The 1991Indianapolis Colts season was the 39th season for the team in the National Football League and eighth in Indianapolis. The team was looking to improve on the 7–9 record they had recorded in 1990. Instead, the Colts put together a campaign that ranked as one of the worst in NFL history. The Colts only recorded one victory in sixteen games, becoming the fourth team since the extension of the NFL’s regular season to sixteen games to accomplish this. To date it is their worst full season record in the entire history of the franchise, and the second worst overall record in team history. The 1991 Colts’ futility was beaten only by the 1982 Baltimore Colts squad, where the team failed to record a victory in the strike-shortened season and finished at 0-8-1. The Colts’ poor performance cost sixth-year head coachRon Meyer his job after the Colts’ fifth consecutive loss to open the season. Meyer had been with the Colts since Week 14 in 1986, when he replaced the fired Rod Dowhower after the Colts had lost their first thirteen games of the season. Defensive coordinatorRick Venturi was promoted to interim head coach; he would lead the team to its only win. The Colts scored the fewest points up to that point of any team in NFL history in a sixteen-game schedule, scoring in the single digits in 11 games. The Colts never scored more than 28 points in any game, scored less than ten points eleven times, were shut out twice, and failed to score one single touchdown in nine of their sixteen games, which remains the largest proportion of games without scoring a touchdown since the 1977 “Zero Gang” Buccaneers did not score a touchdown in eight of fourteen games. Statistics site Football Outsiders said of the Colts 1991 season: Their futility was mentioned in a Thanksgiving edition of Bill Swerski's Superfans, a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. The four characters, all Chicago Bears fans, commented on how some cities aren't as fortunate as Chicago to have a good football team, citing Indianapolis as an example.
Offseason
NFL Draft
Round
Pick
Player
Position
School/Club Team
2
40
Shane Curry
Defensive end
Miami
3
69
Dave McCloughan
Defensive back
Colorado
4
96
Mark Vander Poel
Offensive tackle
Colorado
5
125
Kerry Cash
Tight end
Texas
6
152
Mel Agee
Defensive end
Illinois
7
181
James Bradley
Wide receiver
Michigan State
8
208
Tim Bruton
Tight end
Missouri
9
236
Howard Griffith
Running back
Illinois
10
263
Frank Giannetti
Nose tackle
Penn State
11
292
Jerry Crafts
Offensive tackle
Louisville
12
319
Rob Luedeke
Center
Penn State
Personnel
Staff
Roster
Regular season
The Colts were victorious only once in the regular season, finishing last in the AFC East, and their fifteen losses tied an NFL record that was initially set by the 1980 New Orleans Saints and tied by the 1989 Dallas Cowboys and 1990 New England Patriots in the previous two NFL seasons. The 1991 Colts had a much weaker schedule to play than either the 1990 Patriots or 1989 Cowboys, playing eleven games against teams with non-winning records, as against only five for the 1990 Patriots and four for the 1989 Cowboys. The Colts lost nine consecutive games to start the season before rallying to defeat the playoff-bound New York Jets by a single point in Week 11. The win against their division rivals came at Giants Stadium; the Colts went 0-8 in the Hoosier Dome. Since the Colts finished with the worst record in the NFL, they won the right to draftSteve Emtman, a defensive lineman from Washington whose career was derailed by injuries. It would take them until 1995 to reach the playoffs again, and the Colts did not become consistently successful until Peyton Manning joined the team near the end of the 1990s.
