A few thoughts on this game
 

I’m as unhappy as anyone with the loss.

Mary Poppins said that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, but I’m not sure that we don’t need a couple of cups to sugarcoat what went down yesterday.

I take some solace, though, in the fact that we’re not alone; once or twice a season, the inexplicable happens and upsets pop up like wildflowers in the desert after a spring rain. From Kansas City to Baltimore, from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, from Detroit to Pittsburgh, and points in between, a host of fans woke up this morning, scratching their heads, wondering what in the heck happened.

In Indianapolis, one simple explanation stands out… caught up in the holiday spirit, the referees gave an early Christmas present to the boys from Houston. How else to explain how they didn’t notice the clock ticking down to zero while they did notice a phantom pass interference? How else to explain a kick that missed the uprights but counted nonetheless

And speaking of missed extra points… from the moment he drove the ball wide of the goal posts, Badly’s missed kick hung over the game like a spectre that came back to haunt us in the end, like Marley‘s ghost in a Dickens’s tale. On the final series, if Houston’s lead had been three instead of four, they could have run Taylor up the gut on the final two plays, run out the clock, and sent Badgley out to send the game into overtime.

Among the Myriad factors that shaped the game, the first probably has to be the injury to Daniel Jones. The broken fibula robbed him of mobility, taking away the run pass option, the mobility that is such a big part of his game. A hobbled Jones couldn’t roll the pocket to escape pressure and probably showed up biggest at the pivotal moment when Tyler Warren was called in to execute what should’ve been a quarterback sneak.

Next up was the injury to Sauce Gardner. It’s possible, of course, the Houston’s receivers are just as productive if Gardner is on the field. I don’t believe that, but if you do, I have this Nigerian friend who needs help smuggling his fortune into the United States.

On the injury front, we come to the final leg of the trifecta….DeForest Buckner. In many ways, he’s the heart and soul of this defense. If he’s on the field, the run defense is stout, and he offers an interior pass rush that no one else on the team comes close to.

One injury probably doesn’t hurt, two stacks the deck against us, but three turns us into the Knight in “Monty Python And The Holy Grail,” hopping around on one leg, saying “Tis nothing but a nick.”

Other issues include the 3 or 4 dropped passes, one of which, to Downs, was critical.

Toss in a bunch of stupid penalties and the fact that you’re taking the field against an extremely talented Defense, loaded with talent at all three levels, and you had to feel at least a little trepidation going in.

o


I don't think that Badgley's miss hung over their heads that much.

I think that the biggest factor in the loss was Daniel Jones playing on a broken leg ...... when the #1 defense in the NFL knows that the opposing QB is playing on a broken leg, it's like throwing a bloody piece of meat into a pool full of sharks and wondering what they're going to do with it ...... somewhat amazingly, Jones played rather well in spite of these factors, especially taking into consideration the dropped passes by his receivers at key moments in the game. In fact, it was the 2nd consecutive game in which he committed 0 turnovers, with fumbling the ball being one of his weaknesses in the first 10 games of the season.


That said, I'm going to take the tough-love route and not blame the referees, not blame Michael Badgley's missed extra point early in the game, and not blame Daniel Jones' playing on a broken leg (although that was indeed a big factor) ...... I'm going to say that the Colts lost a very winnable game, period, end of story ...... good teams do that, they blame themselves without making excuses.

o

I can't help but feel that next weeks' game is like a playoff game. To me, the winner of the game will go on to win the division. The Jags are for real, the Colts need to prove that they are too. It's git'er done time.

Tyler Warren, get well and be a beast, Ward, don't just shut down the long pass, you need to shut down the 8 yarders too. Pass rush, find a way to pressure the long haired geek. JT, demand that the OL makes some holes for you, DJ, get pissy in the huddle and hold the receivers accountable. And finally, all you linebackers, try your best. :rolleyes:

Any time you miss an extra point, it skews the game. You’re always chasing that missed point. If the other guy scores a TD and a FG, you need 2 TD’s or a 2 point conversion.

In a 20 point blowout , it makes no difference. But, in a tight game, with the clock spinning down, you can’t simply maneuver into position for a FG. You have to have a touchdown.

Kickers who miss extra points don’t have much of a shelf life in the NFL. every point is valuable, and you don’t win by leaving them on the field.

I just heard Zack Hicks say we ran boot twice in the entire game. Once for a 33 yard screen to JT and once for a TD to Warren. They don't even want him sneaking, so our TE is taking snaps under center. Nevermind rollouts and RPO's.

Crashing the run game is not burning teams in the pass lately. And vice versa, easy open short stuff turning into solid-to-big gains from our skill guys is not backing off defenses for JT.

And then crossers are killing our man coverage. KC and HOU both did it. I'd love the rematch to have Buckner and Gardner back. But if Jones is limiting the playbook, things are more of a struggle.

It seemed like the slant was wide open all day for Stroud. I’m not sure he ever had an incompletion throwing a slant.

