7 games in lets see what Football Outsiders DVOA thinks of the Colts.
In total DVOA the Colts are ranked 15th in the league and 6th in the AFC. By DVOA's assessment playing the way they have over the last 7 games the Colts are a wildcard team.
The Colts offense comes in at 11th overall, the D at 16th and in a bit of familiarity the Colts special teams drags them down with it's 24th ranking.
A lack of consistency has been points out many times as a problem for the Colts and DVOA also sees this, ranking the Colts as the 4th most inconsistent team in the league.
Estimated wins uses consistency and certain DVOA splits to project a teams wins. A team with the Colts performance over 7 games would have been expected to win 4.7 of those. A -1.7 win difference between expected and actual wins ties for the second biggest drop. We aren't just making excuses the Colts really have been unlucky and they definitely shouldn't "be 1-6"
The Colts are estimated at 8.5 wins for the season and are given a just under 40% chance of making the playoffs.
Why are the Colts so highly rated when a large portion of fans are writting the season off and only the most koolaid drunk fans are without major concerns? Strength of schedule. The Colts past schedule is ranked the 3rd hardest in the league. Their future schedule? 28th.
Counterintuitively the Colts rushing offense is ranked higher than the passing O. 11th to 14th. The OL is ranked 5th in pass protection and below average across the board in run blocking. Show Addai and Dom some love guys.
The run-pass ratings on D is what you would expect. Pass D ranked 13th, Run D at 21st. The Colts DL is ranked between 17th and 26th, pass rush and every run D category
On to the special teams. The ST unit has struggled just like we're used to, but the how is very different this year. The Colts FG/XPs and Kickoff Returns combine for nearly 10 points below average. The Colts slightly below average punt return unit and slightly above average kickoff team pretty much cancel each other out. The surprise of the week is the punt team. The following are words none of us would have ever thought we would hear, The Colts Punt Team is the best in the league. The Colts punt team has netted the team over a TDs worth of field position so far this year.
Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats' effeciency ratings tell a similar story about the Colts. 18th overall, 6th in the AFC, 13th in offense, 14th in defense.