Colts learn valuable lesson about showing up in shaky win over Titans
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
The Indianapolis Colts were taught a valuable lesson on Sunday: they’re not good enough to just show up and roll over teams, no matter how bad everybody thinks the other team is.
The Colts are fortunate. Such lessons usually are taught during humbling, season-changing losses. These guys figured it out in 30 minutes. The Colts overcame a 20-7 halftime deficit to defeat the Tennessee Titans 27-23 on Sunday.
By first glance, the Colts should have won. They were 8-4 going in, the Titans were 4-8 and the Colts had already beaten Tennessee in Nashville in overtime. The Colts had gotten progressively better since that game while the Titans had gotten worse.
But nothing has come easily for the Colts this season. This team grinds out wins. The Colts have recorded an 8-1 record in games decided by one possession or less this season, including seven in a row.
There won’t be any blowouts with this team, interim coach Bruce Arians said. This team’s too young. We’re just trying to find a way to win every week, and so far, we’ve been able to do that.
The Colts also figured out that it will be tough to win with just Luck. For one of the first times this season, the Colts lined up and imposed their will on an opponent. Sure, it was Tennessee, but it was a positive sign nonetheless. Indianapolis ran for 86 very important yards in the second half after posting just 12 yards rushing in the first 30 minutes.
There’s no hollering and screaming and all that kind of stuff, Arians said. That’s for movies. We get our guys in, we talk about what we need to do, what plays we’re going to run and just address what went wrong and what we need to do to correct it, let’s correct it. Cory (Redding) and a few of the veterans, they’ll get vocal. But as coaches, we don’t need to do that. Hollering and screaming doesn’t get anything done. You’re either ready to play or not. Our job is to teach. We got some good teaching done at halftime.
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Andrew Luck continued to be dynamic. Even with one of his least productive games of the season, he showed why he is special. He bounced back from a horrid pick-six he threw right to Tennessee’s Will Witherspoon as he was falling to the turf.
I saw it on the jumbotron, Luck said. I was hoping they would call me down but I probably deserved a pick-six for trying to throw a football in that position going down right at a defender. You learn from it and don’t do it again hopefully.
Perhaps Luck’s best play was a perfect pass he zinged about 50 yards on the run to Donnie Avery that Avery dropped in the back of the end zone in the fourth quarter. It looked like Luck could have run for a while, so I think everyone was floored that the pass was thrown so perfectly, perhaps even Avery.
As for the MVP debate, Robert Griffin III was on the bench with a knee injury when his team got the game-tying and game-winning points against the Ravens on Sunday. If Indianapolis’ offensive line doesn’t improve soon, it will find itself with the same problem – their star quarterback will be carted off because the Colts didn’t protect him. Russell Wilson didn’t have to do much as Seattle flattened Arizona 58-0. Even though Wilson completed just 7 of 13 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown, you can’t really penalize him for orchestrating a beatdown. Tampa Bay’s Doug Martin ran for 128 yards and a touchdown on Sunday, but his team lost. Based on those events, I would say Luck pulled ahead, but barely.
Back to the original point: The Colts are a good football team, but nothing more. They beat the Titans on Sunday because they woke up and because the Titans are not a very good football team. The Titans are just a notch below the Colts, but they don’t make clutch plays and don’t bounce back from mistakes. Indianapolis is different because Luck is a very good quarterback with enough brilliance to lift a team to victory if it is tuned in and enough amnesia to forget the last play, good or bad.
Again, the Colts can’t afford to play anything less than 60 minutes the rest of the way, not with two games against AFL leader Houston and at least one playoff game on the horizon. If they play the first half against Houston next week the way they played the first half against Tennessee, they’ll be down by 30 and there will be no way back.
There is good news. The Colts are a mistake-prone outfit that still wins, and with youngsters who are gaining experience, those mistakes are bound to lessen with time. If that switch flips before the end of the regular season, Indianapolis becomes a dangerous team in January.
Just be glad that the most important lesson already has been learned.
We stunk it up the first half, Redding said. We really stunk it up, gave them points and we came in here at half, we regrouped and we went out there and played the way we are supposed to play. I don’t know what it’s all about. I can’t put my finger on it. But I’m enjoying the benefits and we are going to keep doing our thing.
