Was waiting on you to chime in. I'm not buying Luck as the Manning heir apparent. Not yet, anyway. I think the Colts had a ridiculous amount of fluke bounces this year -- both in-game stuff and with scheduling -- that they won't have in future years. And Luck is good, but he turned it over quite a bit and was inaccurate on a lot of downfield throws. He'll improve, of course, but I think they're an 8-8 type team for the next year or two. Lot of holes elsewhere, and Freeney/Mathis aren't getting any younger. Texans are still the class of the AFC South for a couple more years. That said, you're absolutely dead on with everything else. And we've talked about it before, but wow were 2009 and 2010 wasted opportunities. So much young talent on cap-friendly deals, and we squandered it. Now we're at the stage of jettisoning veterans to stay under the cap, and Matt isn't the caliber of QB to elevate the team above it. The one hope, as you said, is that Gary does have a track record of fixing the offense. We b****ed about the run game and scheme for much of 2009, and they became a well-oiled machine from the end of 2009 through all of 2011. Here's hoping he can work that magic again.
Re: Fixing the running game next year... The least we can do if we don't find a good value RT or draft a stud is get another bruising fullback in here. James Casey is not wearing down any defenders even if he does know where to be on the field. Hopefully with Rashad Butler back and a real FB we'll see some improvement.
Oh, like you, I think the Colts are primed for a regression next year - as mentioned, some of their core guys are old (Wayne, Freeny, Mathis); rookie QBs almost *always* regress their second years (see: Newton, Cam); and, frankly, we have no idea if Pagano is a good coach (assuming he's back). Meanwhile, the possible brains of the operation, Arians, will almost certainly be coveted in the offseason. In terms of sophomore slumps, if Luck loses Arians, that'd be a big blow. 8-8, though? Next year, Indy draws Jax (x2), Ten (x2), St. Louis, Arizona, KC, Oak, SD and Miami. Ten games against teams that couldn't win more than 7 games this year. That's a very favorable schedule. The AFC South is no longer the cakewalk it sure looked like it was going to be this time last year. What *really* sucks is we lost FIVE YEARS to *really* evaluate Schaub. I don't know if I agree with you - but we should have seen him play important games in '07 and '08; playoff games in '09, '10 and '11. If he isn't the guy... to have to wait five years to find out is potentially ruinous. I don't think he got bad overnight... but these past several weeks have been discouraging.
