The Colts have reoccurring leadership issues that keep rearing their ugly heads

Pat McAfee had some choice words for the state of the Colts franchise, but this has been a lingering issue for a while.

Retired Indianapolis Colts All-Pro punter Pat McAfee, who of course is now an ESPN national media sports personality on ‘The Pat McAfee Show,’ sounded off on the state of his former franchise following another essentially season-ending defeat to a lowly opponent.

This was after the Horseshoe fell 45-33 to the 2-13 New York Giants on Sunday, in a must-win game to keep their late season playoff hopes alive:

The Colts didn’t play with nearly the requisite amount of urgency, energy, hustle, fundamentals, and execution for a team clearly fighting for its playoff life.

Of course, I think there’s a lot of truth to McAfee’s statement as far as leadership, work ethic, and accountability are concerned in the Colts locker room right now.

How this season embarrassingly ended feels eerily similar to how the Carson Wentz-led Colts faded down the stretch in the 2021 campaign, as once in the driver’s seat for a playoff spot, Indianapolis lost their last two games that year, including to the 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars on the road, 26-11, ending their playoff bid in devastating fashion.

(To be fair though, at least that Colts team controlled their own destiny late though).

While McAfee makes it a point to once again highlight Colts’ 2nd-year starting quarterback Anthony Richardson infamously ‘tapping out’ during Week 8 on the road against the Houston Texans which boiled over into a 2-game benching and other behind-the-scenes maturity concerns, it’s obvious that Indianapolis’ leadership issues pre-date him entirely.

Let’s not forget that following the 2021 late season collapse, Colts team owner Jim Irsay vowed it “would not stand,” led the charge to replace Wentz with aged veteran quarterback Matt Ryan in a trade—largely because of his issues with the former’s leadership, and Indianapolis even brought in two known ‘dawgs’ as ex-players, Reggie Wayne and Mike Mitchell, to become assistant coaches within their locker room. Coincidence? Hardly not.

Those leadership concerns haven’t really changed since.

Ryan obviously didn’t work out because his voice didn’t carry as much weight when his play clearly diminished because of advanced football age. He was released after just one season in Indianapolis. (And in truth, I think we’ve seen the same thing with Ryan Kelly this year, as far as your voice not carrying as much weight when your production has clearly dipped).

However, it’s largely the same Colts core of leaders since then, and expecting that the 21-year-old Richardson, when they selected him with the 4th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, was going to completely change the tone of leadership in their building by himself (and without further additional outside help) from the get-go seems highly unrealistic—and we now know hasn’t worked to-date.

He’s not Peyton Manning.

He’s not Andrew Luck.

The Colts realistically should’ve known that when they drafted him. This wasn’t a top quarterback prospect with a highly decorated collegiate football career that was the son of a former NFL quarterback that was immediately going to command respect in that locker room and lead. He was drafted more on his natural ability, promise, and future potential.

He was not going to be the ‘tone setter’ his first day on the job that those guys were.

It’s going to take some time—if it all works out, and there already have been obvious growing pains and learning lessons to-date.

Some patience here is required.

There’s two things that are important to highlight though:

1. McAfee’s teams benefitted from either Hall of Famers or Colts Ring of Honor caliber guys like Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Reggie Wayne, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Dallas Clark, Gary Brackett, Antoine Bethea, and Adam Vinatieri—in particular Wayne, Mathis, and Vinatieri helped bridge the leadership gap on those Andrew Luck led teams. It also helped that Luck carried those early depleted Colts rosters during McAfee’s career. When a team’s winning games, no one’s questioning the leadership of its locker room, as success seems to cure all.

2. McAfee got arrested in the Broad Ripple neighborhood canal for public intoxication during his 2nd-season with the Colts in October of 2010, so continuing to revisit a 22-year-old Richardson’s maturity issues, when Pat himself had them early on in his career seems arguably a bit conflicting. Yes, I know, Richardson is supposed to be the next face of the franchise at starting quarterback—the game’s most important position, while McAfee was a young punter on a veteran Super Bowl contender. It’s not as though players can’t mature though. Pat admittedly relied a lot on his natural ability early on in his playing career before veteran placekicker and future Hall of Famer Adam Vinatieri took a vested interest in him and placed him under his wing regarding improving his physique, conditioning, and truly trying to hone his craft. He eventually became an NFL All-Pro during his 6th-year in 2014.

There appears to be some definite truth to what Pat said though, but it doesn’t seem to be entirely an “Anthony Richardson” leadership issue because it pre-dates him entirely and speaks to other veteran team captains and holdovers within that same locker room—which McAfee does allude to, even if he doesn’t cite specific instances.

Some of these reoccurring leadership issues presumably also trickle down from higher atop the organization and elsewhere (i.e., the coaching staff), but it may be time for the Colts to bring in some extra ‘butt kickers’ from a player personnel perspective for 2025 and beyond.