This is Instant Game Reaction, an immediate look back at the Colt's latest game and trying to make it a justment of the ball is by cal Pephany catched it, how he rubbles across the dolde touchdown for two young.
Right airing out down Bill down the far sideline looking for say Joel and it's.
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In d Why Now, here's your host, JJ Stankovitz from Colts dot Com.
What's up?
Everyone?
Welcome into another episode of Instant Reaction. Here are the Colts Audio Network. I'm JJ Stankovic, joined every week by Colts Ring of Honor wide receiver Bill Brooks.
Bill.
Today, we are breaking down the colts thirty four to fourteen loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday at pay Court Stadium in Cincinnati, A game that, you know, Shaneesteiken said in his postgame press conference, it was kind of an avalanche of mistakes and just kind of a you know, one of those games where it just kind of snowballed out of control and all three phases had their issues, had their miscues, and the Colts their four game losing streak. Bill comes to an end on Sunday in Cincinnati.
Yeah, it was said that the streak came to an end. But when you go out and play games and which you make some penalties, yeah, it just it makes it tough to win football games. You know, you had one penalty Cincinnati, I kicked the field goal Tavi and Bryant gets a penalty called against him as far as using leverage to try to block a block the kick, and you know what, that gives them a first down. Then they go and score, and then you get Quentin Nelson gets a penalty holding penalty takes a touchdown away from the team, and you know that hurts them as well. So when you have penalties that hurt you and you make plays and you turn the ball over as well, makes it very difficult to win a football game.
Yes, I will say the Colts did. At one point in this game, they did take advantage of a penalty. They had three and out to begin their drive. After that the leverage penalty on Tavi and Bryan, so they go three and out, they're down fourteen. But Trey Hendrickson gets called for roughing the passer. It was a very late hit on Gardner Madge. It was very late, and the Colts turned that into a seventeen play, seventy nine yard drive that ended with the touchdown to Moil Like Cox, yes, but then after it, Matt Gay misses the pat.
No.
That's Matt Gay's first PAT miss this season and only his third PAT miss in his last one hundred and twenty seven attempts. So like, maybe that should have been a sign. Okay, some like weird stuff is going on in this game. The Colts then they go tie it. Jake Browning's pass goes off the hand of Tanner Hudson, intercepted by Ronnie Harrison, ran back for a touchdown. It's fourteen to fourteen. Gardner minsho hits Michael Pittman Junior for the two point conversion to get it tied before halftime. And now you're thinking, Okay, not the best half, but you know what stayed in the game, and maybe it can be a little bit different coming out of halftime. This didn't build, This wasn't the end of the game, but it it kind of got the ball rolling in the second half. Cincinnati on their second play, Jake Browning finds t Higgins for twenty six yards. The next play Javar Chase for fourteen yards. The next play, Joe Mixon goes off tackle to the left for eighteen yards. Then Jake Browning scrambles for two yards that he finds Tanner Hudson on a slant route for an eleven yard touchdown. And just like that took the Bengals three minute under three and a half minutes to go up twenty one to fourteen coming out of the half. Did that just kind of I kind of took some wind out of the sales bill? Do you feel like just that opening driver since it wasn't just that they scored, it was that they got explosive play, explosive play, explosive play on that drive.
Exactly that That's what it was. I mean, they got some big players in that drive. As you mentioned, Ti Higgins gets a nice game there for twenty six yards, and you know they got into the red zone Cincinnati, they scored. I think that was that made him two for two in the red zone at that point going against the Colts. And then when the Coats got the ball back, they only had the ball for five plays and then it went thirteen yards and then they had to partner and give it back to Cincinnati again, and then Cincinnati gets the ball back and then they go eleven plays for seventy one yards and score another touchdown. So they go up twenty eight to fourteen right there after three possessions two by the Bengals, won by the Colts, And I think that was the turning point of the game, you know, starting that first drive that you mentioned, that kind of I don't want to say doomed the Coast, but it Cincinnati bounced back. They came back from you know, getting up a fourteen point lead, and the Coast did a nice job coming back before halftime, tying the game up. But then Cincinnati just turned around the second half and after that go up twenty eight to fourteen.
