Colts mailbag: Can Sam Ehlinger be the future? Can Matt Ryan be traded?

This Colts season has been everything but uninteresting. The football product hasn't been fun if you're a fan of the team, or a fan of offense in general, but it's been a rollercoaster of different storylines that has gone from Matt Ryan leading four fourth-quarter comebacks to getting benched in favor of Sam Ehlinger.

We're not even to midseason yet.

Ehlinger will make his first start Sunday against the Commanders at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts are moving to a different kind of offense with a different style of quarterback in Ehlinger, hoping it can spark a team that is 3-3-1 but on the outside looking in on the AFC South race.

So, you have questions. I tried to find some answers:

Question: "Could using Ellinger like we’ve seen the changes Chicago is making for Justin Fields be enough to possibly still push for the playoffs this season?" -- Jeff Stein via Twitter

Answer: As someone who started out covering the Bears, I would not recommend them as a model to build your use of a quarterback around. But you are certainly on the right train of thought. What Luke Getsy did to utilize Fields' athleticism against Bill Belichick and the Patriots on Monday night was masterful and, frankly, overdue. He looked like a different player in that offense. The environment matters so much to these young players.

The primary reason Ehlinger is in this spot right now is his mobility and freshness. The Colts built a drop-back progression pocket passing game for Ryan that never worked because the offensive line couldn't protect enough to let downfield routes develop and Ryan didn't have the space or arm strength to drive those throws with anticipation. They are acknowledging that they don't have the offensive line or running game they thought they would to set this structure up.

The Colts don't have the time to design or install a completely new offense. They've trained their young wide receivers and tight ends in the current one, and they've developed those pieces reasonably well, so they're going to maintain those parts, which Ehlinger has been studying in the quarterback room all season. What will change is some of the designs for the quarterback. Offensive coordinator Marcus Brady said to expect more naked and boot action on roll-outs. That will create some natural time for routes to develop and will allow a 6-foot-1 Ehlinger to get away from a crowd of bodies in order to see them and to throw to them on the move, with that forward drive elevating an arm that is still developing strength. Defenses have gotten better at defending the boot since Sean McVay's coaching tree spread throughout the league, so picking the spots will be key.

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I think we'll also see a few run designs with Ehlinger and Jonathan Taylor in shotgun. Ehlinger has the legs to keep the ball and take a few carries off Taylor's legs, and since the defense has to respect that threat, he can serve as an extra blocker by freezing a defensive end. The Colts rank dead last in rushing DVOA right now, so they could use all the blocking they could get.

Lastly, I'd expect the scramble elements to come back to this playbook. The Colts worked on those in practice last year with Carson Wentz at quarterback, and they created some of their better plays, like those deep shots to Michael Pittman Jr. Indianapolis badly wants those plays back, and it will mean emphasizing that work but also empowering Ehlinger to play that way by de-emphasizing the structure.

As a result, the entire playbook is going to see a simplification, which always happens with a backup quarterback. Expect this new version to become more about players than plays.

Question: "Why would you make the QB change with an obvious eye towards the future without also going back to Bernhard Raimann at left tackle?" -- Chuck DeBleu via Twitter

Answer: This is an interesting question because I think it gets at the chasm between outside expectation and internal hopes.

I don't sense the Colts are making this switch because they just want to see what Ehlinger has. They have 10 games left to think about that, they're 3-3-1, they have Ryan locked financially into next season, and there's no reason to pull that plug this emphatically unless they believe this could be the spark that gives them a route to the playoffs. We'll see if they're right or desperate in that thinking, but I believe that's what the "collective decision" was about.

Again, it's not that Ehlinger is better than Ryan, who has 15 years of experience, which we've seen pay off with four fourth-quarter comebacks. It's that they have to play differently to have any chance with this offense. They're currently averaging 16 points per game, which isn't going to get to the playoffs even if they eliminate Ryan's league-leading 20 turnovers. They don't see a fix to the lack of interior pass protection and run blocking they promised Ryan. They don't see how, at 37 years old, he can play a different way.

So, every other decision they make right now will be about trying to win the upcoming game, and then the next one, while also bringing out the most in Ehlinger. It'll be messy. It's chaotic. But it's the spot they've put themselves in. They'll save the future discussion for later.

