From young edges to ailing DeForest Buckner, the Colts' failing pass rush and ways to fix it

This season, Colts games often played out to a frightening script: They’d build a lead on the legs of Jonathan Taylor. They’d add to it with a special teams splash play or a takeaway. And then the fourth quarter would come, and they’d try to hold on for dear life.

The nightmare finale in Jacksonville aside, the Colts were one of the best teams in the NFL at building leads. They led by double digits in every single game from Weeks 4-15. And yet they finished 9-8 and out of the playoffs because of their inability to finish.

In the first three quarters, the Colts outscored teams by 135 total points. In the fourth and overtime, they were outscored by 49.

Baltimore. Tennessee. Tampa Bay. Las Vegas. The nightmares play on loop in this postmortem.

There's no guessing what was missing.

“On defense, we’ve gotta be able to rush the passer better,” Colts general manager Chris Ballard said. “It’s a passing league. You’ve gotta be able to affect the passer.”

The Colts finished with 33 sacks, the fewest since Matt Eberflus took over as defensive coordinator in 2018. They had just three players in the top 75 in the league in pressures.

This is the one area the Colts have to switch up and improve the most for 2021.

If they don’t, they might lead the league in Pro Bowlers and be out of the playoffs once again.

The overtaxing of DeForest Buckner

It’s not that the Colts never closed out games. Take the first game against the Jaguars.

Down six points in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, Trevor Lawrence dropped back as the Jaguars had a simple plan: triple-team DeForest Buckner in the middle.

Kwity Paye knew he’d get a 1-on-1 matchup around the left end and won it, forcing Lawrence to step up close to Buckner. When Lawrence shifted right, he fell into the arms of Dayo Odeyingbo, who forced out the ball to win the game.

This is how the Colts envisioned their pass rush winning this season, with Buckner creating in the middle for rookies on the edge. They poured almost all of their investments in a single 6-foot-7-inch body, from a first-round pick in a trade to an $84 million contract.

The problem is, the plan wasn't built to win consistently.

Buckner is a phenomenal player against the run and the pass. The pressure he generates is among the most valuable in football, as it launches right into the face of a quarterback before he can legally throw the ball away and gives him the longest path out of trouble, around the pocket rather than up in it.

But it’s the hardest to generate consistently because of how it sets up easy double teams in the middle of a line. Protections don't change much to do it. 

Buckner was doubled on nearly 70% of his pass-rush snaps, tied with Aaron Donald for the highest rate in the league, per the NFL's NextGen Stats.

Buckner finished with seven sacks, his fewest since his second year in the league. He still led the Colts in sacks and pressures, but great pass rushes are almost never built with their eggs in the three-technique’s basket. The Los Angeles Rams diagnosed this issue with Donald this season and pulled off a midseason trade for Von Miller.

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The problem with counting on one player to eat up double teams is that it leads to diminishing returns over a 17-game season. Though he plays on the edge, teams have run into this with Jadeveon Clowney for years, and it’s not a coincidence that he had his most productive season in years when he joined a team with Myles Garrett.

Buckner played all 17 games and totaled 77% of the team’s defensive snaps. He was the warrior they asked him to be, but he had limitations. He sat out practices with back and knee issues With a win-and-get-in Week 17 game on the schedule, he had to sit out the week of practices in hopes of being able to play.

"I'm going to listen to my body," Buckner said in a meeting that week, as shown on HBO's "Hard Knocks." "If I can go, I'll go. If I can't, I can't."

Buckner gutted out that game in Jacksonville, splitting a sack on his very first pass snap. But he played a season-low 57% of the snaps that day. The Colts managed to hit Lawrence only two times on 32 attempts, and the struggling rookie completed 72% of his passes in a 26-11 win that ended Indianapolis’ season.

Buckner is going to be 28 next season, which is still in the prime of his career but at a point where diminishing returns within a season can start to become something more.

The youth movement takes time

It’s not as if the Colts didn’t invest anything in the spots around Buckner. They spent their top two picks in the draft at defensive end. For teams like the Baltimore Ravens, that kind of plan often turns into a successful pass rush.

But these were developmental picks from the start. Kwity Paye was a talented athlete who needed edge-bending reps and a bigger chest of moves than he showed at Michigan. Dayo Odeyingbo was coming off a torn Achilles at Vanderbilt. The two combined for 9.5 sacks their final year in college.

The Colts knew what they were getting. They did it for the long run. They paid the cost in 2021.

Paye had a strong season in a vacuum, ranking 32nd with 37 pressures. His youth arrived in finishing those plays for sacks, as he finished tied for 94th with four.

Those pressures helped Al-Quadin Muhammad set a career high with six sacks, but the Colts needed more than that off the edge opposite a rookie. Muhammad had never played more than 56% of snaps in an NFL season, and the Colts relied on him for 73% this year. He accumulated with volume, but his pressure rate trailed 64 other players with at least 25 pressures.