Anarumo has got to fix this issue. No pressure on the QB and long developing crossing patterns will kill any defense that isd playing m2m. I don't care if the CB is Deion Sanders or Darrelle Revis, the can't cover the WR all the way across the field. Blitz in m2m, bump the slot guy and trust Bynum to pick the right side over the top.

This issue on defense and the OL not playing up to their standards are the biggest underlying issues that are keeping this team from performing at high level.

o


The Colts never chased those points in this game, they kicked the extra point after the touchdown that they scored, which was the right thing to do. This game was hardly skewed due to that miss. The Colts failed in crunch-time, and that's why they lost. They were in a position to win for the entire game, they never trailed by more than 7 points, and they didn't come through

o

Steichen is going to have to start taking the points and stop going for it, no matter what the analytics say, because this team just fails to execute on 4th down over and over.

At the end of the game, they were forced to keep pushing for a TD rather than simply running the ball behind Taylor, bleeding the clock, and setting up a FG attempt.

o


Yes, but we don't know if things would have played out that way had he made the extra point in the first quarter., That final drive by the Colts did not occur in a vacuum. The extra point miss was in the 1st quarter, and there was more than half of the game that was played after that prior to that final drive. The Texans would not necessarily have made all of the same play calls had they been up only by 6 instead of 7, and the same is true with the Colts.

It's like pointing to an egregiously bad call by the referees in the first quarter of a game, and then presuming that everything would have necessarily played out precisely the way that it did for the next 3 quarters had that bad call not been made.


If you want to believe that a missed extra point in the 1st quarter had a significant effect on the game, you can. I choose to accept the reality that the Colts were outplayed when it mattered.

o

The reason they were outplayed is that Daniel Jones was playing on one leg, DeForest Bucket was nursing a neck injury, and one of the best Corners in the league was pacing the sidelines, his leg in a brace.

With all that going on, with Referees who looked like they had decided to join the Texan’s 12th man club, the game was a one score affair that might have gone to overtime had Badgely not muffed a PAT.

With two minutes left, the Colts had the ball on Houston’s 31. Had they been trailing by only 3, we would have seen a couple of runs by Taylor and the Colts would have lined up for what should be an easy FG.

Could Indy have won in OT? Who knows.

o


I already addressed that in my previous post.

o

Yes you did, But cannot two things be true at the same time?

Stop with the copium, looking for silver linings and hope.

This team has shit the bed and lost every bit of offensive spark they had early in the season. They can't handle the blitz since the Pittsburgh game, and if Atlanta had a more effective defensive rush we would have lost that game too. Every team we face from here on except the 49ers has a top defense in one way or another.
Jags has #1 run defense and will sell out to stop it, and force us to beat them with the pass. Seahawks have #2 run defense and will do the exact same thing. And Steichen will give in to that and abandon the run entirely in the 2nd half in all 3 of those games. All 3 will be losses. (and that's not to mention Jags and hawks are tied for 2nd in interceptions, and hawks ranked 4 in sacks.)
We play Houston's #1 total defense again, which we will lose.
Only the 49ers game is winnable from that perspective, but then, the 49ers have the 4th best passing offense vs the Colts 27th ranked (and sinking) pass defense.

8 wins is where it stops. Colts lose out and miss the playoffs.

Once again, I question the play calling. I get DJ is playing through a broken leg (don't even know how) and mobility is an issue. So, where are the quick hitter play calls to compensate? Did we try quick slants? We got JT outside for a huge play, once. Bubble screens? Get out guys in space to make plays. We have great downfield blockers.

Please stop. Steichen had a game plan damnit, and game plan he did. Wins, wins are for losers, game plans are what matters!

o


Sure, 2 things can both be true. In this case, I don't think that they are. If the missed extra point had occurred midway through the 4th quarter, then I would agree that it probably had cost the Colts a chance of sending the game into OT because of the way that the Colts' final drive played out. It didn't. It occurred in the 1st quarter, and therefore had very little to do with the ultimate outcome of this game. The OP suggested that ...... "Badgley’s missed kick hung over the game like a spectre that came back to haunt us in the end, like Marley‘s ghost in a Dickens’s tale. On the final series, if Houston’s lead had been three instead of four, they could have run Taylor up the gut on the final two plays, run out the clock, and sent Badgley out to send the game into overtime." ...... to say that that insinuation/inference is an exaggeration of the importance of the missed extra point in the 1st quarter would be putting it mildly. I doubt that any of the Colts players or coaches were thinking about it more than 5 minutes after it happened. And after the Colts failed to convert on 4th down on their final drive of the 4th quarter, I don't think that anyone on the Colts' team or the Colts' sideline was thinking that the only reason why they went for it on 4th down was because of the missed extra point which occurred more than 3 quarters earlier.

o

This just in....per Colts on X

K Bagley waived

o


Good call on the Colts' part.

I liked Badgely a lot at first, when he made 14 out of 15 FG attempts in his first 4 games with the Colts. But his missing 3 extra points in 21 tries overall is one too many......for what is essentially a 32-yard FG attempt, a kicker needs to make at least 19 (preferably 20) out of 21.

