Down a touchdown with under two minutes to go on Monday night’s game vs. Pittsburgh, the Colts couldn’t execute a game-tying drive. Indianapolis’ game management specifically was criticized, as the Colts ended the game with two timeouts while allowing the clock to run down.
There was one notable play on the drive as quarterback Matt Ryan scrambled for 14 yards and was tackled in bounds, but the Colts decided not to stop the clock. On Tuesday, interim head coach Jeff Saturday admitted that it was a mistake not to call a timeout.
“I wish I had that third down back, and in all honesty, wish I would have called a timeout,” Saturday said, via The Athletic’s Stephen Holder. “Looking at the film, you could tell we were in disarray.”
That is in contrast to what Saturday said after the game when he mentioned he thought the team had enough time to get organized.
“I thought we had plenty of time, I wasn’t really concerned,” Saturday told the media postgame. “We still had timeouts. I wasn’t too concerned. When [Ryan] was going down, I couldn’t tell where they were gonna start him from going down, right? If he was gonna get the first down. And then we got there, I expected us to get on the ball and have another play, a little bit quicker than that. But again, this wasn’t a press for time. We just didn’t make enough plays.”
Ultimately, Ryan couldn’t convert a fourth-and-2, which led to a turnover-on-downs and paving the way for the Steelers to run out the clock. For Saturday, that was one of his first experiences managing a clock late in a game since taking over as interim head coach last month.
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