Why Is Shane Steichen Backing Gus Bradley?
Source: Todd Rosenberg / Getty
INDIANAPOLIS – Despite another season of the Colts ranking near the bottom of the NFL in points allowed, Shane Steichen is sticking by veteran defensive coordinator Gus Bradley.
In Year 3 of the Bradley era, the Colts rank 25th in points allowed this season, and this after 5 games in which they’ve played just one top-half scoring offense (Green Bay, which didn’t have Jordan Love against the Colts).
Bradley, though, has the public packing of his head coach.
“Gus has been doing this for a long time and he’s had incredible defenses, obviously, where he’s been,” Steichen said on Monday. “And I’ve got the faith and trust in him to get this thing turned around.
“If you look back at the (Jaguars) game, the biggest thing that we need to improve on is not giving up the explosive plays. We allowed too many of those and we’ve got to get those things cleaned up. And also, affecting the quarterback whether that’s with the four-man rush, a five-man rush or a six-man rush. We’ve got to affect the quarterback early in games and we go from there.”
For the second time in five games this season, the Colts went an entire 60-minute afternoon without hitting or sacking the opposing quarterback. Trevor Lawrence had to get himself off the ground one time on Sunday and that was after QB sneak.
That was a big reason why Lawrence had a career-afternoon against the Colts.
Those efforts aren’t new to Lawrence, when it comes to facing Bradley’s defense.
Lawrence has played 55 career games and is a 63.4% passer. Lawrence’s 3 highest completion percentage games of his career have all come Gus Bradley’s Colts: 20-of-22 (91%) in 2022, 25-of-30 (83%) in 2022, 28-of-34 (82%) on Sunday.
Seeing opponents have those types of career individual efforts are not too foreign to the Colts under Bradley.
-This season, Joe Mixon (most rushing yards for him in 3 years) and Josh Jacobs (most rushing yards for him in 2 years) did it on the ground to start the season. And then Caleb Williams, Justin Fields and Lawrence have followed in recent weeks with career-type performances.
-In 2023, the Colts lost to backup quarterbacks in Philip Walker (Browns scored a season-high 39 points), Jake Browning (Bengals scored a season-high 34 points), Taylor Heinicke (Falcons scored a season-high 29 points) with all 3 of those games resulting in a season-high point total for the opponent.
-Back in 2022, a major defensive issue was seeing 4th quarter home leads wilt in final-minute offensive drives by the Eagles (Jalen Hurts), Commanders (Taylor Heinicke) and Texans (Davis Mills)
All of this is, clearly, alarming, especially when you consider the immense investments of draft picks and money put into this defense.
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To put all of this on Bradley though would be unfair.
Remember, it was Chris Ballard sticking with this young secondary in 2024, believing internal growth would be enough for that unit.
Instead, the Colts have already cut Dallis Flowers, a player Ballard pointed to back in the spring as a reason why they didn’t make any veteran off-season moves in the secondary.
Ballard spent major draft investments in this defense in his early years. From 2017-21, the Colts spent 12 of their 17 premium picks (top three rounds) on that side of the ball. Second contracts/extensions from Ballard have been handed out to 8 different defenders on this roster, too.
Yet, with all of this, the Colts are still in the basement of the NFL when it comes to points allowed, and dead last in yardage given up this season
Players can’t be removed from blame too.
The Colts have missed the 3rd most tackles in the NFL, an area which is a huge fundamental aspect necessary for a defense willing to give up some underneath action.
Schematically though, Bradley’s defense is not one that stresses opponents to the point of massive changes week-to-week in approach, disguising or heavy blitzing.
Earlier this season Bradley was asked if he is team needed further evolvement.
He pushed back on that notion.
Since then, the results have continued down an eerie path of recent seasons.
Thus, the question about Bradley’s future with the Colts has risen again, with plenty of evidence for that.
On Tuesday, during his weekly press conference, Bradley seemed open-minded to the idea of having his corners play tighter to counter offenses getting rid of the ball quick, which could help out the pass rush in those moments.
A struggling/injured Will Levis followed by the new signed Tyler Huntley seems to be the ideal recipe for the Colts defense getting back on track.
If not, then the 2.5 years of evidence Bradley in Indy will be quite hard for Ballard and Steichen to ignore.
In-season changes are rare, and they likely send more of a message, than actually changing things substantially.
Sometimes asking those questions is a bit of a lost cause.
But given the current state of the Colts defense, and how the first two years under Bradley have gone, such inquiries are going nowhere until things significantly turnaround.
