It’s time to fire Lou

Five games into a season is usually too early to talk about firing a coordinator. I think Lou Anarumo has made a pretty convincing case for an exception.

The Colts are 2-3 after Sunday’s 34-22 loss to Pittsburgh, and once again the defense was one of the biggest reasons they lost. Jaylen Warren finished with 188 yards from scrimmage, including an 80-yard receiving touchdown and a 50-yard touchdown run. Aaron Rodgers threw three touchdowns and repeatedly found ways to extend plays despite being 42 years old.

This is not one ugly performance that can be written off. Three of the Colts’ first five defensive performances have been horrible. Baltimore put up 41 points and 506 yards in Week 1. Kansas City followed with 33 points and 523 yards. Pittsburgh just scored 34 while Warren ran through and around the defense all afternoon.

The two games where the defense actually played well need some context too. Houston was without Nico Collins, by far its best offensive player, and still came within a late field goal of winning. Washington was already starting backup Marcus Mariota because Jayden Daniels was injured, then lost Mariota in the first quarter and had to play rookie third-string quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis the rest of the way.

The Colts are allowing 27.6 points per game through five weeks. They have faced two elite quarterbacks in Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes. They have also faced a Houston offense missing its No. 1 receiver, a third-string quarterback in London and a 42-year-old Rodgers.

At some point, this cannot keep being explained away by the opponent or individual mistakes.

Anarumo was brought to Indianapolis because the Colts wanted a more aggressive, adaptable defense. Five games into his second season, the defense still looks confused too often, still cannot generate consistent pressure, still gives up huge plays and seems to feature a different defensive back getting exposed every week.

I have spent plenty of time criticizing Chris Ballard for the construction of this defense, especially the front seven. The roster is not perfect and Anarumo did not choose every player on it. That does not give the defensive coordinator immunity when this many problems keep repeating themselves.

Three bad games out of five is enough

The Baltimore game should have been the wake-up call.

The Colts gave up 506 yards and 41 points at home in Week 1. They struggled getting lined up, had communication problems, got destroyed in man coverage and were pushed around against the run. The performance was so disorganized that the Colts changed the green dot from Cam Bynum to Akeem Davis-Gaither immediately afterward.

The following week in Kansas City was better competitively, but not defensively. The Chiefs gained 523 yards, including 371 through the air and 152 on the ground. Mahomes threw for 382 yards and three touchdowns, Kenneth Walker III had 178 yards from scrimmage and Travis Kelce went over 100 receiving yards. That’s as close to flawless an offense can get.

Indianapolis survived Houston and handled Washington, but neither performance convinced me the defense had suddenly turned a corner. Collins did not play for Houston, while Washington spent almost the entire game with its third quarterback.

Then Pittsburgh happened and Jaylen Warren did essentially whatever he wanted. The Steelers hit explosives, Rodgers escaped pressure and extended plays, and the Colts again looked like a defense that could not consistently get off the field when it needed to.

Five games is not a huge sample, but we are no longer talking about one bad afternoon. Three times in five weeks, the Colts defense has been taken apart and that’s a very concerning pattern.

Akeem Davis-Gaither is Anarumo’s guy

I wrote last week asking where CJ Allen was because I could not understand why the Colts’ top draft pick had played only 11 defensive snaps through four games.

Anarumo’s explanation was essentially that Allen is a MIKE linebacker and Davis-Gaither is playing well, so there have not been enough snaps available for Allen.

Well, Davis-Gaither is Anarumo’s guy. He has the green dot. He played for Anarumo in Cincinnati. The coaching staff wants him on the field as much as possible, and Anarumo has repeatedly defended his play.

Then when the Colts needed their linebackers to tackle Jaylen Warren on Sunday, Davis-Gaither was part of the problem. In fact, he was the biggest part of the problem.

There were opportunities to get Warren on the ground where the Colts simply did not finish. Davis-Gaither was responsible for missed tackles that helped turn manageable plays into much bigger ones. In fact, Davis-Gaither was directly responsible for a missed tackle that led to a 50-yard touchdown from Warren. Watch 51 on the run below.

Davis-Gaither has played better over the last couple of weeks than he did at the beginning of the season. I am not arguing he should be benched entirely, especially now that he is responsible for communicating the calls. I am arguing that nothing about his play should make him untouchable.

He is not a great linebacker. He’s not even a good linebacker.

That makes Anarumo’s refusal to find snaps for Allen even more frustrating. If Davis-Gaither is going to stay at MIKE because of the green dot, then use Allen at WILL. Take snaps away from Jaylon Carlies (who was injured today) and Bryce Boettcher. Boettcher was also responsible for an ugly missed tackle on another Warren tackle. So Allen is watching all the linebackers ahead of him on the depth chart missing tackles that are leading to big touchdowns.

Why is a different corner getting exposed every week?

The Colts have invested heavily in their secondary.

Sauce Gardner is one of the best cornerbacks in football. Charvarius Ward has played at a very high level during his career. Cam Bynum is a good safety. Justin Walley was highly regarded internally before his injury and was given an important role immediately upon returning.

Yet seemingly every week, another member of the secondary looks bad.

Walley was cooked by Zay Flowers in Week 1. Ward was picked on today against the Steelers and has had ugly reps where his feet get stuck and he is beaten vertically. Gardner has had games where offenses have gone directly at him and won much more often than anyone is accustomed to seeing. The worst of those performances came against the Commanders.

Every cornerback gets beaten. Sauce Gardner is not suddenly washed because he loses a matchup. Ward did not forget how to cover when he arrived in Indianapolis. Walley missing his entire first season means there were always going to be growing pains.

When multiple good players are consistently looking late, confused or uncomfortable, though, coaching has to enter the conversation.

This was supposed to be the strength of the defense. Ballard spent two first-round picks to acquire Gardner. Ward was brought in as another proven outside corner. Bynum was a major addition at safety. The Colts finally had enough talent on the back end that the secondary should have been able to carry some of the weaker areas of the defense.

Instead, Baltimore found matchup after matchup. Kansas City threw for almost 400 yards. Pittsburgh continued finding openings.

Good players can have bad games. When a collection of good players keeps having bad games in the same defense, I start looking at the person responsible for putting them in position.

Where is the pass-rush creativity?

I have been beating this drum since the offseason: the Colts do not have enough pass-rush talent.

Kwity Paye left, and Indianapolis replaced him with Arden Key and Micheal Clemons. Laiatu Latu needed to take a major step for the plan to work. He has not, even in the slightest.

Through five games, Latu had one sack and 5 QB hits. Before the Steelers game, Indianapolis as a whole generated pressure on only 25.5% of opposing dropbacks, dead last in the NFL. The next-worst team was at 29.2%, so the Colts were not barely sitting at the bottom. They were comfortably last. The final numbers for the Steelers game aren’t out yet, but they won’t help those figures.

That is partially a Ballard problem. I have no issue saying that. The front seven was poorly constructed and the edge room was weak before injuries made it even thinner.

Anarumo still has to coach the players he has. If four-man pressure is not working, manufacture it.

Use simulated pressures. Move Latu around. Create overloads. Run twists. Bring a defensive back down (like the Seahawks do with Emmanwori). Do stuff that forces the offensive line to communicate. Make quarterbacks spend at least some portion of the game unsure about where pressure is coming from.

The Colts are not doing enough of that…

For all the talk about Anarumo bringing a more aggressive and unpredictable defense to Indianapolis, the pass rush has been incredibly easy to handle. According to data entering Week 5, the Colts ranked 26th in blitz rate and dead last in disguised coverage percentage. Like the stats before, I doubt those will improve much after the Week 5 performance.

That does not sound particularly unpredictable to me.

DeForest Buckner has been the most reliable source of pressure, which is great because Buckner is still a fantastic player. It is also a huge problem when your 32-year-old defensive tackle is carrying a pass rush that includes a former 15th overall pick at edge.

