Sam

Ehlinger

He added five carries for 21 yards. Ehlinger’s two picks were utter disasters, one a pick-six to a defensive lineman while in the grasp of a different defender, and another in the red zone that he forced late in the down, which wound up being tipped to Christian Kirksey. Ehlinger likely starts as the QB1 by default in Indianapolis this offseason, but he was beyond brutal against the Patriots and there’s little reason for optimism he’ll ever have a big role. He’s not athletic enough to be a real threat as a read-option type quarterback. The Colts will likely make him at best their QB2 this offseason -- he could possibly slide down the depth chart even further if the Colts wanted him to. We’ll have to see how big Jim Irsay’s delusions of grandeur are.

Here we go again. After Nick Foles was knocked from the team’s Week 17 matchup against the Giants, Ehlinger took over, throwing for 60 yards and one touchdown in the 38-10 loss. With arguably the worst quarterback situation in the league, the Colts have just one more game to go before completely overhauling their team this offseason. Even in the worst situations, nobody should be looking to start Ehlinger in their Week 18 fantasy lineups.

Ehlinger stepped in for an injured Nick Foles and failed to provide much of a spark. He was able to find Michael Pittman for a late garbage touchdown with about two minutes left. We’ll keep you posted on the Colts’ plans at quarterback entering Week 18.

Ehlinger has not played since Week 9’s disastrous 103-yard effort against the Patriots. Foles has in-game benching risk but Ehlinger offers little upside if he happens to get into the game. If you’re in a deep enough league to still want to roster Indy’s backup quarterback, that will likely be Ehlinger for the time being. The Colts seem to change their minds on their quarterback situation every other week.

With smoke already billowing that interim coach Jeff Saturday planned to eventually bench Ehlinger for Matt Ryan, we knew that the plan was being put into action when Ryan took the first-team reps in pre-game warmups on Sunday. It’s a brutal break for Ehlinger but far from surprising after “ready for prime time” was the last thing he looked during his two starts. We would expect Ryan to continue starting as long as he remains healthy. Frankly, Ehlinger doesn’t even look like a future No. 2 at the NFL level.

Interim coach Jeff Saturday unconvincingly claimed earlier in the week that Ehlinger would remain starter. That would have been a self-evidently bad decision, but it is unclear why the Colts felt compelled to lie about it. Ehlinger hasn’t even looked worthy of a No. 2 job through his first two starts this season.

Ryan was taking the first-team snaps in pre-game warmups. Although this is unquestionably the correct decision, it is also a highly tilted one from a team suddenly at the mercy of an owner behaving in erratic fashion. It was Jim Irsay who seemed to order Ryan’s benching in the first place. Sam Ehlinger predictably showed nothing in Ryan’s absence, and the Colts now want interim coach Jeff Saturday to have a shot at actually winning a game or two. Ryan’s insertion under would be excellent news for the Colts’ entire skill corps, including even Jonathan Taylor. A better overall offensive environment can only hope the running game.

Officially, he practiced in full. Ryan had yet to practice since his benching ahead of Week 8. With Frank Reich out and desperation setting in, the Colts could be re-thinking their Sam Ehlinger decision after back-to-back atrocious starts. We do obviously expect Ehlinger to be out there for Week 10 against the Raiders, but we would consider “Ryan watch” to be on.

Ehlinger has displayed close to zero ability to move the offense or generate points through two games under center, but the Ehlinger move seemed to come from up top with owner Jim Irsay. And Saturday was hired on an interim basis to be a “yes” man for Irsay. Matt Ryan will continue to ride the bench, and the Colts will continue to field a bottom-three offense with Ehlinger.

The Colts were hoping that Ehlinger’s mobility would help mitigate their poor offensive line play but that was not the case this week, at all. Ehlinger added five rushes for 39 yards, but also took a back-breaking nine sacks. He also threw a loss-sealing pick-six, although that pass skipped off of Kylen Granson’s hands and was more on the tight end than the quarterback. It was a very rough outing for the second-yard quarterback, who didn’t even complete a pass until less than eight minutes left in the second quarter. Ehlinger will be a weak streaming option against the Raiders in Week 11.