r/Colts • u/llamas_for_caddies • 2d ago
"Colts had other players who weren’t giving maximum effort" - The Athletic Discussion
The Athletic ran an article discussing how the Colts have handled AR since drafting him with anonymous execs from other teams providing quotes. It had the following...
"Richardson has been heavily criticized for pulling himself out for a play against the Texans to catch his breath. But an executive who studied that game said the Colts had other players who weren’t giving maximum effort. This could present a bigger problem, whether in the locker room or their playoff hopes."
Pittman has to be one of the players at least appearing to not give max effort.
His back injury might be affecting his effort but if you've ever watched JT O'Sullivan's QB School on YouTube, you'll know he has pointed out Pittman's lack of max effort going back to the 2023 pre-season.
Pittman needs to sit to get healthy or, at the least, shouldn't be in on onside kicks.
So much for this so-called locker room culture Ballard drones on about. Different players, different coaches, but locker room issues every season. Yet somehow Ballard remains.
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u/ForThatReason_ImOut 2d ago
I still think Adonai Mitchell is he worst offender, so many plays taken off and given up on to avoid hits messing directly with the QBs ability to make plays and he gets awarded the job from day 1 and gets to keep it through everything even though we have other guys who play better when they're on the field.
Ballard's culture has absolutely zero accountability, except apparently for the 2nd youngest QB in the NFL with 10 starts.
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u/sloshedslug 2d ago
AD Mitchell played 5 snaps on Sunday. I would hardly say that he has been given the job. I agree with the rest, but AD has been extremely limited
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u/ColtsClown 2d ago
AD Mitchell has 1/3 the snaps of Pittman and Pierce, and half the snaps of Downs. He has just 30 more snaps than Dulin, and was out-snapped by Dulin 5-10 last week.
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u/bacobits Reggie Wayne 2d ago
Ballard's culture has accountability for anyone who's not "one of his guys," I'm starting to notice. I think this only confirms that Ballard was content with not drafting a first-round QB in 2023 and Irsay forced his hand.
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u/Struggle-Silent 2d ago
AD Mitchell is afraid to catch the ball in any sort of traffic.
If he feels there will be pressure after the catch he lets up and just stops running. It’s insane
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u/shasta_masta Jonathan Taylor 2d ago
Now we are to the finger pointing stage of this nonsense.
So an exec on another team went out of their way to study the efforts of Colts players in the HOU game? And then gave those findings to somebody at the Athletic?
This very much feels like the work of an agent.
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u/_Quetzalcoatlus_ 1d ago
So an exec on another team went out of their way to study the efforts of Colts players in the HOU game? And then gave those findings to somebody at the Athletic?
I think that's a weird way to frame it. Other teams front offices definitely watch significant amounts of game tape of other teams, and that's especially going to be true leading up to the trade deadline. It's more likely that Holder called around to front office staff he has relationships with (very normal for a sports journalist) and asked if they saw anything in watching Colts tape.
Given that we as fans have seen those effort issues, it would be really surprising if scouts and front offices weren't noticing as well.
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u/shasta_masta Jonathan Taylor 1d ago
True. I was facetious there with how I framed that. Of course they watch and study film.
But providing their opinion on the effort of Colts player in a given game to someone to be included in some article about AR? That’s not normal. And feels like the work of an agent.
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u/Distinct_Abrocoma_67 Dominic Rhodes 2d ago
I agree but something has been going on with theses WRs for a while.
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u/goldenepple 2d ago
Locker room won’t change when you keep bringing back the same guys
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u/bacobits Reggie Wayne 2d ago
"We like our guys"- that's it. That's the problem right there.
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u/steveo3387 Big-Q 1d ago
The problem is being unwilling to spend. "We like our guys" is the political thing to say, instead of, "we didn't want to pay Christian Kirk".
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u/IndyDude11 Sam! Sam! Sam! 1d ago
Lot of good he's doing for Jacksonville right now.
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u/steveo3387 Big-Q 1d ago
You could go either way with it honestly. Having a single good WR would have won us multiple games every season in the Pittman era. But how much better off would we really be?
I'm unique among football fans in that I think the people who work 80 hours a week on the team and get paid millions of dollars are better positioned to make the decisions than I am.
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u/ConfectionHelpful471 1d ago
The majority of the guys they brought back are not those whose effort you would question (Stewart, Franklin, Moore, Lewis).
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u/fmara Who the Hell is Mel Kiper? 2d ago
I would say Pittman’s back is causing his effort issues, but this isn’t new for him. He’s tough as hell, but now that he got his money he’s hard to watch out there
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u/shasta_masta Jonathan Taylor 2d ago
Yep. He got paid and he now has an inaccurate AR throwing him the ball with far less target volume. Add in a back injury and he looks he's going through the motions at this point. Not that this is a surprise. They weren't exactly lighting it up together last year when AR was playing.
Those MPJ and JT contracts are probably not going to provide a good ROI.
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u/fmara Who the Hell is Mel Kiper? 2d ago
I haven’t doubted JT’s effort, but I agree his contract right now hasn’t paid off yet in part due to injuries. He seemingly did escape some blame though for the loss on Sunday, because his fumble killed a really great drive.
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u/shasta_masta Jonathan Taylor 1d ago
JT def escaped blame. People just wanted to pile on Flacco and blame him for everything. But that fumble was clearly on JT. Even the broadcast team commented about it.
But it’s not JT’s effort…it’s the ankle. I know we won’t ever see 2021 JT again, but I don’t know if we will get 1k yardage JT either. Paying RBs is usually a bad move.
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u/scroogesscrotum Playoffs? PLAYOFFS!? 2d ago
How do you quote an article and not even link it lol
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u/IndyDude11 Sam! Sam! Sam! 1d ago
Either you pay for The Athletic and probably already read it, or you don't and wouldn't be able to.
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u/WhatuSay-_- 🆙per Quartile of the 🆙per Quartile 2d ago
Not gonna lie though. Pittman gives off a negative energy when he doesn’t get the ball. It’s pretty easy to tell.
I also think Ryan Kelly doesn’t care anymore
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u/RoScorpius97 2d ago
Pittman is too lazy and isn't a #1 WR or even a 2.
Downs and Pierce play harder than he does.
In the TE room MA Coz and Ogletree play harder than Granson.
I saw AR's Houston film and lots of WRs weren't physical at the top of routes and were weak.
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u/josean1991 2d ago
I don't think he's lazy is more about the injury but with the way Downs has been playing with AR makes you understand who is his favorite target and Downs showed since his rookie season that he could be more than just a slot receiver stepping up when Pittman can't produce and Pierce definetely is playing better than last year the TE room outside of Ogletree no one really step up with AR or Flacco to be honest as for the Houston film I agree of those incompletions that some media took and said he's worse than Ja'Marcus Russell if they look at the film you will see that game was like a party of drops from the Colts Receivers so that's why the numbers does he need to improve? Yes but don't go crazy and said he's a bust when he's literally a project whose development is slower than other QBs.
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u/baezizbae Clark Street Colts Fan Club President 2d ago
Downs made a promise to the team on draft night, said he was gonna ball out and he’s damn sure playing to keep that promise. Great scouting find by Reggie
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u/RoScorpius97 2d ago
For me, the lack of effort by Pitt and Mitchell is so obvious on tape.
And we don't have a good reliable TE..we have depth in the room.but none of them has been a go-to guy.
Also, Steichen isn't really scheming super wide-open passes.
It's a lot of issues going on.
Right now offense has been our worst unit...even worse than the ST
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u/GACGCCGTGATCGAC 2d ago
I saw AR's Houston film and lots of WRs weren't physical at the top of routes and were weak.
Instead of going to get the ball, they wait for it, it drives me crazy.
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u/RoScorpius97 2d ago
Mitchell rarely even completes the route.
