Editor's note: This story was originally published in October after the Colts' 2-4 start. After an 8-8 season, Grigson was fired on Saturday despite having three more years on his contract, and Colts owner Jim Irsay said the team will keep coach Chuck Pagano for 2017.

It looked like things were about to turn Indianapolis's way again last Sunday night. The Colts have been, in many ways, the luckiest franchise in football the past two decades. After producing a terrible season the year Peyton Manning entered the draft, they went 141-67 before Manning suffered a serious neck injury, yielding a second dismal season at the exact time Andrew Luck -- arguably the best quarterback prospect since Manning -- became available.

The Colts have played in what has perennially been the NFL's worst division with Luck at the helm, finishing no better than 13th in DVOA and still managing to make it to the playoffs three times in four seasons. Indy has won a league-high 71.1 percent of its games decided by one touchdown or less over that time frame. Meanwhile, the other teams in their division have combined to go through seven permanent head coaches.

All of which brings us to last Sunday night. With 4:56 left to go against the Texans, the Colts had a win expectancy of 99 percent. From there, the defense fell apart. It allowed a third-and-10 conversion at midfield to DeAndre Hopkins. Then Lamar Miller danced through tackles for a touchdown. Then the Colts went three-and-out and Houston scored again to tie the score. And after Indianapolis got one more bit of luck by winning the overtime coin toss, Indy punted and the Texans kicked a game-winning field goal.

Houston's 26-23 win sent the Colts reeling. ESPN's Football Power Index now gives Indy just a 9.3 percent chance of winning its division, courtesy of a defensive collapse authored by general manager Ryan Grigson. It was Grigson who said earlier this month that the Colts are struggling to put together a defense because of the five-year, $122-million contract extension he handed Luck this past offseason. (The exact quote, in case you're curious: "When you pay Andrew what we did, it's going to take some time to build on the other side of the ball.")

It's a quote that reveals a lot of what has gone wrong in Indianapolis. Blessed with the one thing every bad team desperately chases -- a superstar quarterback on a rookie contract -- Grigson squandered his opportunity and failed to build even a functional team around Luck. Now, having failed to do so, Grigson somehow blames Luck. When you look at the decisions Grigson has made over the past few years, you see a pattern of an executive with too much faith in his ability to evaluate personnel. The one thing that has kept Grigson afloat, ironically, is the quarterback who fell into his lap with the first overall pick.

General manager Ryan Grigson and QB Andrew Luck are staring at a 2-4 overall record heading into Week 7 at Tennessee. USA Today Sports

Grigson's identity

Grigson's decision-making process is laid relatively bare in a lengthy profile written by Michael Silver during the 2015 offseason, one that reveals both positives and negatives. Seahawks general manager John Schneider credits Grigson for "[not being the type] that thinks he has all the answers," which is naturally a valuable skill for a general manager to possess. At the same time, though, Grigson vacillates from plan to plan without much conviction. In Silver's story, Grigson recalls telling Mike Adams, an excellent low-cost signing of Grigson's at safety, that he went from not wanting to sign anybody over 28 to avoiding anybody under 33 before giving a speech about how the old-school players he was acquiring wouldn't "put up with much B.S. from young guys who don't quite get it." There's some hyperbole in there, of course, but it says a lot about the organizational culture in Indianapolis at the time that the Colts felt the need to import talent to somehow keep younger players in line.

We'll talk about those veterans Grigson did add -- almost all of whom failed miserably in hindsight -- in a moment. Let's focus on Trent Cole, though. In the piece, Grigson recalls how he refused to let Cole leave the building after his 2015 free-agent visit, while noting how lucky he is to sign a player he evaluated as a member of the Eagles organization nearly a decade earlier. "What are the chances I'm going to get a pass rusher as good as Trent at No. 29, a guy who's still a killer coming off the edge," Grigson asked, comparing Cole's likely production to that of the 29th overall pick.

It's that exact problem that seems to permeate Grigson's decision-making. In a vacuum, that does make some sense: Cole had been good for a long time, and when Grigson had gone for a pass-rusher at the end of the first round years earlier, he had gone bust with Bjoern Werner. In reality, though, Cole was a 32-year-old who hadn't been as effective as an outside linebacker. Grigson's evaluation was a decade old, and for whatever value it held at the time, it should have been a small part of the evaluation in 2015.

