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INDIANAPOLIS – The Colts were back to work on Monday, turning their heads to the month of December. Today's news looks at the importance of Sunday's game with Tennessee, how the team is trying to fix the slow starts and some major news regarding a key Titans defensive player.
Take a look below at the top pieces fromTuesday, November 26th.**Pagano: 'The Tennessee game is huge'**By: Phil Richards, Indy Star
With the 24-hour rule nearing a close on Monday afternoon, Chuck Pagano turned his focus to the Tennessee Titans.
Monday was no day off at the Indianapolis Colts' northwest side complex, a departure from recent weeks. With the Colts situated between a 40-11 blowout loss at Arizona on Sunday and a crucial game with Tennessee upcoming, players were brought in for meetings and to take a look at the ugly truth on videotape.
There was no tough love or harsh criticism, no dramatic shuffling of the lineup or pleas of desperation.
It was the business of football.
"We've just got to get back to playing football, playing better fundamentals and techniques and doing the things we did early in the season, doing the things we did to beat those football teams we beat early in the season, teams like Denver (9-2), Seattle (10-1) and San Fran (6-4, going into a Monday night game at Washington)," coach Chuck Pagano said.
"The Tennessee game is huge. It can't get here, obviously, quick enough. This team is very resilient. You know how this team has responded to adversity. They've been able to bounce back."
**George Bremer: No easy answers for Colts**By: George Bremer, The Herald Bulletin
The common theme around the Colts locker room on Monday was there are no easy answers for curing the team's slow starts.
"You can't go to Wal-Mart and buy a pill for this," inside linebacker Jerrell Freeman told the media Monday. "You got to go out there and work and just work towards our goals, and we should be okay."
Defense is a good place to start looking for a cure.
The Colts allowed scores on four of Arizona's six first-half drives Sunday, and a fifth ended with a blocked field goal. That's no way to support an offense that was missing six significant contributors — including four starters.
But the offense can't escape blame, going 0-for-5 on third down in the first half and adding to the woes with an interception that was returned for a touchdown.
"The things that we knew we had to do, we just didn't execute well and get them taken care of," Colts head coach Chuck Pagano said. "We'll go back to work. We got to put it behind us."
**NFL suspends Tennessee Titans' Michael Griffin as repeat offender**By: Jim Wyatt, The Tennessean
It appears the Titans will be missing a key cog in their secondary this weekend in veteran safety Michael Griffin.
Titans safety Michael Griffin said he's just trying to do his job.
The NFL believes he's been doing it too recklessly, however. On Monday, the league suspended the seventh-year pro for one gameas a repeat violator of safety rules prohibiting hits to the head and neck area of defenseless players.
Griffin was flagged for unnecessary roughness after hitting Raiders tight end Mychal Rivera in the head/neck area during Sunday's game at Oakland. It was his second such penalty of the season and fourth since 2011.
Griffin will appeal the suspension and could learn of the outcome as early as today. If a suspension without pay is upheld, he will surrender $205,882.35 — one-seventeenth of his $3.5 million base salary.
It would be a costly penalty for the Titans as well. They would be without a top defender this Sunday against the pass-happy Colts in a game vital to the AFC wild-card race.
"All I can say is I apologize to the Titans fans, my teammates and the organization," Griffin said via text message on Monday. "I also hope Rivera is doing well and I apologize to (Rivera) and his family. I was trying to do my job but in the end I hurt the team."
