Texans coach Gary Kubiak said he liked his chances after holding the Colts to 20 points but they still wound up on the short end of a 20-17 final.
Said Texans WR Andre Johnson, “I don’t even know what to say. I’m speechless. We went out there and we played hard, and once again, we came up short.”
Texans S Bernard Pollard, a native of Fort Wayne, had a happy homecoming with two interceptions.
The Texans were penalized 13 times for 103 yards, which led to six Colts first downs.
A review showed that RB Ryan Moats fumbled just before the two-minute warning in the first half, but the Texans could have avoided the challenge by running a play quickly.
The Colts became the fourth team in NFL history with 17 straight regular season victories.
The game might not have been so close if Colts coach Jim Caldwell didn’t call a timeout just before a Texans K Kris Brown field goal try that was blocked by LB Cody Glenn; Brown wound up making the 56-yarder on his second try at the end of the first half.
Said Colts coach Jim Caldwell of a game plan that called for 40 passes in the first half, “We wanted to try to press the issue and be as aggressive as we possibly could early on and see if we could set a pace. Sometimes, if you go fast enough and quickly enough you can slow down a few pass rushers, and they have some good ones.”
Colts TE Dallas Clark tied a franchise-record with 14 catches.
Colts DE Dwight Freeney had 1.5 sacks, giving him sacks in nine consecutive games.
For more on the Texans and Colts, Mike Florio has the full Morning Aftermath right here.
Refs got the Moats call wrong. Don’t let em off the hook.
And thehoodedone tell us how the call was wrong? It looked pretty clear to even the announcers that he fumbled.
The only mistake the refs made was not putting time back on the clock. Since change of possession occurred around 2:25 to go in the half, once the challenge was upheld the clock should have been changed.
It is clear that Moats was losing the ball on the way to the ground and that the ball did not hit out of bounds and the first person to touch it after possession was lost, was the Colts defender. He only had one foot back in bounds which means the ball was dead when he touched it. Since the ball became dead in the endzone, it was a touchback. Not sure what thehoodedone is looking at.