That pretty much was the game right there.
The game was pretty much over at that point, and the Colts just never could rebound from that to go.
Up twenty eight to fourteen. Kind Of the way that that drive got sprung was Jake Browning finding t Higgins for forty six yard gain. So that was the Bengals third passing play of forty or more yards in the game, their third just play in general, the Colts entered Week fourteen having allowed only five plays of forty more yards on defense the entire season, and since he got three in this game and Bill, two of those were on screens, and those are both in the first half. One went to Chase Brown for a fifty four yard touchdown to open the scoring. The other was to Joe Mixon for a gain of forty five And two part question for you, Bill, First, like, how does how does the screen game attack a Colts d fence that enter this game second in sacks just in those those individual plays, but then over the course of a whole game, how does that impact the pass rush? How does that slow down a pass rush even if you're not calling the screens on those plays.
Well, I mean, if you call a screen on the plays, basically what it does is it kind of neutralizes the pass rush because you know they're trying to get to the quarterback and actually let the you know, let the defensive line in, but you kind of give it easier path to the defensive line to get to the quarterback.
The quarterbacks don't get.
The ball out, and then of course the back or whoever the screen is going to have some blockers out there in front of them. And once you get those offensive linemen out there, the blocks some of the guys out there that are a little smaller and can't can't you know, hold up against those big offensive linemen. And you get a big run like that with those backs with the speed and the talent that they have and make those big plays and put something in the back of your mind, especially the defensive linemen, know what, maybe we can't rush through the quarterback as much. We have to maybe hold off so we can hopefully stop these screens, because those are big, expulsive plays that the Bengals got there against the Colts, and you know, it kind of kind of slowed down the pass rush a little bit against the Colts, so they had to be.
Aware of that.
So that's how it affects a pass rush. And when those big plays like that happened on a screen, get the ball into those guys hands that.
Have some talent and the.
Big play makers out there, it makes it difficult first of all to stop them, and then later on in the game, and it puts something in the back of the mind of the defensive players that, you know what, maybe we can't rush the pass as hard as we need to, because if they hit a screen again, it's gonna be a big explosive play. So give credit for the Cincinnati Bengals for you know, running those plays and make those plays work against the Colts.
The Colts got pressure on Jake Browning on eight of his twenty eight dry in this game, but they only got one sack and that just and was that sack actually? I literally made a note to go back and check, hey, was that nullified? Yes, that was the sack that was nullified. Ye, that Kenny had So they didn't even actually technically record a sack in this game. And that's just for a defense that had been so good at getting after opposing quarterbacks since he just came out, and they seem to have a really good game plan for how to attack this Colts defense. And you know, DeForest Buckner after the game, he said, we opened Pandora's box today for sure with the screen game. That was his exact quote, like essentially acknowledging, Okay, teams are going to run this on us now, like we need to be more ready for it because we got gashed twice. Two screens went for ninety nine yards in this game, including a touchdown, So now we've got to be ready for it. And now we need to figure out a solution to how can we still be an attacking front that wants to penetrate and get upfield while also being disciplined enough to not get gashed on screens.
Yeah, you know there, this is a copycat league, and you know those teams that want to play the Colts have been looking. We'll be looking at this film and seeing how the Cincinnati Bengals execute those screens and trying to copy what they did so they can hopefully slow down the Coats passed for us, because lately the Colts pass rush has been getting to the quarterbacks and getting sacks and putting pressures on the quarterback and causing havoc for opposing offensive So you'll see a lot of teams probably try to mimic what the Cincinnati Bengals did today, and you know, the Coats are gonna have to find a way to hopefully slow that down for other teams that try to run those screens and run on against the Coats, because I think that's part of the Coats is de is of course, making the big plays, getting to the quarterback, sacking the quarterback, getting some pressure in the quarterback, not only just to disrupt the offenses, but also to help the guys in the back end of the Colt secondary.
