Indianapolis Colts weren't supposed to ask Carson Wentz to be Superman

NASHVILLE — Carson Wentz wasn’t supposed to have to be Superman.

Not in Indianapolis. Not on this team, a team that built its foundation on the offensive line. On running the ball. On a top-10 defense with a knack for coming up with stops at critical times and creating turnovers.

But the Colts keep asking Wentz to be Superman, even on a day when Wentz clearly couldn’t be that kind of player. Wentz gets his powers from his incredible physical gifts, and those powers were compromised Sunday, sapped by two sprained ankles that left his status in doubt until the morning of Sunday’s 25-16 loss to the Titans.

“I knew I wasn’t going to scramble around and make some plays,” Wentz said. “It didn’t feel great when we did that.”

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Wentz had to fight hard just to play.

The Colts starting quarterback could not walk on Monday or Tuesday, but team doctors told Wentz there was a chance he could play, and he spent the rest of the week “throwing the kitchen sink” at his ankles to get to the point he could play.

Indianapolis needed him to play. Already sitting at 0-2, the Colts couldn’t afford to drop a game to the Titans and find themselves winless in the month of September, already trailing their only real competition for an AFC South title by two games.

“You know, he is our quarterback, and we felt like him at, whatever, 70% or 80%, whatever he is, is our best option to beat a very good football team on the road,” Colts head coach Frank Reich said.

Wentz practiced Friday, did his full warmup Sunday and fought his way onto the field. Wentz has been hurt a lot in his career — a pattern that’s a concern for Wentz’s long-term future — but the way he’s battled to get back onto the field has earned his teammates’ respect.   

“The guy’s a warrior, man,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said. “He did whatever it took to get out there on the field today. We’re all proud of him, and we all rallied behind him.”

Then the game began, and the Colts dumped it at Wentz’s feet.

The way they have in every game this season.

For the first time all season, the Indianapolis running backs had something going — Jonathan Taylor picked up 64 yards on 10 carries, and Nyheim Hines added five carries for 23 yards — but the team never fully devoted itself to the run.

In today’s NFL, most teams run the ball in the first half, in 2nd-and-manageable situations and when they have a lead, particularly in the fourth quarter.

Indianapolis’ defense couldn’t get off the field in the first half and the Colts offense went three-and-out twice, so the Colts ran just 22 offensive plays in the first half. Indianapolis put itself in 2nd-and-6 or longer 17 times; the Colts threw the ball on 14 of those plays and ran it just three times.

And the Colts haven’t had a whole lot of leads in the fourth quarter in the 2021 season so far.

Part of that was Wentz’s fault Sunday. Clearly compromised by the ankles, Wentz completed just 19 of 37 passes — by far his least accurate game of the season so far — for 194 yards, and he changed some running plays in the second half to passing plays because of unfamiliar looks the Titans defense was giving him.

Indianapolis twice drove inside the Titans’ 10-yard line in the second half, and the Colts called five passing plays out of six in those situations. Wentz didn’t complete any of them.

“There’s plays in the pocket that I missed, that I’m kicking myself, that I want back down there in the red zone,” Wentz said. 

A few of those misses, though, stemmed from pressure let up by an offensive line that still hasn’t played to its reputation. Wentz was forced to dump at least half a dozen passes and took two sacks, even though Reich called the game with the protection of his quarterback in mind.

“It affected the play calling a little bit, but that’s not an excuse,” Reich said. “I thought Carson did a good job understanding what his limitations were and playing within that.”

If the Colts had blocked better, if the Colts had been able to hold the lead, if the defense had gotten more stops, Indianapolis might have relied on the running game more.

But the defense hasn’t come up with many of those critical stops so far in 2021.

“We need to learn to play complementary football,” Buckner said. “We have to take advantage of opportunities when we get them. The past three weeks we’ve had spurts where offense was hot, defense was cold, defense was hot, offense was cold. We have to learn to work together.”

The first two weeks of the season, the Colts’ need for Wentz to be Superman was even more apparent. The escapes he was making, the way he kept buying time kept Indianapolis in games even though it was struggling elsewhere.

Without that ability, Wentz shouldn’t have been asked to put the team on his shoulders the way he was on Sunday in Tennessee.

The good news is Wentz still believes he can get back to full strength. Even after taking hits on Sunday, even after walking into the locker room sore for the second time in a row.

“Honestly, I feel like it was the grace of God that I was even able to compete out here today, the way that early in this week looked,” Wentz said. “Credit to the training staff in getting me ready to go. But yeah, I am very confident, just how quickly it’s already, from not being able to walk the first two days of this week to being able to play today, I’m very confident we can progress this thing along.”

The way the Colts are playing, they need him to be right.

Because they keep putting the game on his shoulders, and so far it’s not working.