What Colts’ Steichen told his players after ‘worst’ loss of the season
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Colts suffered their most disappointing defeat of the season on Sunday with a 34-14 road loss against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Colts failed to run the ball and stop the run, with just 48 rushing yards for the offense while the defense allowed the Bengals to run for 111 yards.
Meanwhile, Bengals backup quarterback Jake Browning threw for 275 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns, adding a rushing score as well.
The two teams were tied at 14 heading into halftime, but a continued array of self-inflicted mistakes allowed the Bengals to run away with the game.
Colts Head Coach Shane Steichen agreed that Sunday’s game was the team’s worst performance of the season, pointing to Indy’s own mistakes as the biggest reason.
“The self-inflicted negatives, the false starts, the penalties, especially in critical situations,” Steichen said Monday. “It’s been kind of uncharacteristic and we’ve got to get those cleaned up. It starts with myself. We know it wasn’t good enough yesterday. In order to get done what we need to get done these next couple weeks we’ve got to get those cleaned up.”
The Colts (7-6) currently hold the seventh and final playoff spot in the AFC and are caught in a six-way tie for the last two spots.
Indianapolis is tied with Pittsburgh and Houston, both of whom Colts will play over the final four weeks of the season. Cincinnati, Denver, and Buffalo are the other three teams in the six-team logjam.
Despite the disappointing loss, the team is still able to control its own destiny on the way to the playoffs, and Steichen is making sure that message lands with the team.
“We have to move on,” Steichen said. “It was one of those games that nobody wanted to be a part of and we have to put it behind us and focus on Pittsburgh coming up this week. Everything we want is still in front of us but we have to handle our business.”
The Colts will take on Pittsburgh (7-6) at Lucas Oil Stadium at 4:30 p.m. EST Saturday.
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