Just a real quick thing on the defense before we move on over to the offense. Like it it felt early like since he was getting some push in the run game. But you do kind of look at the last the final box score and Grover Stewart was back in the Bengals average three point five yards per carry. That's like right in line with what the Colts were holding their opponents to before Grover Stewart missed those six games do to the suspension. So run defense, probably you come out feeling okay about it, but not great, just in that Cincinnati was able to kind of dictate some stuff early on. It felt like with their run game, even maybe the numbers didn't bear it out. Build a flip side to that, Zach Moss runs thirteen times for twenty eight yards, an average of two point two yards per KIK carry. There's no two consecutive weeks that Moss has struggled to run the football without Jonathan Taylor back there, Taylor having that thumb injury that required surgery. But yeah, Zach Boss now two straight weeks that he has been under three yards per carry. Does this concern you at all, like like long term for the rest of the season, or could this be a little two week blip and the Colts can figure something out to get Moss back to being the guy he was in September and October ja.
Ja Emmerson, I hope it's a two week blip that they can figure this out and get something going with the running game with Zach Moss or not knowing when JT's going to come back, and because if they don't, this basically makes the Coats one dimensional. I mean, you know, it makes a one dimensional and they'll have to throw the ball to move the ball down the field. And we won't we talk about this ourselves that you know what the Colts want to make other teams want to know because then you know what they're doing and you just could kind of skimming up your defense to stop that offense. And if the Coasts become one dimensional, then it's you know, it's Gardner Minshaw getting back there throwing the ball and just throwing the ball all over the place to try to move the ball down the field to score some points.
And you don't want to do that. You want to keep teams off balance, defenses off balance.
So I'm hoping that the Coasts can figure something out here that to get this.
Running game going.
And hopefully if you could get their running game going and set some other things for you down the road as far as the play action pass, send us some big players. Hopefully, as we saw last week, we've got some big players down the field with Alec Pierce. And if you can continue to do that, of course, it opens up the offense and do a lot of different things and keep teams off balance and make things easier for the players to make plays where Shane can put them in position to make some big plays. So hopefully the Coats can figure something out where they can get some more yardage and some more effective yardage, I should say, with the running game.
So ten of Zach moss fifteen carries in this game, or excuse me, ten of his thirteen carries in this game went for three or fewer yards. Bill if you take out the one to three yards. This is probably the most concerning thing to me. Six of his carries went for negative yardage or zero yards. Yeah, and that's just that that's really hard to sustain in today's NFL when you know, there were a number of times where it felt like they handed it off on first and ten or second and ten, and then you're looking at second and eleven or second and twelve or second and ten again. And that's just no way to stay on schedule as an offense. And when we talk about you becoming one dimensional, it forces you in those situations. Now you're in passing downs all the time, and obvious passing downs, and lou Ana Rumu knew that, and the Bengals defensive coordinator lou Ana Rumo he he you could tell he was pretty geared up to get some stuff out there. You know, they looked like since he played a lot of too high. I don't know the numbers in front of me and how much they did, but it was a lot of too high and then third down they were running some funky coverages. I thought Gardner Minchew actually played a pretty good game, like I all things considered, where the Colts always score fourteen points, like, I think Gardner actually played pretty okay in this game, just given what since he was able to do. But he didn't have a run game. So that's always going to kind of mute your production if you have a run game that is averaging you know, again two point two yards per carry to your prime running back who can only get it thirteen times because you just aren't really able to get that run game going.
Yeah, when not able to get that run game going and you're playing from behind late in the game, like I say, they went up twenty eight fourteen, makes it tough to run the ball. You're not going to run the ball because you're trying to catch up and get some points and get some points on the board. And when for the most part the third quarter, Cincinnati just dominated the game right there, and that's why that's when they went up twenty to fourteen. Makes it very difficult now going forward from there to say, okay, we're still going to run the ball and try to run effectively even though we haven't been successful earlier in the game. It makes it difficult to try to run the ball because you're trying to catch up and you need to catch up, and then you become one dimensional when you pass the ball and a lot of times you know you're not successful that and doing that, or the defense says, you know what, let's pin our ears back and let's get after the quarterback put some pressure on them, so it makes it very difficult to move the ball.
