In my opinion, the Colts' loss of T.Y. Hilton created a domino effect that they simply could not recover from. Perhaps one of the game's great big play threats, his injury exposed a painful truth about the Colts: they were no longer the formidable vertical passing team they had shown to be without him. With Reggie Wayne clearly on the decline and Hakeem Nicks unable to pick up the slack, the Colts were over-matched.
This got me to thinking of the similarities of the plight of the NFL roster and that of most high schools. At many prominent college programs, the loss of a skill talent can often be replaced with another highly recruited athlete (the Ohio State/ USC/ Florida States of the world can replace one high school All American with another). Not so in the NFL or in most high school situations. At the high school, the loss of a prominent player can be tough, but does it have to be crippling ?
An offense should be DESIGNED to account for all occasions. Many systems that rely on rote memorization of pass routes (ex. giving random names to patterns, with each person being responsible to memorize their individual part) would be hard-pressed to take the second best WR and slide him into number one's spot in game. To simply "get through a game" isn't good enough -- what if it's the playoffs?
The system that has been developed and explained starting in RECODED AND RELOADED, and followed by my Part 1 and Part 2 of my 4-part iBook series on DEVELOPING AN OFFENSIVE SYSTEM takes these factors into account, and addresses them better than any system I have seen. Here is an short excerpt from the beginning of Part 1, along with the ROUGH video (sound and capturing was enhanced for the final product, but you get the gist) that is embedded in the work:
Moving the STAR player. The simplest way to create explosive plays is simply to get the ball to the best players. An advantage to the setup of this system is the ease with which a coach can move a player throughout a formation. Even in most concept-based systems, in which pass patterns are called with singular words, the given player is asked to carry a heavier learning burden. For even the most astute player, combining this burden with the need to play both ways along with the physical demands of competition can prove to be too much to ask.