We all know the story; rough start, with a promising climax and a catastrophic ending. While this sounds like the script to Avengers: Infinity War, this is, in fact, the Colts 2021 season in a sentence. What went from a win and you’re in scenario with two weeks left in the season turned into missing the playoffs because the team did not win to get in. The whole team was disappointing, but most notably was the most important position on the team, the quarterback.
Immediately following the loss, many fans wanted to trade or even cut Wentz after that horrible finale. But, with good reason to, he finished the win and in 2-game stretch with 333 passing yards, 2 TD’s(including the one that fell into Hilton’s hands), and an interception. This was not what you wanted to see from your “franchise” QB for a team with yearly Super Bowl aspirations. As always, every offseason is filled with a QB carousel with big names that may potentially be traded. This year, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and Derek Carr are among the candidates. But who among the rumored QB’s on the move would make sense for the Colts?
Obvious Upgrades
1. Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers is a generational QB nearing the end of his career. If the Colts were to land the QB, it would be a two year or so rental at best. But those two years or so would be Super Bowl and MVP contender years. Pairing him with Jonathan Taylor would create quite an offense that teams in the AFC should be scared of. But recently, on The Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers said he was not wanting to participate in offseason training and is still considering retiring. Irsay and Ballard have recently commented that they want players that are “all-in” and will make it for offseason mini-camps. For a player mulling retirement, this doesn’t really fit that description. Not sure how Irsay or Ballard would want to turn down the soon-to-be back-to-back MVP, but he may not be in the cards for the Colts. If he still plays but doesn’t want to be in Green Bay, in my opinion, he would want to go to Denver.
2. Russell Wilson
Wilson is my dream candidate as an upgrade for the Colts. Wilson is only 33 years old, so he should still have a few years left of top QB play. This past season was his worst as a starter, and if he were to be traded, this might drive his price down a bit. Getting Wilson would finally(hopefully) stop the QB carousel that the Colts have of their own. We would still have to upgrade the WR and TE room(need to whoever the QB is), but he would give us a guy to fight against Mahomes, Allen, Herbert, and the rest of the AFC quarterbacks for years to come. While I don’t think Wilson gets traded, this is someone I would believe that Ballard would try to go all in to bring to Indy.
Questionable Upgrades
3. Derek Carr
In my opinion, Carr has been an underrated QB for a long time. He consistently has a below-average team and weapons, but still produces good numbers. This year, he had the distractions of Jon Gruden and Henry Ruggs to deal with and still made it into the playoffs. When the Raiders were on the edge of being knocked out, Carr took his team to the playoffs, beating both the Colts and Chargers, who also needed to win to get in the playoffs. While I would love Carr to be on the Colts, I don’t believe he is going anywhere. Josh McDaniels just got hired as head coach for the Raiders(well, maybe he’s backed out by the time you’re reading this), and there have been reports that McDaniels has a plan for Carr which means he isn’t going anywhere.
4. Jimmy Garoppolo
Jimmy is on the edge for me on whether he would be an upgrade or not. He’s not a great QB but isn’t a guy who would be considered a “down-grade.” In the first two playoff games so far this year for Garopollo, he’s almost given up the game. In these two games, he’s thrown for only a little over 300 yards and two interceptions, NO touchdowns. That’s just not good. So unless we could give them Wentz and his entire contract, I wouldn’t move on to Jimmy G, even if his looks gives us an extra primetime game.
5. Kirk Cousins
This one I would be entirely against. Don’t get me wrong, Kirk is not a bad quarterback, but the problem is, he’s very average. Even though he has talent on his offense like Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Dalvin Cook, they don’t make the playoffs and are average on offense. He would have Jonathan Taylor at the Colts but would downgrade at WR. I like Pittman, but he is no Jefferson, and our other receivers combined barely had a better year than Thielen at yards. All this, including the price of his contract(which is fully guaranteed), I don’t see this fit.
Notable Free Agents
- Ryan Fitzpatrick
- Jameis Winston
- Teddy Bridgewater
- Marcus Mariota
- Mitchell Trubisky
There is no quarterback on this list I would prefer at this moment over Wentz year 2. The only one I would be interested in bringing in is Winston as competition.
The problem with the quarterbacks is that if they are not a clear upgrade, is it worth it? Most likely, we will have to eat some of Wentz’s cap hit if we were to trade him unless we add an extra first-round pick as the Rams did in the Jared Goff trade. While the Colts have shown to eat cap for a QB upgrade(Jacoby Brissett), I think I would rather have a QB in the same system for year two instead of getting a similar level QB to change some things in the offensive system. Out of all the quarterbacks I listed in this article, the only ones I would be interested in are Russell Wilson and Derek Carr.
What do you think? Who do you believe will be the Colts starting QB week 1 of 2022? Leave a comment and let us know on Twitter @theblue_stable!
Watson would also be a big upgrade but he also has a lot of baggage and i don’t think the Texans would trade him to the colts