Badgley's miss in the 1st quarter wasn't the cause of the team's loss to the Texans, but his overall body of work of frequently missing extra points was not sufficient.

o

The problem is that the basis of your post was unmoored from the flow of the game. Sometimes, when a butterfly flaps its wings in Shanghai, there isn’t a hurricane in Guatamala.

Sometimes, when you miss an extra point, nothing much changes between that point and the moment you’re forced to go for it on 4th down rather than kick a FG.

On the first Houston drive, after Badgley blew the kick, they scored a TD to go up 10-6, so it’s hard to imagine Houston coming up with a better outcome if they’d altered tactics.

Colts got the ball and embarked on an 8 play drive that petered out at the Houston 47.

They punted to the Texans with less than two minutes left, and time ran out for Houston with a failed hail Mary.

Texans got the ball to start the 2nd half…moved the ball pretty well, but settled for a FG on 4th and forever.

Colts score to tie it at 13.

Houston comes back and scores a TD. 20-13. No better outcome is possible.

Next drive, the Colts settle for a FG after Downs drops a 3rd down pass at the Texan’s 15 yard line. If Downs comes down with the ball, if he twirls out of the tackle and gains a 1st down, if it’s 4th and short, maybe Steichen goes for it. But on 4th and 7, with 8 and change left, the FG was the only choice. 20-16.

Houston then drives to Indy’s 17, but fail to convert a 4th and 1. This is the only point in the game where the Texans might have taken a different course. But, they were obviously intent on stretching their lead to two scores.

Colts get the ball back, can’t settle for 3, and turn it over on downs.

Houston runs out the clock.

And, if the blown kick had been inconsequential, Badgley would still have a job.

It's almost like the NFL backloaded our schedule on purpose, I think they enjoy building up Colts fans hopes and then ripping their hearts out! I think we get 2 wins, 49ers and Jags in Indy, can't see us winning more than that. There might be a chance that the Texans won't have much to play for last game, maybe a win can't improve their position....but they would probably still beat us just for spite!

o


The Colts didn't cut Badgley for that missed extra point.

The Colts cut Badgley because he missed 3 extra points out of 21 attempts over the course of 7 games (18 out of 21.)

If Badgley had made all of his previous extra point attempts prior to Sunday's game (19 out of 19) and they cut him for missing the extra point on Sunday, it would have been an extremely dumb overreaction by the GM. They didn't immediately cut Adonai Mitchell for dropping the ball at the one-yardline, and they certainly did not cut Badgley for missing a single extra point against the Texans. His overall body of work (in particular, his 18 out of 21 extra point attempts) was insufficient.

o

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The problem with your presumption about the importance of that kick is that you aren't taking consideration the cause-and-effect process after a missed extra point in the 1st quarter of a game, as though it occurred in a vacuum and necessarily had an effect on everything that happened after that, including the final drive.

o

The miss came midway through the 2nd Quarter

The Texans had 6 drives after the miss, two of them as time was running out in the halves. That left 4 meaningful drives, 2 of which resulted in Touchdowns, one in a FG on 4th and 21, and one in a turnover on downs. In other words, the Texans pretty much maximized their scoring opportunities. There was little or no room for improvement in their performance based on cause or effect.

o


There is tons of room for cause-and-effect. You are presuming that each and every play that was called by both teams would have identical to what actually happened had the extra point not been missed. It's like when a player gets caught stealing in baseball, and then the batter hits a home run on the next pitch. Fans immediately start screaming that it would have been a 2-run Homer if the baserunner had not been caught stealing. False. The pitcher would have still been pitching from the stretch had the baserunner not been caught stealing, and he would not have been throwing the same exact pitch at the same exact speed as he did when he gave up the Homer. Not only that, but the batter likely would have been looking for a different pitch than the one that he hit out of the park. He may have homered, he may have singled, or he may have hit a pop-up. Similarly, the 50 or 60-odd plays that were called from scrimmage after the extra point was missed midway through the 2nd Quarter would not necessarily have played out as they did after the miss.

The Colts lost the game because they were outplayed by the Texans when it mattered, not because of a missed extra point in the 2nd Quarter, and not even because of an egregiously bad pass interference call in the 4th quarter. Neither of those situations occurred in a vacuum, and as I pointed out in the game thread, there wasn't a peep of complaint from Colts fans about the officiating when the referees called 3 consecutive penalties on 3 consecutive plays on the Texans in the first half. The Colts lost because they were outplayed on the field when it mattered.

o

I said after the Steelers game that the wheels were very close to coming off. I said the Falcons game would be a toss up and it was. We were lucky to win that.

I said if they could just win their three remaining home games, they’d cruise to the playoffs.

I felt like Sunday was a potentially season breaking game if they lost, because they absolutely could not afford to lose that game. And that’s exactly what happened.

Now we have a brutal 2 game road trip against 2 very good teams.

The Colts are going to have to nut up and find something or they will lose out.

Pretty simple. If the Colts are playoff worthy, they'll win on Sunday vs the Jags. If they lose that game, they're not making the playoffs.

By the time it was 13-13 later in the game, it was inconsequential. Tie game at that point, might as well have been 0-0. But the texans won from that point forward.