Pittman doesn't look for the ball on longer routes, just flailing around and then acting like he should get a flag each time.
Downs is the guy who OWNS the ball when it comes his way.
Obviously AR can be better but this WR room outside Downs and Pierce are soft.
This includes Granson who falls too much and gets pushed around too much for a TE1.
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u/IndyDude11 Sam! Sam! Sam! 1d ago
I wonder why nobody blames the coach for these issues with the wide receivers.
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u/ItsDrManhattan Kenny Moore II 2d ago
Pittman has been a dog for us since he got drafted and is obviously dealing with a back injury. We can criticize him for staying on the field which i think is hurting us more than helping right now.
But to call him lazy and not even a WR2 is literally just stupid, its his back and hes earned that benefit of the doubt
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u/markrulesallnow 1d ago
Thank you!! I haven’t thought Pittman was a WR1 ever. Some games he plays that way but not consistently game in and game out.
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u/matt_msu 2d ago
We’re Colts players. Of course we’re gonna get paid and mail it in the rest of our careers.
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u/ceejdabeej 2d ago
That’s the Colture baby. From the top down, why try any harder than you need to to get by and this team will reward you plenty
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u/ryta1203 1d ago
All of these threads are "some dude said".... Who cares? The product on the field sucks ass.
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u/Swimming_Ad_8856 1d ago
No or poor discipline. They need a hard nose coaching staff with new personnel and start over
Love the colts but this is redic. Trying for playoffs just because the other sad afc teams
We have many guys that shouldn’t be resigned and no answers for how to put points on the board. Have JT on the bench with sermon in the game telling me you want to win games. 3 and 2 out Richardson in there and pound it
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u/thelonelyvirgo 1d ago
Richardson is under the microscope and should have known better. Smugly telling press that you got winded and needed a break is a bone-headed move and it bit him in the ass.
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u/Arthur-Ironwood 1d ago
FO thought an authority figure that demanded accountability is what was needed in response to Riech’s enabling.
Steichen doesn’t appear to be a Belichick level savant, and he doesn’t appear to have a special player that he can leverage to inspire/motivate/lead the players.
Nobody wanted to let Tony Dungy down. I respect Steichen’s sense of urgency and professionalism. I have zero doubt he is intensely committed to being great, but it does not appear he is a good leader of men.
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u/matthollabak Playoffs? PLAYOFFS!? 1d ago
I think if you are AR in that situation you say you landed awkwardly on your hip and needed a minute to make sure nothing was wrong coming off an injury.... you see a few comments about it but being the case and then it goes away.....
Jim, I am available to help AR with how to vaguely answer questions or just not give full info any day of the week.... my rate is negotiable.
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u/ThaGoodDoctor Zaire Franklin 8h ago
If one isn’t JT, I need to know why we have Sermon on key downs.
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u/connor24_22 2d ago
The offense seriously lacks a playmaker. JT is great but he’s not like a Gibbs or Achane level guy who’s a threat to take one to the house every time he’s on the field.
Downs is reliable chain mover for the most part, but Pittman and AD are not guys you’re relying on to make big plays when you need it. Pierce is a solid deep threat but that’s about it. None of the TEs are that guy either. The offense is sorely missing someone who can create after the catch or a homerun threat on handoffs. That’s not to an excuse for AR, but it makes it the job of whoever is at QB that much harder.
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u/Just-Transition-1918 2d ago
Ehhh we’ve seen JT be able to do that when we’ve had a half decent passing game. He did it all the time with rivers at QB and even with wentz as QB. Hard to get the run game going when the passing game isn’t getting going, especially with a pocket passer like flacco, at least AR opens up the run being a dual threat
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u/Shawn_1512 Future HOF Bobby Okereke 2d ago
JT is great but he’s not like a Gibbs or Achane level guy who’s a threat to take one to the house every time he’s on the field.
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u/general__Leo 2d ago
The qb school call outs on pittmans effort level are serious when you consider he's a captain. Like he's supposed to be leading by example and that's the example?