Hold Your Horses: Why Week 8 Panic About the Colts and NFL's Struggling Teams Misses the Real Story

Now look here, football fans. We are halfway through the season, and I am here to tell you that the panic button getting pressed harder than a fourth quarter field goal attempt needs to stop right now. Every single week, especially around Week 8 when we hit the midpoint, everybody wants to blow everything up. Everybody wants to fire the coach, bench the quarterback, trade half the roster, and start from scratch. But that is not how football works. That is not how life works. Football is a long game, and I have been around long enough to know that some of the best teams in history looked downright awful at the midpoint of the season.

Let me talk about what is really going on with some of these teams making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Indianapolis Colts have become this week's favorite punching bag, with some folks suggesting that maybe Shane Steichen is not the answer as a head coach. Now I will be straight with you. The Colts have not had the season anybody expected, and I get why people are frustrated. I really do. But let me tell you something about coaching in the NFL that a lot of casual fans do not understand. One season does not make or break a coach, and Week 8 certainly does not make or break a season.

Shane Steichen came into Indianapolis with a lot of promise. He was an offensive coordinator in Los Angeles with the Chargers, he worked under Frank Reich, and everybody knew this guy understood football. But here is what happens in the NFL that people forget about. Coaching is not just about knowing football. It is about having the right personnel, having your team healthy, having your players buying in, and having time to build a culture. You cannot just snap your fingers and make a team that has been struggling into a playoff contender overnight. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes another whole year or two sometimes to really see if a coach is the real deal or if he is just another guy trying to make it in this league.

I remember when people wanted to fire Jim Mora with the Colts. I remember when folks were ready to give up on Tony Dungy early on. These are Hall of Fame coaches, and they had rough patches. They had seasons where things did not come together the way anybody hoped. But they stuck with it, they learned from it, and they got better. Now I am not saying Steichen is going to be a Hall of Famer. I am saying that it is way too early to make that judgment either way. We are eight weeks into his first year. Let the man do his job.

The real issue with the Colts is not the coaching. It is about whether this team has the horses to compete. Jonathan Taylor has been a beast when he is healthy, but injuries have plagued this team all year. Anthony Richardson is still developing as a quarterback. The receiving corps has had its ups and downs. These are personnel issues, not coaching issues. These are things that the general manager and the ownership have to figure out, not things that justify firing a coach after eight games.

Now let me swing over to this idea that we need to bench Kyler Murray with the Vikings. This one really gets my goat, and I will tell you why. Kyler Murray is a talented football player. He might drive you crazy sometimes with his decision making or his inconsistency, but the man can play quarterback in this league. One bad stretch does not erase what he has shown he can do. One bad game does not erase his career. This is the same panic we saw with Patrick Mahomes a few years back when people wanted to trade him or bench him because he had a couple rough weeks. Mahomes is now a Super Bowl champion and one of the greatest young quarterbacks ever to play the game.

Kyler Murray has shown flashes of brilliance mixed in with some really concerning moments. But you know what? Most young quarterbacks are like that. Most quarterbacks period are like that. The difference between a good quarterback and a great quarterback is not that the great ones never have bad games. It is that they bounce back from the bad games and learn from them. Benching Murray after eight weeks would be the worst decision a team could possibly make. It would destroy his confidence. It would destroy the locker room. It would create a circus atmosphere that nobody wants.

What really matters at this point in the season is how these teams respond. Do they learn from their mistakes? Do they make adjustments? Do they come out in Week 9 ready to fight? That is what separates the pretenders from the contenders. The teams that panic and make rash decisions are usually the teams that end up in the tank by December. The teams that stay patient, stay focused, and continue to work are the teams that have a real chance to do something in the playoffs.

I have watched football for a long time, and I can tell you that Week 8 is not the time to overreact. It just is not. We have eight more games to play in the regular season. Anything can happen. Teams can get healthy. Teams can make trades. Teams can find their identity. Teams can jell together in ways they have not jelled before. I have seen teams that looked absolutely terrible in Week 8 turn into playoff teams by December. I have seen teams that looked unbeatable in Week 8 collapse down the stretch.

The Colts need to stay the course with Steichen. They need to trust their offensive coordinator to do his job. They need to focus on getting healthy and on execution. The same thing applies to every other team that is struggling right now. Nobody wins the Super Bowl in Week 8. The Super Bowl is won in December and January when the weather gets cold and the games matter the most.

So here is why this matters for you as a fan. If you are sitting at home thinking about which team to jump off the bandwagon for, do not do it. If you are thinking that your team needs to blow it up and start over, pump the brakes. Stick with your team. Trust your team. Trust your coaches. Trust that the people who are paid to make these decisions know what they are doing a whole lot better than we do sitting in our living rooms or in the stadium parking lot. That is what makes football beautiful. It is long. It is unpredictable. It is a grind. And anything can happen. That is why we love it.