Latu has to be better. There is no getting around that. Anarumo also has to find ways to help him.

Sunday made that especially frustrating because the Colts were dealing with Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers can still throw the football at an extremely high level, but we are not talking about Lamar Jackson escaping the pocket. Indianapolis let a 42-year-old quarterback move around, extend plays and create outside of structure.

How does that happen?

The explosive plays keep killing them

You can survive giving up four or five yards.

You cannot survive giving up 50 and 80.

The Colts have repeatedly allowed one mistake to turn into a play that completely changes games. Baltimore had eight explosive plays in the first half of Week 1. Kansas City generated chunk gains throughout its 523-yard night. Pittsburgh got an 80-yard receiving touchdown and a 50-yard rushing touchdown from Warren on Sunday.

Those are not small errors.

On Warren’s long plays, the tackling and pursuit were terrible. One missed tackle becomes another bad angle, and suddenly a normal play is in the end zone.

That comes back to coaching. Anarumo cannot make the tackle himself, and players deserve blame when they miss. At the same time, when poor tackling, bad angles and coverage lapses are showing up every week, the coordinator owns part of that.

The Colts talked about tackling and communication as the two biggest problems after Baltimore. They thought those were correctable issues.

It is Week 5… so how long are they supposed to remain correctable before someone is held responsible for not correcting them?

James Bettcher is already in the building

Normally, firing a coordinator during the season creates another problem: who takes over?

The Colts already have an obvious answer.

James Bettcher is the linebackers coach and has extensive experience calling NFL defenses. He was Arizona’s defensive coordinator from 2015 through 2017 and the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 2018 and 2019. In all three of his seasons running Arizona’s defense, the Cardinals finished in the top six in total defense. They also led the NFL with 48 sacks in 2016.

Bettcher is not some young assistant being asked to call a defense for the first time; he has done the job.

He also knows the personnel, knows the terminology and already works inside Anarumo’s system. He spent multiple seasons with Anarumo in Cincinnati before coming to Indianapolis, so a midseason switch would not require the defense to learn an entirely new language.

I am not saying Bettcher is guaranteed to fix everything. He had mixed results as a coordinator, and there is a reason he is currently coaching linebackers instead of running his own defense.

The Colts do not need a guarantee, but they need something different.

Give Bettcher the defense for the remainder of the season and see what happens. Maybe he manufactures pressure more effectively. Maybe he simplifies some of the coverage responsibilities. Maybe he gets Allen onto the field. Maybe nothing changes and we learn the roster itself is the overwhelming problem.

Either way, it’s probably all getting blown up anyways so no risk in trying something new.

This team needs a spark

The Colts are 2-3.

They are not 0-5. The season is not over. That is exactly why I would make the change now.

Waiting until the Colts are 3-7 and effectively buried accomplishes nothing. If this organization truly believes the roster can compete for a playoff spot, then it should act while there is still something worth saving.

The offense has its own issues, but it has done enough at times to win games. Indianapolis scored 30 at Arrowhead and lost. It scored 23 in the opener and never had a chance because Baltimore reached 41. Sunday was not a great offensive performance, but giving up 34 to Pittsburgh made every red-zone failure more costly.

The defense does not have to be elite, but it cannot keep being this bad.

Three disastrous performances in five games are enough for me. Anarumo has not gotten enough out of the secondary, has tied himself to a mediocre linebacker while burying the Colts’ top draft pick, has failed to create a functional pass rush and continues to oversee a defense that gives up enormous plays at the worst times.

This is also Anarumo’s second season, not his second month.

The Colts brought him here to change the defense. Instead, they are still having conversations about communication, tackling, coverage busts and the inability to pressure quarterbacks.

At some point, the change has to be the coordinator. James Bettcher is sitting in the building with NFL play-calling experience. The Colts still have 12 games left. The season is still alive.

If they are serious about saving it, I would make the move now.