The Indianapolis Colts\u2019 playoff chances aren\u2019t great. But that doesn\u2019t mean a postseason appearance is impossible.<\/p>\n
Indy is coming off a 30-20 home loss<\/a> to the Buffalo Bills<\/a>. It was their third loss in a row. The team now owns a 4-6 record, good for second-best in the AFC South.<\/p>\n With the loss to Buffalo, the Colts\u2019 chances of making the playoffs dropped to just 19 percent<\/a>. Again, their chances aren\u2019t very great. But anything can happen with seven games remaining on the schedule.<\/p>\n It has been a rough season for the Colts. But one good thing is that they possess a lot of talented players. Defensively, they have contributors like DeForest Buckner and Kenny Moore II. And on offense, there\u2019s star running back Jonathan Taylor<\/a> and solid receivers like Michael Pittman Jr., Josh Downs, and Alec Pierce.<\/p>\n The Colts just have one really small problem. Okay, it\u2019s a major<\/em> problem. They have an issue at quarterback. Anthony Richardson has struggled mightily this year, completing just 44.4 percent of his passes. Plus, he had the infamous \u201ctap out for being too tired\u201d<\/a> incident.<\/p>\n Richardson, of course, was benched<\/a> in favor of Joe Flacco. Since replacing the Florida product, Flacco has struggled the past two games as the starter. He threw three interceptions during the recent loss to the Bills. If Richardson or Flacco can somehow come through, the Colts will have a much better shot at reaching the playoffs.<\/p>\n It seems like the Colts haven\u2019t made the playoffs in decades. But actually, it\u2019s only been four years. That season (2020-21), the Colts went 11-5 with Philip Rivers starting at quarterback. They wound up losing to Buffalo 27-24<\/a> in the Wild Card round. The 9-8 Colts nearly returned to the playoffs last season but lost their regular-season finale to the Houston Texans<\/a>.<\/p>\n Will Indy end their playoff drought this year? Well, they\u2019re not going to win the AFC South unless the Texans completely fall apart. The Texans will more than likely repeat as division champions. That means the Colts will have to grab one of the final wild card spots if they want to get in.<\/p>\n Indianapolis is currently <\/span>one game behind the 5-5 Denver Broncos<\/a> for the final AFC wild-card spot.\u00a0The Colts will compete with teams like the Broncos,\u00a0Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> (4-6), and New York Jets (3-7) to reach the playoffs<\/span>.<\/p>\n The next two games on the Colts\u2019 schedule are tough. They\u2019ll face the Jets on the road and then return home to play the Detroit Lions.<\/p>\n Life gets a lot easier after that. The Colts will close the season, by taking on the New England Patriots, Broncos, Tennessee Titans, New York Giants, and Jacksonville Jaguars.<\/p>\n When it\u2019s all said and done, though, the Colts likely won\u2019t reach the playoffs this year. They\u2019re not a playoff-caliber team, especially with their quarterback issues. It doesn\u2019t appear that Richardson (at least not this season) or Flacco is the answer. And as every NFL fan knows, if you have poor quarterback play, finding success is insanely difficult.<\/p>\n Main Image: Grace Hollars – USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 4-6 Indianapolis Colts have just a 19 percent chance of making the playoffs, but they can still get the job done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4890,"featured_media":199563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,54],"tags":[9564,56,235],"class_list":["post-199422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colts","category-editorials","tag-anthony-richardson","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-joe-flacco"],"modified_by":"Isaac Zuniga","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Indianapolis Colts Playoff Chances Are Damaged, but Not Extinguished<\/h2>\n
The Colts Have a Ton of Talent<\/h3>\n
Will They Make the Playoffs?<\/h3>\n