1. Missed tackles resulted in explosive plays.
The Colts missed eight tackles on Sunday, per Pro Football Focus. That contributed heavily to the New York Giants having six plays of 30 or more yards; prior to Week 17, the Colts hadn't allowed more than three 30+ yard plays in a single game this season.
Three of the Giants' 30+ yard plays were touchdowns thrown by quarterback Drew Lock; only the Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence and the Titans' Mason Rudolph had thrown a 30+ yard touchdown against the Colts this season.
"Any time you give up explosive plays it's going to be hard," head coach Shane Steichen said. "They're going to score points and that's what they did today."
The issue, linebacker Zaire Franklin explained, was not only the first guy missing a tackle but also a lack of rallying to the ball after.
"When you play defense, it's not really a one versus one thing. It's really 11 versus one," Franklin said. "I don't think we play with that type of mentality. I think too many times it's too many one-on-one tackles. And the reality of the situation is there's a lot of extremely talented guys in this league, and they're going to make the first guy miss. But when you watch a lot of great defenses, people swarm and everybody's trying to get in on the tackle. So obviously, we all gotta do better tackling, myself included, that's something I'm gonna work on moving forward. But I think we could play better together as a defense."
Critically, three of those 30+ yard plays came on third downs on which the Giants needed 14, eight and eight yards to get a first down.
"We've got to great job of wrapping up, strike zone tackling," Steichen said. "(Malik) Nabers made some great plays in the open field and, yeah, it's got to be better."
2. The defense made a few stops in the second half – until they didn't.
The Colts' defense forced a pair of punts sandwiched around a turnover on downs on the Giants' first three possessions of the second half, allowing the offense to cut the score from 28-13 to 28-26 and have a shot at a game-tying two-point conversion early in the fourth quarter. After that attempt failed, the Colts were down by two – and their way their offense was moving the ball, a defensive stop very well could've resulted in the Colts taking the lead.
Instead, New York converted a third-and-three with a quick four-yard throw from Lock to wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson. On the next play, Lock flipped a pass to Nabers about five yards beyond the line of scrimmage; neither cornerbacks Kenny Moore II nor Sam Womack III could bring down Nabers, who accelerated past the Colts' defense for a 59-yard touchdown.
"We just misjudged the play," Moore said.
From there, the Colts' offense again scored – Joe Flacco heaved a 49-yard bomb to Alec Pierce and finished off the drive with a seven-yard touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr. – which brought the Colts back within two points with 6:43 left on the clock.
On the Giants' ensuing possession, Lock found Robinson for an 18-yard gain to push the ball into Colts' territory. The haymaker came, though, on a third-and-eight from the Colts' 44-yard line with 4:48 left.
Lock, from a clean pocket, picked out Robinson over the middle; Robinson slipped through tackles and gained 35 yards, all the way to the Colts' nine-yard line. With a field goal still keeping the Colts in the game, Lock on third-and-goal from the five-yard line, scrambled to his left for a touchdown effectively sealed the game for New York.
"We just needed one stop to give the the offense another opportunity to go down and score," Moore said. "But I think one thing just led to another and we kept letting them off the hook. They executed."
3. Little things snowballed on offense.
The Colts had several early opportunities to score but left points on the board.
Their first drive ended on the Giants' 29-yard line with Flacco, under pressure, floating a pass toward tight end Mo Alie-Cox that was intercepted by safety Dane Belton. The Colts reached the red zone on their next possession, but Flacco was sacked on a third-and-two from the 10-yard line, leading to a 32-yard Matt Gay field goal.
Gay missed a 54-yarder wide right after Steichen opted to hand the ball off to Taylor on third down – a decision that paid off multiple times in Week 15 against the Denver Broncos – on a third-and-eight from the Giants' 40-yard line.
Gay then again kicked a short field goal – this one 29 yards – when the Colts could only gain one yard from a first-and-10 set of downs on the Giants' 12-yard line. It wasn't until Taylor punched in a three-yard touchdown with 23 seconds left in the first half that the Colts reached the end zone; by that point, they were losing, 21-13.
