Every contender's crucial flaw: Part II

Digging through the NFL's top preseason contenders to find the crucial flaws to track during the season

Okay, it’s time for Part II of the “every contender’s crucial flaw” series. If you missed Part I, you can read it here. Onwards. 

Indianapolis Colts: Wide Receiver 

For the Colts, the potential flaw has less to do with the top end of their receiver room than with what sits underneath the top two targets. Michael Pittman is a stud. Alec Pierce is really, really exciting. After that…*fart noise*. 

That matters. The secret sauce to Frank Reich’s offense is the ability for the Colts to mash fools with the run from 11 personnel. So much of the Reich-Nick Sirianni doctrine is based on the principles of the smashmouth-spread: using spread formations (or rolling out ‘spread’ personnel groups) and then crushing lighter fronts or personnel groupings with the run. 

The Colts under Reich have been among the cruelest teams at hunting mismatches. A whole heaping of that work comes from tight or condensed alignments. But in 2021, the Colts balanced that nicely with a true from-the-gun running game from …