It's difficult to score points.
So it is concerning, just like you said, when we're on first and second down, when it's you know, first down is zero game of yardage running the ball, second and ten, and it makes it very difficult to get into those ideal situations on third down.
Third and three, third and four.
So it's very difficult to put yourself in that situation when you're not successful on first and second down.
Pretty you know, the the game ceiling sequence for the Colts in this game was they force a punt in the set their second straight possession, So you're thinking, all right, like maybe we've got you've got something here, and on that punt ISAA Mackenzie gets run into by a mere speed muffs it since he recovers it at their own twelve, they kick a field goal to go up by seventeen points, and then on the ensuing possession, the Colts get down. It looks like they scored a touchdown on a Zach Moss run, like a real quick strike drive, and Quentin Nelson gets called for holding on the play. I don't know if I totally saw the whole on it. I also just as a quick aside, like I don't love criticizing officials on this because like usually that stuff evens out over the course of the season, like you're gonna get some bad calls assessed to you, and you're gonna get some bad calls assessed to your opponent. But sometimes you're just like, yeah, is that really holding? But then so then a couple of plays later, Garnimitsu gets pressured, he throws what winds up getting called an interception ball kind of flap flips out of his hand. Bj Hill, the defensive tackle, intercepts it pretty much game over at that point, Bengal's gone to inin by twenty. That is the Cult's largest margin of defeat this season.
Yeah, it makes it tough.
Like I said, you know that that play in regards to the muff punt, you know, and I don't know, is miscommunication. I don't know if there was any communication there what happened. But I know usually if when I play, when I was going to a fair catch any punt, I would always yell, And that means, you know, tells other guys that it's a short punt. But to get away, get away, get away, get out of bounce. If you can run out of bounds, get away. And I did that for myself, so I have less people in front of me or less people around me to make the catch a little bit easier, knowing the opposing team is going to get in my face, but I didn't want one of my guys blocking and having another guy in my face or around me, so I can make the hopefully make the fair catch cleanly. And so I don't know what happened there, So that was something that was unfortunate to happen.
And then you know what, then you have a.
Holding penalty that hurt the Coats from not scoring as well and taking a touchdown off the board. So no, it makes it tough. And that was a sequence that was just tough for the Coats. And when you, like say, when you have penalties like that, and you have penalties and miscues like that, it makes it difficult to win a football game. It's difficult to score points, difficult to move the ball down the field, and it just it deflates you as as a team seeing things like that happen. But the Colt's gonna have to bounce back from it. You know, have four games left and have to bounce back from this game. Is tough, makes it very difficult to go forward, but you know what, you got four games left. You still are in the hunt of making the playoffs, and you need to just kind of learn from this game, watch the diavery system, and get ready for this stretch here of four games to hopefully make that push to the playoffs.