In the second half, Taylor was stopped on consecutive third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 rushing attempts on the Giants' 23-yard line. That was in the third quarter; in the fourth quarter, Rigoberto Sanchez's only punt of the day came after a three-and-out from the Giants' 41-yard line.
And when the Colts needed a two-point conversion to tie the game, Taylor dropped a designed lateral from Pittman.
"Ultimately, we moved the ball up and down the field, and I felt like early on, we didn't get enough touchdowns," Flacco said. "We kicked two field goals and attempted another one. So, if you get in the end zone there, anytime you go back and you look at the red zone conversion rate, it usually has an impact on the game."
4. Alec Pierce's downfield and contested catch ability showed up again.
Pierce caught six passes for 122 yards with a touchdown, and he also drew a 32-yard pass interference flag. He averaged 20.3 yards per catch, which actually brought his season average *down* from 22.2 to to 21.9.
Before the season, Steichen told Pierce his role was to be a deep, field-stretching threat. Pierce, in an offense that's pushed the ball downfield much more than in his first two years in the NFL, has absolutely met the challenge from his head coach.
"(Steichen's) got a very hard standard for each person in the room — you know, here's your role, here's what we need you to be," center Ryan Kelly said. "He told him, I need you to be the deep threat guy we know you can be. He's been that all year. Really impressed with him."
Pierce will enter Week 18 averaging 21.9 yards per reception, and depending on how many catches – and yards – he has against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he could finish the season leading the NFL in yards per catch. Right now, Pierce is one reception short of qualifying for the NFL lead, though that number will go up based on what happened around the league in Week 18.
Also: No player has averaged over 21 yards per reception on at least 35 catches since the Philadelphia Eagles' DeSean Jackson and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Wallace each hit those marks in 2010; prior to those two, no player had done it since the Houston Oilers' Chris Sanders in 1995.
"The big play ability that he brings to our offense is huge," Steichen said. "Obviously had the huge one (49 yards) down the field, down the middle, and made some big-time clutch catches, so he's had a hell of a year for us."
5. How the Colts are approaching Week 18.
The Colts were back at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Monday as a discouraging reality set in: Their Week 18 season finale no longer has any playoff implications. It's the final game of the 2024 season; after that, players will clean out their lockers, say their goodbyes and disperse until the Colts' offseason program begins in the spring.
"We knew what the deal was — a two-game season," Kelly said. "We took care of stuff last week (vs. Tennessee) and thought that was gonna be the same outcome this week, right? We just kind of let things get away from us a little bit, and if you don't take care of what's right in front of you, you don't get to play for what you really want. So it's a tough one to swallow as a team."
Make no mistake – Sunday's loss to the Giants will sting for a while, especially given the Colts got the help they needed (Denver losing to Cincinnati, Miami winning) in Week 17. They just couldn't take advantage of that help, and were eliminated from the postseason when the clock hit zero at MetLife Stadium.
"When you're playing in an elimination scenario, the level of execution, the level of attention to detail, your intensity, everything has to raise a level," Franklin said. "When you play a prime time game, you gotta raise your level. When you play a playoff game, you gotta raise your level. I feel like we, as a team, did not raise our level today."
But just because the Colts don't have anything, collectively, to play for does not mean their season finale lacks meaning and significance. Some players do have individual things to chase – Franklin enters Week 18 leading the NFL in tackles with 165 (he has 10 more than the guy in second place, Arizona's Budda Baker) and would break his own franchise record with 15 more tackles on Sunday against the Jaguars. Pierce, again, could lead the NFL in yards per reception.
And several players will take the field at Lucas Oil Stadium one game shy of hitting free agency, like Kelly, tight end Mo Alie-Cox, defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo and linebacker E.J. Speed, among others.
For the entire team, though, the message from Steichen after Sunday's gutting loss was clear.
"I know it's a tough situation, obviously, when you're out of the playoff hunt," Steichen said. "But again, I told them we've got to be professional about it. That's the biggest thing. We've got to show up and do our job still with one week left."