"We have the guys that we have and certainly we would take more," Eberflus said of the pass rush around midseason. "If you know where they are, let me know. We’ll put them on the roster and rush them this Sunday."

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In 2020, when the Colts finished 12th in sacks and went 11-5, they book-ended Buckner with veterans in Denico Autry and Justin Houston, who combined for 15.5 sacks. Those two left in free agency but are still producing top-30 pressure totals elsewhere.

“You’ve gotta have eight of them," Ballard said of pass rushers. "I didn’t do a good enough job of having the right eight this year.”

A scheme built for turnovers more than edge pressure

It isn’t as if teams with young edge rushers are doomed. The Ravens allow more talented edge rushers to hit free agency than anyone in order to add compensatory picks and draft rookies to match the production at cheaper dollar amounts.

The difference is the scheme and what’s around them.

The Ravens are the most exotic pressure team in the league, disguising and rotating which players come off the edge and which drop into coverage. It’s a luxury they can afford with two lockdown man-cover cornerbacks in Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters.

Injuries depleted their secondary this season, and the Ravens never recovered. They finished 30th in pass defense by Football Outsiders’ DVOA efficiency metric, and they finished with one more sack than the Colts had.

This showcases why the Colts have played the way they have under Eberflus. They’ve been challenged at cornerback in recent seasons and have preferred heavy amounts of zone. That is until the middle of this season, when Rock-Ya Sin and Isaiah Rodgers were enjoying breakouts, Kenny Moore II was headed to his first Pro Bowl, and suddenly they started playing more man coverage.

The Colts consistently climbed the DVOA charts by lowering teams’ completion percentages. But more man coverage did not result in a noticeably heavier amount of blitzing.

Moore II has been a strong slot blitzer with seven career sacks, but he was one of the players Eberflus wanted in man coverage the most. In the final two games, that approach didn’t work, as he was picked on for touchdowns as Derek Carr and Lawrence threw from clean pockets.

Darius Leonard had been a fixture in the pass rush before this season, racking up 15 sacks in his first three years. But he rushed the passer at his lowest rate in three years this season and did not record a sack. He was often asked to help save the middle of the field in coverage with so many backup safeties playing. He did have a chance on a blitz to record a game-winning sack against the Raiders but whiffed on Derek Carr in the hole.

By the time the Colts felt comfortable enough in their coverage to deploy more of the blitz, they were deep in a season and didn’t find the adjustments. Coaching, execution and personnel can share the blame, but it’s part of why the season caved in.

A search for help

The Colts have to find a different plan for next season. Luckily, they have options.

They’ll be without a first-round pick, though adding more youth might not be the solution they need anyhow.

If they want to spend a Day 2 draft pick, perhaps they look to more ready-to-go pass rushers such as San Diego State’s Cameron Thomas, a 270-pound horse who led college football with 72 pressures; Florida State’s Jermaine Johnson, who played an obscene 736 snaps and broke out with 11.5 sacks; or Oklahoma’s Nik Bonitto, a 240-pound specialist who has 16 sacks and 26.5 tackles for loss the past two seasons.

By next season, Paye will have some experience and Odeyingbo should be healthy. The key is in limiting the burden on unproven players.

The Colts could chase a veteran in free agency, where they are currently projected to have more than $40 million available. Ballard admitted he doesn’t like top-of-the-market free agents, which likely takes out Chandler Jones and Von Miller. Whether he would pay for a second-tier name such as Emmanuel Ogbah or Haason Reddick, who both topped nine sacks last season, remains to be seen.

"I don't think signing big-time free agents will always equate to winning," Ballard said. "It's about signing the right free agents."

But free agency is the way to find a proven commodity. Last offseason, the Raiders and Bengals each signed one of the top edge rushers on the market in Yannick Ngakoue and Trey Hendrickson, respectively. Both posted double-digit sack seasons and led their teams to the playoffs for the first time in years.

Pass rushers come in different shapes and sizes. Ogbah is a tree trunk at 275 pounds and Reddick is a bullet at 235 pounds. Right now, Eberflus’ Cover-2 shell plays more of Ogbah’s body type.

It’s also possible Eberflus leaves to become the head coach of the Jaguars or Bears. Ballard has said he’s open to hiring from a different scheme so long as it continues to emphasize turnovers. He has been complimentary of the Seattle-style man-match system, which incorporates more blitzing from linebackers and safeties.

However they do it, the Colts have to build a system that maximizes Buckner rather than depletes him, that doesn’t bank on youth on the edges and that doesn’t make pressures predictable unless they’re willing to pay for players who can consistently win 1-on-1.

Edge rush is the only surefire need on a defense that has long stopped the run and forced turnovers and now can cover in man. They can afford to throw some weight into it.

They have to make sure that the next time they have a double-digit lead, they’re built to stomp on the throat.

Contact Indianapolis Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.