahead of a Sunday night matchup with Dallas, Montgomery said he isn’t interested in hearing about the positives of losing or — more specifically — “tanking.”
The Colts are 1-2 with Jeff Saturday as interim head coach. (Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)As a self-proclaimed football “lifer,” it’s just not in his DNA.
“I don’t make sweeping statements for everybody, but to bring up the term tanking to me, I’ll put it in these terms: I have to go home every night, without seeing my kids, it’s late, then I see them on the weekends, and I look them in the eye, and for somebody to think that I would ever look at my kids and I put them in a situation where if I do this or I do that their futures (are) in direct harm or danger, that would never happen. My wife, my children, nothing like that would happen.
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“That’s my mentality. I know I can get a little testy when it comes to that. The love I have for my family … there’s nothing anybody could ever do — pay, say, whatever — to get me to even think about that T-word.”
Third-year safety Julian Blackmon was just as fired up, describing why tanking is something any player worth their salt would never consider.
“NFL don’t stand for National Football League,” Blackmon said. “Stands for ‘Not for long.’ Everyone knows that. So, who are we just to tank and think we can just be done? That’s not cool. I’m still gonna give it everything I’ve got because I don’t know how long I’m gonna play football. It’s a blessing to play a kid’s sport as a job. So, (why) wouldn’t I do everything I can to play the best I can?”
Ryan has been in this situation before. During his 12th season in 2019, Atlanta was already out of playoff contention entering its regular-season finale against Tampa Bay, so the Falcons had nothing to play — or lose — for but draft positioning and pride.
Ryan chose the latter, leading his team on two fourth-quarter field goal drives, capped by a game-tying 33-yarder from Younghoe Koo as time expired that sent the game into overtime. The Falcons prevailed 28-22 and finished the season 7-9 instead of 6-10. A loss would’ve landed them the seventh pick, but the win knocked them down seven spots to No. 14.
Did Ryan care?
“No,” he said, laughing. ” … As a player, you’re like, ‘Well, what are you supposed to do?’ We’re out there, we’re playing this game, you’re (trying) to win.”
Ryan understands Colts fans want a top-10 pick, presumably to draft his replacement, but he explained that current players can’t think about next season because nothing is promised.
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“Every time we step on that field it matters,” Ryan said. “We’ve got a young team. We’ve got a lot of guys who this might be their first time kind of going through that experience. Whether you’re playing here or whether you’re playing somewhere else, every time you (play) it’s your resume. There’s a lot to play for.”
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Ryan added that he’s “gained respect and lost respect for certain guys” during losing seasons, and Saturday echoed the former league MVP. Two years after playing in his second Super Bowl in 2009, Saturday was a member of the Colts team that went 2-14 in 2011 as Peyton Manning missed the season due to neck surgery.
Indianapolis drafted the franchise-altering Luck the next spring to succeed Manning. Saturday was not brought back in free agency and spent the final season of his career in Green Bay.
“I learned so much about myself as a football player, as a man, as a leader in those darkest days,” Saturday said of the 2011 campaign. ” … I watched (head coach Jim) Caldwell go through it, and as an organization, (know) what that felt like. I encouraged guys like, ‘This will be a defining moment in your life. Do you love ball? Because it will show up. Do you love the work? Do you love the process?’
“From my train of thought, it has never been about what it looks like, whether I was a player or even now as a coach, what it looks like next year. It’s about now.”
E.J. Speed played at Division II Tarleton State (now a Division I program) before becoming a fifth-round pick by the Colts in 2019. The backup linebacker takes pride in his improbable path to the NFL and has had a breakout year with career highs of 43 tackles and six tackles for loss.
E.J. Speed tackles Titans running back Derrick Henry in an October matchup. (Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)Speed becomes a free agent after this season and acknowledged that his play down the stretch could make or break the next stage of his career. So, when he takes the field Sunday at Dallas, tanking will be the furthest thing from his mind — along with any promising young quarterback that could come with it.
“If they think I would ever strap on my cleats and not give it my all and not try to win … ” Speed said, pausing to mull over his thoughts. “In every situation, no matter what I’m doing in life, we can read a book, I’m gonna try to beat you to the end. I don’t care what it is. I’m gonna compete my ass off and I’m gonna play to the end. So, whoever thinks that, they’re a fool. I would never tank. Even if somebody else asked me to, I would never tank. I don’t understand that. I don’t think nobody in this locker room will, that’s just not in our organization. Even (Chris) Ballard as a GM, he’s (really) competitive. So, nah, that ain’t our organization. That ain’t what we do.
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“We will never do some s–t like that.”
(Top photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
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