Question: "Has there been any discussion of trading Matt Ryan?" -- Matthew Borders via Twitter

Answer: It's all so early, and the emotions are still raw. But it's a question worth exploring with the trade deadline next Tuesday and the line in the sand the Colts appear to be drawing by naming Ehlinger the starter for the rest of the season.

When the Colts traded for Ryan this spring, they did so expecting him to be the starter for two years. They hoped it could be three or even four. But they promised two years to convince him to come here, guaranteeing his 2023 salary to do it. That plan has obviously backfired and left them in a crunch.

The Colts owe Ryan $2.76 million for the remainder of this season, and his cap hit next year is $35.2 million. Given the broken version of him they've displayed on the field and announced with their decision this week, it's hard to picture another team taking that on. It's especially not happening while he has a Grade 2 shoulder sprain, as any trade is contingent upon him passing a physical. With six days until the deadline, it's just hard to picture, but it's a quarterback-needy league and you can never say never.

But unless they change their mind and reinsert Ryan as the starter, this conversation will continue through the offseason, much like it did with Wentz this past spring. The Colts can cut Ryan before March 17 to save half of the $35 million they'll owe, but they need a trade to clear the other half. He'll be turning 38 then. That will make this a different conversation than it was with a 29-year-old Wentz, especially if the last version the league saw of Ryan is this broken and ineffective one.

Needless to say, the Colts have created another mess at the quarterback position.

Question: "Ehlinger forced them to keep him on the active roster because of his preseason play. Now that he's the starter, will the Colts cut Nick Foles?" -- Jason Sanders via Twitter

Answer: I don't think so. As of right now, Foles is the No. 2 quarterback because Ryan isn't healthy enough to be. It's also a job he signed up for, that he excels in and finds excitement in preparing a quarterback to attack that week's opponent. That's a job Ryan has never done and certainly never imagined doing this season.

There's also a financial incentive to keeping Foles as the backup. Ryan has an injury clause in his contract that guarantees him an extra $7.2 million for 2023 beyond the $18 million he's going to get whether he's cut or not. So playing Ryan but not as the starter has risk of adding to the tax they'll have to pay next spring.

It's all complicated, because if Ehlinger doesn't play well, or if he gets hurt and the Colts are still in the playoff hunt, Ryan could still be the option that gives them a chance. Going back to him, of course, would be very weird. It's all weird, and I think as a result they'll roll with the three quarterbacks they have for now because this is the bed they've made for themselves.

Question: "How well does Sam/The Colts need to play in order to convince the Colts not to draft a QB in the 1st round?" -- Kaarthik via Twitter

Answer: He needs to be sensational, on and off the field. So much so that he blows away owner Jim Irsay and general manager Chris Ballard and wins too many games for the Colts to have a reasonable shot at any of the quarterbacks they really want in that draft.

The odds say that's unlikely, given that no quarterback since Tom Brady has been drafted as late as Ehlinger and become the long-term answer for his team at that position. Brady will forever be an outlier in this league, and it's worth remembering he earned that trust before the league became so obsessed with quarterbacks, back when learning and developing as a game manager could still win you a lot of games. Nowadays, not only does the quarterback have to be the driving source behind your success, but the league knows it so much that the good ones just don't fall to Day 3. It's rare enough that they make it to Day 2, like Jalen Hurts did before he unseated Wentz.

The Colts have made a lot of half-measures and band-aids since Andrew Luck's abrupt retirement in the 2019 preseason. They rolled with a career backup in Jacoby Brissett for a season, then did a one-year rental of a 39-year-old Phillip Rivers, then tried a reclamation project on a broken Wentz for a season, and then experimented with a 37-year-old Ryan. None of it has solved the riddle, and yet the one move they haven't tried is drafting a quarterback and developing him as a starter.

The Colts love Ehlinger as a person, but they drafted him in the sixth round last year to be a developmental backup. That's what the league scouted him as. That's how he saw himself as recently as the preseason, when he spoke about learning for three seasons and reworking a throwing motion with renowned throwing coach Tom House in order to build the kind of arm scouts never saw. It's gargantuan to ask that to come together this quickly in an offense with the 32nd-ranked run game per Football Outsiders and the 31st-ranked pass-blocking unit per ESPN.

If he can dominate in the 2022 Colts offense, then it'll be a sign he's something truly special. He has that chance now. But everyone should be shocked if it actually gets to that point, because it's not supposed to.

Contact Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts mailbag: Can Sam Ehlinger be the future? Can Matt Ryan be traded?