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Coach Rick Venturi made his final appearance of the 2019 Colts season on The Ride with JMV on Monday to preview the Super Bowl and discuss what Chris Ballard needs to do this offseason to get the Colts back to the postseason.
One of the biggest questions now facing this offseason is what the Colts might have to do at left tackle given whatever Anthony Castonzo decides to do about his future. It’s a decision that certainly hasn’t been lost on Coach Venturi.
“John, that would be a monster deal, and we just can’t let that happen.” Venturi told JMV.
“It really doesn’t matter to me what we have to do. You have got to secure him. You have got to keep him on this team because that opens up just another tough, tough situation looking forward.”
The offensive line has surprisingly become a mainstay, even a strengh, in Indy since Quenton Nelson was drafted sixth overall in 2018.
That has a lot to do with him of course, but Venturi warns us not to forget about just how important the guy to the left of Big Q is for this offense’s success.
“People will take this the wrong way, and this is no way a disparity on Nelson. Nelson is a transformational offensive guard. He’s an absolute great player, everything you look for, he should be a franchise pillar and great player as long as he can play, but the most significant guy on our offensive line to success, because of playing left tackle as well as he does, is Anthony Castonzo. When we didn’t have Castonzo in ’18 we didn’t beat anybody.”
It’s true.
Castonzo missed the first five games of the 2018 season. Remember the Colts record to start? It was…1-5. So they did manage one win, but nothing after that. You can’t call that a coincidence that once your franchise left tackle returns you then go on a 9-1 tear to end the season.
Now, if he decided to retire, you’d have to work double overtime to try to make sure that 1-5 mark wouldn’t become the usual for 2020 and beyond. Well, Coach Venturi says left tackle among other things have to be addressed this offseason anyways.
“I think several things have to be addressed. Some of them can’t be, and some of them can’t necessarily be on the short-term. Number one, quarterback situation has to be addressed,” Venturi said to JMV.
“Wide receivers have to be addressed. Defensive rusher, particularly super edge rusher, has to be addressed. A hybrid tight end has to be addressed. Now if you were to add left tackle to that, that is a monster because you only have so many picks. Here’s the problem: of those five positions that I gave you, the positions that are hardest to get – the blue chip players because they normally go in the lottery or top 10, is quarterback, edge rushers, left tackles. Those guys in the last 10 years have now become the premium draft picks numbers wise. Those are the hardest guys to get. They don’t grow on trees.”
So, read through the lines here, what he’s saying is ‘please GOD don’t let Castonzo retire because then the three most important positions on the field in today’s game would desperately need to be addressed NOW’. That would not be ideal. At least Chris Ballard has the resources to make some moves.
Right?
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