Insider: The Colts are the most predictable team in football

INDIANAPOLIS – Stroll into the gym the first week of January and you’ll notice it’s busier than a Best Buy on Black Friday, all those New Year’s resolutions come to life – for a week or two, at least.

(But everyone already knows this.)

Have a ticket to the Indianapolis 500? Best to leave for the race at the crack of dawn, otherwise you’ll be sitting in traffic for a few good hours.

(But everyone already knows this.)

Curious to see how the Indianapolis Colts will handle a fourth-quarter lead in a tight game? Spoiler alert: They’re about to blow it.

(But, you guessed it: Everyone already knows this, too.)

These 2017 Andrew Luck-less Colts have become the most predictable team in football, a bad movie with a bad ending they can’t turn off for the life of them. They’re the Groundhog’s Day of NFL teams, a broken record that cruelly repeats itself Sunday after Sunday. This team lives perpetually one play from disaster, no matter how strong their effort, how sound the game plan, how big the lead. And once disaster strikes, like clockwork, the choke is on.

They are mentally fragile. They can’t close.

Sunday’s 20-16 loss to Tennessee was a microcosm of this disastrous season, same as their recent loss to Pittsburgh, same as their recent loss to Cincinnati, same as so many of the others. Hey, at least we can say this about these 3-8 Indianapolis Colts: It’s Thanksgiving weekend and they’re no longer a team scouring for an identity. We know exactly who they are.

The scoreboard won’t tell you this, but the instant Marlon Mack’s eyes drifted from the football late in the third quarter, it was over, no matter the Colts led by 10 at that point and had mostly dominated. That’s when they lost it.

Mack bobbled Jacoby Brissett’s pitch, then made a half-hearted attempt at diving for the fumble. No matter. It was gone – that possession, and very soon, the game.

Every thought inside Lucas Oil Stadium was the same: Here we go again.

“It really does sort of feel like that,” offered veteran offensive tackle Anthony Castonzo. “It’s been like the one thing we cannot have happen has happened in all these games.”

That’d be a turnover deep in their own territory. The fumble from Mack, the rookie running back, led to a Titans touchdown two plays later. Tennessee promptly raced off 14 unanswered and won a game it probably should’ve lost by double digits.

“I took my eye off the ball,” Mack allowed afterwards. “It’s definitely a hard pill to swallow. You definitely feel like this is on you.”

He’s right. It was. And he’s certainly not alone this year.

Two weeks ago it was Jack Doyle’s bobbled catch, which led to a Ryan Shazier interception, which led to Pittsburgh 20, Indianapolis 17. Before that it was Brissett’s costly pick-six in Cincinnati. Game on the line, give the Colts credit: They’re alarmingly consistent. They always seem to find a way to stumble.

Nine times in 11 games this season the Colts have led or been tied at halftime; seven times they’ve led by double-digits in the second half. Five times they’ve watched that lead vanish.

At some point, this becomes mental. In the losing locker room, defensive lineman Johnathan Hankins weighed this notion, then shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t disagree.

“I guess it is,” he said. “I feel like it’s us not being locked in. That’s all I can think it is.”

And Castonzo is right. There is a symmetry to these losses. In each of them, there’s The Play That Buried Them, a single snap in which the Colts’ opponents seize the game’s momentum and never relinquish it. In Week 4 in Seattle, it was Russell Wilson’s highlight-worthy touchdown run midway through the third quarter. The avalanche commenced from there. In Week 6 in Tennessee, it was Brissett failing to reach the chains on a vital fourth-and-short in the final quarter. The Colts turned the ball over on downs. The Titans dominated the rest of the way.

The Brissett interception in Cincinnati.

The Doyle gaffe against Pittsburgh.

Mack’s fumble Sunday.

Make room, guys, there’s a spot for five more before the season’s over.

In the critical moments that have come to define this season, the Colts have routinely thrown up on themselves. They know it. Everyone watching knows it. Their opponents surely know it. The shame is there is real, tangible progress happening here, a defense playing better than it ever has in the Chuck Pagano era, a team that’s been in every game but two this year and realistically should probably have about six or seven wins right now. Not great. But not horrible, either.

Still, playing the hypothetical game is fool’s gold. The “they’re getting better” narrative is drowned out by their utter ineptness with the game on the line. Good teams find a way to win games when they play poorly. Bad teams find a way to lose games when they play well.

And these Colts are a bad team.

“These are 60-minute ballgames,” Pagano noted Sunday. “They are not 30 minutes; they are not 45 minutes. They are 60-minute games.”

“This locker room knows how good a team we can be,” offered defensive end Margus Hunt. “We’re that close.”

They’re likely a lot further. Those last three points? That game-sealing play? That step-on-their-throats mentality, the one Peyton Manning instilled in his teammates for a decade and then some in this town, and the one Andrew Luck carried on from the day he arrived in 2012? It’s nowhere to be seen. The only thing the Colts are doing consistently this season is falling apart when it matters most.

It’s starting to wear on them. Pagano’s held this team together this fall, even as the losses continue to pile up and their fate is further sealed. This is a lost season on its last legs. The bleeding will stop soon. There’re only five games left.

“We’re tired of it,” Hankins said Sunday, his beaten voice symbolic of this beaten-down team, “just like you guys are tired of it."

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.

More IndyStar Colts coverage: