If the team wasn’t giving up on AR and wanted to try to win now here is what should have happened:
He should have been benched at halftime in Houston. He had a bad first half and the team was still in striking distance of a needed win. If he was lazy, if he was late to meetings, if he audibled Shane’s call before half. All of that was already known. If it’s the “tap out” or the press conference those aren’t reasons to give up on him the way they have. Those are conversations with an immature player. Shane should have said AR is still their QB, they are committed to developing him as their franchise QB, this is a multi year process and him getting game experience and then getting a chance to digest and work on what he’s seen is just part of the process. He’s going to sit a few games and he’ll grow and be ready when the team calls on him.
Instead they decided they need to win now AFTER they gave Houston a 3 game lead. Steichen has named Flacco the QB going forward and he can’t predict the future on if AR will start again for the Colts. AR says he’s not been told why he was benched. AR may suck, he may not be mature enough. To me that’s not completely unexpected. But the supposed adults in the room have fucked this up as well. And the only thing worse for a team than instability at QB is a lack of leadership and direction from the coach and GM. Sadly after 8 years of Ballard that’s no more unexpected than AR lacking at this point in his career.
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