Well, the Colts are not only in the hunt build, they still have the seven seed amazingly because there are six teams in the AFC with a seven and six record after today's results. In this week's results, so the Cleveland Browns they go and beat the Jaguars. That is probably the biggest result in the AFC wild card race to date, where they now are cemented at eight and five as the five seed. The Pittsburgh Steelers, who lost to the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football, by the way, their second consecutive loss to a ten loss team, They are sixth. The Colts are seventh, and if you're wondering how the Colts are seventh right now, the Steelers have the this doesn't even matter, but they have the tiebreaker over the Colts. Based on common games, because both those teams have a five and four record in the AFC, it doesn't matter because the Colts play the Steelers next weekend, so that that'll get wiped out. But the Colts, at five and four in the AFC, even with today's loss, currently have the tiebreaker over the Houston Texans who are four and four, the Denver Broncos who are four and five, the Cincinnati Bengals who are three and six, and the Buffalo Bills, who are four and five in the AFC. So, like the Colts still control their own destiny. You beat the Steelers, you're at least probably sixth because no one can catch you in the conference tiebreaker, and then you would have the head to head over the Steelers, and essentially with the Colts have four games left bill and three of them are against AFC competition and two of them are against direct competitors for a wild card spot. So if you win, if you beat Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, and Houston, you have a really good shot at making the playoffs. Regardless of what happens in that Christmas Eve game against Atlanta, you have a really good shot at making the playoffs. At ten and seven and holding tie breakers, maybe you don't have the head to head over Cleveland or Cincinnati. But if there's a situation where you have a bunch of teams bunch there at ten and seven, conference record is going to matter. And if the Colts go they win eight games in the conference, there is not enough team I believe that could catch them. So that's a pretty good starting point for where the Colts could be in this playoff race. This game hurts, you don't want to lose it, but everything is still in the control of the Indianapolis Colts heading into week fifteen.
Yeah, you are still in control. There's no doubt about that. And that's what you want. You want to be in control of your own destiny. That way, you don't have to worry about I look scores and while you're playing your game, kind of scoreboard watching and seeing what's happening everywhere else. If you just take care of your own business. So you know, it's great that you have that opportunity to control your own destiny. That's what you want. That's what every person wants pretty much in their life. They want to be able to control their own destiny. And now the players have this opportunity to get in the playoffs. You know, like I said, you're in the hunt. What I mean is you have an opportunity to still do it. But you have to go out there and execute and do it. You have to go out and win these games. You have to win these next four games. You know, definitely win the three AFC games that you have and when if you win those games, that will put you in real, real good position I think, to get into the playoffs. So you know what the coach, like I said, need to flush this out of the system. Is a loss to an AFCU Conference opponent.
You didn't want that to happen. But you still have a chance.
And on this next game on Saturday, come up with the Pittsburgh Steels is going to be a big game.
At Lucas Oil Stadium.
So it'll be interesting to see how the coat bounce back and and approach this game, and you know what, come out with Hopefully come out with some energy and and you.
Know, make the pick.
Pittsburgh's steal a struggle a little bit souse. I think offensively they have struggling this year, so the Coasts can jump on them early.
Might make it difficult for Pittsburgh.
A lot of big games upcoming in the AFC wildcard race, and the Colts are going to be right in the thick of it. It is a very blurry picture right now, one that probably won't come into focus until week eighteen. But tell you what it is, it's better to be in it than not right now.
And that's yes, firmly yes.
Unfortunately, this today's game wasn't that much fun. But this is a fun time right now when you're talking about having an opportunity to get into the playoffs and be able to play some football and meaningful football in mid January and hopefully later January, but definitely playing some meaningful football right now at the end of December, and hopefully getting into the playoffs.
Just real quick. The Colts didn't have the worst loss of a team in the playoff race. That would be the Houston Texans today, who got blown out thirty to six by the New York Jets, and C J. Stroud left that game. I believe I didn't actually see what the injury was, but I did see sure of the game. See this is also thing like I see the score and I'm like, oh wow, how that happen? But I'm so locked into the Colts game being there covering it that I missed what happened to CJ. Stroud. So you know, I'm sure if you are listening to this, you probably know what happened, So I don't need to tell you.
If if you.
Didn't, then do like what I'm gonna do when we're done recording, Bill and that is google what happened to CJ. Streuss. Yes, we'll find out. We'll all find out together, all right. Well, that's gonna do it for this episode of Instant Reaction here in the Colts Audio Network. Bill and I will be back next weekend following the Colts Steelers game. We'll figure out if we can do that Saturday night, if we can squeeze that in late Saturday night, or if we're gonna tape that sometime on Sunday. But that will be out for you listeners sometime on Sunday. Anyways. For Bill Brooks, I'm JJ Stankowitz. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Instant Reaction here on the Colts Audio Network. Talk to you next week after the Colts play the Steelers