Grigson saw the specific player (Cole) and not the general value likely to come with an asset like the 29th overall pick. He took wide receiver Phillip Dorsett with the pick, who has struggled to gain relevance as a pro. The 29th pick might not have delivered a great pass-rusher, but one was lurking later in the second round in Arizona's Markus Golden, who has six sacks in six games this year and is signed for the next three seasons at a total of $3.2 million. Cole, who renegotiated his contract after an anonymous 2015, had just three sacks last year and did not record one before going on injured reserve with a back injury this season. The Colts will have paid $12 million or so to Cole by the time 2016 is up.

It would be wrong to say that Grigson only wants to target big names; if anything, he focuses too much on the bottom of the roster, as the scouts' meeting chronicled recently by Peter King attests. As with many organizations, there's an emphasis on hard work over all else, but unless they were shielding a broader philosophy from King, there are no meaningful details on what the Colts are actually looking for in their players, or how they value different positional groups, or how they plan on approaching things differently given the missteps they've made in the past. There's a note that Luck's contract forces the draft to be a "do or die" situation for the Colts, who can't go after players in free agency. If you look at Grigson's history there, you'll see that as a blessing in disguise.

Trent Cole has just 3.0 sacks in 16 games since joining the Colts in 2015. Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Grigson as free-agent evaluator

It's fair to note that Grigson inherited a very limited roster from the Bill/Chris Polian regime that preceded his arrival in 2012. And while he didn't go shopping much during his first season at the helm, Grigson's moves generally worked out well. He made short-term additions to shore up the weakest spots on the roster with the likes of Donnie Avery and Cory Redding. He signed Jerrell Freeman, a very capable middle linebacker, and claimed Darius Butler on waivers, eventually turning him into a useful slot corner. Grigson also re-signed Reggie Wayne, which proved to be an inspired move before Wayne tore his ACL in 2013.

After a stunning 11-5 season in Luck's rookie season and with more than $34 million in dead money from the 2012 cap off the books, Grigson had money to spend in 2013 and did not spend wisely. There was logic in his decisions, and Indy's contracts were structured in ways to basically turn the signings into two-year deals, but Grigson showed little ability to value players within the market. He gave young rotation players on other teams such as Ricky Jean-Francois, Erik Walden and Greg Toler contracts like they were starters. He rightfully wanted to protect Luck, but his moves for Donald Thomas and Gosder Cherilus went after injury-prone linemen who continued to get hurt. Many of these deals were panned at the time, and the best thing you can say is that the likes of Toler and Walden managed to stick around, even if they weren't above-average contributors.

Grigson's decision-making continued to be hit-and-miss at best. For every player like Adams, who emerged as a Pro Bowler, there was a LaRon Landry or a Hakeem Nicks. For all the luck he enjoyed, Grigson probably deserved better when the Colts signed Arthur Jones as a sorely needed 5-technique end from the Ravens, only for Jones to miss most of 2014 and all of 2015 with injuries before his 2016 PED suspension.

The real disaster, though, was the class of veterans Grigson was so proud to sign in March 2015. Not one lived up to expectations. Cole was a total nonfactor as a pass-rusher. Andre Johnson collected $10 million to make 41 catches for 503 yards. Guard Todd Herremans, part of the best offensive line in football two years earlier, was benched and cut before the season ended. Dwight Lowery and Nate Irving lasted one season each. Frank Gore averaged fewer than 4 yards per carry for the first time in his career. He and Kendall Langford are the only players from that free-agent class currently on the Colts' active roster.

Grigson (and to be fair, many members of the media) saw that free-agent class as the final pieces of a puzzle the Colts were close to solving. If they had drafted better, maybe it would have been.

Andre Johnson had a career-low 503 receiving yards last season in Indy. Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Grigson as drafter

Again, Grigson did his best work in the 2012 draft. After being delivered Luck on a silver platter, he went after badly needed weapons to play alongside Wayne. Grigson's next two picks were Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen, forming the core of Indy's two-tight end offense. Next, Grigson traded up to acquire Florida International wide receiver T.Y. Hilton, sending a fourth-round pick and a future fifth-rounder to the 49ers, who would trade the former pick to the Dolphins for the selection they used on Lamar Miller. It was one of the rare situations where teams traded up twice and neither regretted their decision. Grigson also would make his most successful trade during that 2012 season, sending a 2013 second-round pick to the Dolphins in exchange for benched cornerback Vontae Davis, who struggled with injuries before emerging as an upper-echelon cover corner.

