1. The Colts' season isn't over yet.
The Colts entered Week 15 with a 31 percent chance to make the playoffs, per the New York Times, with a win over the Broncos upping it to 66 percent and a loss dropping their odds to 9 percent.
But those numbers didn't take into account what might happen in a few other games on Sunday. The Colts didn't get any help from the New York Giants, who lost, 35-14, to the Baltimore Ravens. One other game, though, did have some level of impact on the Colts' playoff odds, which despite their Week 15 loss still are at 14 percent.
The biggest swing here was the Los Angeles Chargers dropping to 8-6 after getting blown out, 40-17, by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at SoFi Stadium. If the Colts win their final three games and the Chargers lose two of their last three games, the Colts would make the playoffs over Los Angeles based on having a better AFC record.
There is, in fact, no scenario in which the Colts miss the playoffs if they finish 9-8 and the Chargers, Cincinnati Bengals and/or Miami Dolphins also go 9-8. The only tiebreaking scenario the Colts would lose is a head-to-head one with the Broncos; however, if the Broncos were to lose their remaining games and go 9-8, and the Colts plus another team – Los Angeles, Miami and/or Cincinnati – also go 9-8, the Colts would emerge from that three-way tiebreaker as the highest-seeded team.
Got all that? What you really need to know: The path is extremely narrow and will require a lot of help. The Chargers' remaining schedule, for example:
- Home vs. Broncos (9-5)
- Away vs. Patriots (3-11)
- Away vs. Raiders (2-11, pending Monday Night Football)
So that would require the Chargers to lose to at least one team with double digit losses and the Colts to win out – against three teams with at least 11 losses – to make the playoffs. Thursday night's Chargers-Broncos game will be telling if this is realistic or not (the best outcome for the Colts is a Chargers loss).
Narrow, yes. Impossible? No. The odds aren't zero, after all.
"It's not over," wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said. "Who knows what happens — football is so crazy. I don't know the odds or the percentages, probably not very good, but who knows."
2. Collectively, the Colts learned a hard, stinging lesson.
Over the first dozen drives of Sunday's game, if you remove turnovers, the Colts averaged -.045 EPA per play on offense while holding the Broncos to -.105 EPA/play on defense. The point of the first 12 possessions: Those were while the Colts either had the lead, or were trailing by one possession. And outside of those turnovers, the Colts did out-play the Broncos.
The problem is when you add back in turnovers – an Anthony Richardson interception, Jonathan Taylor's goal-line mistake, Pittman's lost fumble and Adonai Mitchell's ill-fated double pass – the Broncos, even with three turnovers of their own, had a better EPA/play than the Colts (-.366 for Denver to -.479 for the Colts).
The Colts lost about 5.5 expected points on their five turnovers. But you also probably don't need a number attached to understand how disastrous those plays were. Coupled with eight penalties, the Colts committed far too many self-inflicted mistakes to win a big game in December.
"You can't beat yourself in this league, and that's what we did yesterday," head coach Shane Steichen said. "We have to learn from those times. I mean, they're hard times, obviously. Like I said, we've got three games left guaranteed to us, and we've got to get ready for the Titans – bottom line."
The Colts re-grouped on Monday left to digest a two-pronged reality: Their playoff chances are now slim, and collectively, players and coaches took accountability for those self-inflicted mistakes being their own doing.
"We talk about it," Steichen said. "I show them to the team – all the clips, we go through them. Just hold everyone accountable in those situations that this can't happen moving forward and everyone has got to be accountable. I'm accountable for my actions…obviously in those team meeting rooms accountability is a big part of it, and we go through all those clips. After a game review, the accountability part on what we need to improve on – myself, everybody in there, we go through all those different things."
3. Alec Pierce is in the concussion protocol.
Pierce exited Sunday's game with concussion symptoms late in the second quarter and did not return. He was taken the to locker room with 15 seconds left after Richardson's third-and-15 deep ball fell incomplete toward him in the end zone.
On Monday, Steichen confirmed Pierce is in the NFL concussion protocol.
Pierce entered Week 15 leading the NFL with an average of 22.2 yards per reception, but because he didn't not record a reception on four targets Sunday, he currently no longer qualifies for the league lead, per the NFL's official statistics website. Pierce has 29 receptions for 645 yards with five touchdowns this season.
4. The Colts' early strategy on offense worked, but that success wasn't sustained.
The Colts' gameplan certainly appeared to be focused on leaning on Jonathan Taylor and then Richardson's rushing ability as a changeup to their running back, and early on, that strategy certainly seemed to work.
On the Colts' first two drives – which accounted for 10 of their 13 points – Taylor carried 11 times for 45 yards while Richardson had three rushing attempts for 35 yards, punctuated by his 23-yard touchdown run.
After those first two possessions, though, the Colts averaged just 2.5 yards per play – 124 yards on 49 plays – and committed five turnovers while scoring just three more points.
"I think the week prior, we were pretty good, and then we fell back into some mistakes," Steichen said. "It comes down to consistency. It starts with myself, we've got to be consistent in everything we do and we've got to take care of the football moving forward. I thought our defense played a hell of a game – they got three takeaways. They played their tails off, but that complementary football has got to happen for us – it's got to happen."
5. The defense played one of its best games of the year.
The Colts held Denver to just 3.2 yards per play, their lowest yards-per average allowed in a game since a 31-0 shutout of the Houston Texans in 2021. Sunday was the eighth time since 2000 that the Colts held a team to under 3.3 yards per play; they had won the previous seven instances.
The Broncos were able to score 31 points, though, despite their longest drive gaining 54 yards (which ended with a touchdown from Bo Nix to tight end Adam Trautman in the first half). The Broncos' other scoring drives:
- Four plays, five yards (Wil Lutz field goal)
- Two plays, 15 yards (Nate Adkins touchdown)
- Nik Bonitto 50-yard fumble recovery touchdown (Mitchell's pass was technically a lateral)
- Six plays, 35 yards (Courtland Sutton touchdown)
Prior to Sutton's 20-yard touchdown, which bumped the score to 31-13 late in the fourth quarter, Denver's longest play was a 16-yard Nix scramble (he was picked off by linebacker Zaire Franklin on the next play. Running backs Jaleel McLaughlin, Javonte Williams and Audric Estime combined for 49 yards on 18 carries. Franklin, cornerback Sam Womack III and safety Nick Cross all notched interceptions.
So the Colts' defense didn't allow hardly any explosive plays, smothered Denver's ground game and generated three takeaways. But no one on that side of the ball was smiling or celebrating in the aftermath of an 18-point loss.
"I feel like, personally, it's a little too much of — oh, the defense played great but the offense played bad; offense played great, the defense played bad," Franklin said. "We a team, man. That's the only way we're going to get through that.
"Defense is going to have ruts. We're gonna get in the mode, that's just the league. The other team gets paid too. Offensively, they gonna have struggles. Every offense changes two or three times throughout the season, and you change because you hit a wall and people figure you out. Throughout the course of a season there's going to be highs and lows. I feel like sometimes it's too much putting blame on certain things, like the defense didn't win the game and then we lost along with the offense too.
"Regardless of how we played, the Colts lost."
