The Indianapolis Colts (3-3-1) came out flat on the offensive side of the ball and limped their way to a 19-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans (4-2) on Sunday at Nissan Stadium.
The Week 7 loss marked the sixth time this season the Colts failed to score more than 20 points in a game, and it was the third time they failed to score any points during the first half of a game.
The defense did its job holding the Titans to just 12 points on the day without allowing a touchdown. The Titans also scored 10 of their points off of turnovers.
Here’s what the Colts said Sunday after their fifth consecutive loss to the Titans:
Sticking with the process
HC Frank Reich: “I believe in the guys that we have. I believe in the process that we have. We’ve had some flashes. We moved the ball between the 30s. So, if we’re saying we’re moving the ball, yeah, we moved the ball against a very good defense between the 30s. But we weren’t – the name of the game is points, right. We’re not scoring enough points. I think we’ve made progress in some of those areas. I think we’ve found more rhythm lately. We just have to find the endzone more.”
Planned backfield rotation
HC Frank Reich: “[Taylor] wasn’t on a pitch count, but there was a planned rotation. You don’t know how the game is going to go at the beginning of the game. We talked about – last week we had 80 plays of no-huddle offense. We said, ‘Hey, if it’s going to be 80 plays, you don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to rotate the guys, rotate the receivers a little bit.’ We’re going to rotate the running backs, and with the way we’re running our no-huddle offense, I just thought that made a little bit of sense to give him a series break here or there.”
Supporting Matt Ryan
HC Frank Reich: “Matt (Ryan)’s our quarterback. He had the two interceptions. The first one, the pick six right there, I didn’t help him out. I didn’t help him out. It was a second-and-long call the play before, I was arguing with the official over a facemask. Got the call in a little bit late. Normally I get the call in really fast. Got the call in a little bit later than I normally do and that came up in a pressure look. He wanted to check out of it because he knew the blitz was coming and we didn’t have time to check out of it. That was a tough situation to be in. Then the other one, I have to look at the tape on the other one. It’s like you said, it’s always a collective thing. We’ll look at the tape closely. I think Matt (Ryan)’s been making good decisions. I thought the O-line, I thought the pocket today was pretty good. I mean, we had a few sacks, but I thought all in all, the pocket was pretty good. And I thought in the run game, I thought we showed some positive signs.”
On recent lack of success vs Titans
HC Frank Reich: “Good football team. They’re good up front, on both sides of the ball. They run the ball. They don’t turn it over. They’re good situationally. Our defense did a good job today in the red zone. This is the number one red zone team on offense. We stopped them twice down there. The defense did a good job down. (Mike) Vrabel is a great coach. He was coach of the year. He was coach of the year last year, so he’s a good coach. He did a good job getting his team ready. They play good football. They don’t beat themselves. That’s been their whole M.O. They don’t beat themselves. Every team’s trying to play that same game. The saying is, ‘You’re not going to win until you learn how not to lose.’ And so, that’s the game every week.”
Out-played and out-coached
HC Frank Reich: “I don’t know what it’s been for the whole time we’ve been here, but it feels like we’ve always, for the most part, been on the plus side of things. The good news is – here’s the good news to me. As bad as this feels, and listen, I’m not looking for any silver linings, but I’m also, as the head coach, you’ve got to have a little perspective here. We’re 3-3-1. We lost a game today that hurt. We got outplayed and we got out-coached. There’s no excuses for that. We deserve all of it. We deserve all the negative stuff. We really do. I do. We do. But, we’re 3-3-1. There’s a lot of football left. I believe in this team. I believe in our coaching staff. I believe we’ll get to where we want to get to.”
Matt Ryan on his first INT
QB Matt Ryan: “Yeah, it was one of those – we were a little bit down on the clock in that situation and they kind of checked it after our first cadence. I should have gotten out it and I don’t know if I had enough time to. Regardless, even in those situations, you’ve got to dirt it or find a way just to not have a negative play. And obviously, that one cost us.”
Putting the defense in a tough spot
QB Matt Ryan: “It felt like it today, Correct. I’ll talk about today. I think today it felt like that. When you throw pick sixes, it’s tough. Because you’re going right back out there and you’ve got to go again and you’ve got to put them behind you. But we’ve got to find a way to eliminate some of those as we move forward. Because if we do, when we’ve done that, we’ve played very well.”
One step forward, two steps back
DT DeForest Buckner: “Oh, definitely. I mean, it’s frustrating seeing that because we know the type of team that we are and we can be. I’m just taking the steps back. Obviously, it hurts us. It’s a long season, but I keep saying, ‘It keeps getting shorter.’ The time is crunching and we’ve got to take advantage of our opportunities and we haven’t.”
Trusting downfield shots
WR Michael Pittman Jr.: “Absolutely. I mean, they’ve just got to trust it. They’ve got to trust us even though they’re playing zone. We’ll go out there and make those big boy catches. Alec (Pierce) has done it. (Parris Campbell) has done it. I’ve done it. (Mike Strachan) has done like everybody’s done. We can actually do it.”