If anything, Grigson's early success reinforced bad habits going forward. He has traded up for the anonymous Montori Hughes and the overmatched David Parry, although Parry's usage pattern isn't really his fault. He sent a sixth-round pick to the Raiders for Sio Moore, who didn't even last a full year with the team. Winston Justice, Drew Stanton, Cam Johnson and Josh Gordy all came in deals for sixth- and seventh-round picks without leaving much of an impression. Grigson does deserve credit for trading down twice, once with the Buccaneers in a deal for Ali Marpet and then in a second trade with the Packers for Jason Spriggs. At the same time, the idea of trading down with teams who want to grab offensive linemen must infuriate Colts fans sick of Luck being slaughtered.

Of course, the most infamous trade of all was sending the team's 2014 first-round pick to the Browns for Trent Richardson, a deal that looked bad at the time and only got worse. It was more defensible at the time than it might seem now, given how many people around the league believed Richardson was the second coming of Adrian Peterson. At least it wasn't Grigson's lone opinion, which might very well have been the case with some of his other moves. The pick also ended up being the No. 26 selection in the first round, which is still bad, but obviously not as bad as it would have been if the Colts were worse.

Trent Richardson averaged 3.09 yards per carry in his two seasons with the Colts. Michael Hickey/Getty Images

Things weren't much better when Grigson held on to his picks, sadly. The 2013 draft did indirectly deliver Davis, but the rookies -- Werner, Hughes, Hugh Thornton, Khaled Holmes and others -- are a total washout. There's not a single player from that draft left on the active roster. Meanwhile, the players chosen just before some of the Colts' selections in that year's draft include Sharrif Floyd, Jordan Reed and Tharold Simon.

The 2014 draft was a disaster before it even got underway with the team's first- and fourth-round picks missing. The second round delivered Jack Mewhort, who has oscillated between guard and tackle. Donte Moncrief showed some promise during his sophomore season, but is out with a fractured scapula. Nobody else from this draft is on the roster. The players chosen just after the Colts' picks in the 2014 draft include Deone Bucannon, Kony Ealy, John Brown and Tre Boston.

Grigson curiously chose to go after Dorsett in the first round of the 2015 draft, a pick that has yet to pay dividends. After trading down, the player they chose with the first pick of the third round -- corner D'Joun Smith -- has already been waived. Fellow third-rounder Henry Anderson was impressive as a rookie before tearing his ACL, and Parry will end up as a useful rotation lineman, but there don't yet appear to be any stars lurking elsewhere in this Grigson draft, either.

And this is where Grigson's complaint about Luck's contract impeding his ability to build a defense falls apart. Forget that Luck was making a fraction of his market value between 2012 and 2015 and that Grigson could have signed veterans to big-money deals then -- although that would have been one option. Forget that Grigson has known Luck's contract was coming due for years now. And forget that every single team in the league who has the cap space to absorb Luck's contract would happily do so.

Just consider this: Through all the traded picks and selections used on offensive players, there simply isn't a core of cost-controlled defensive players on this roster because Grigson hasn't devoted the resources toward acquiring one. Using Chase Stuart's draft value chart, the Colts have committed just 64 points of draft capital toward defensive players since 2012, the lowest figure in football. The average team has committed 113.3 points over that same time frame. (The Colts are ninth in terms of capital used on offensive players since Grigson arrived.)

Those players also have been ineffective, generating just 37 points of approximate value since 2012. Again, that's the lowest rate in football. The typical team is at 90.6 points of defense over that same time span. You can factor in Davis' value here given that he cost a second-round pick, but Davis is also making close to market value on his deal, with an $8.4 million cap hold this year as he enters the third season of his four-year contract. Most rookies are going to make a fraction of that amount.

The Vikings -- in many ways the antithesis of the Colts -- have eight homegrown players starting on defense, with a few more in reserve. Indy will start four, and one of them is Robert Mathis, who was scouted and developed back in 2005. The time has come and gone for Grigson to easily build an effective defense alongside Luck, regardless of his contract. Grigson already survived a contract battle this offseason in getting himself and Chuck Pagano extensions from owner Jim Irsay. That may not be enough to hold on to his job if things don't get better in Indianapolis soon.