'We were getting the same looks the whole game': Colts defense can't explain historic collapse

MINNEAPOLIS — DeForest Buckner sat in front of his locker, shell-shocked, trying to make sense of what just happened.

The Colts defense lost a game they were dominating.

They had their feet on Minnesota’s collective throat, and for once, the Indianapolis defense kept coming up with the NFL’s so-called big plays, the sacks and turnovers that are supposed to close out games.

But the Vikings kept coming, the Colts’ big plays couldn’t break the tide and by the time the final buzzer sounded, Minnesota had come roaring back for a 39-36 overtime victory, erasing a 33-0 halftime lead for the biggest comeback in NFL history, even bigger than Buffalo’s famous comeback win over Houston in 1993.

“I’m still in disbelief,” Buckner said.

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He wasn’t alone.

Defensively, the Colts’ locker room was left grasping for answers, explanations for how the lead slipped away. A few players suggested that Indianapolis took its foot off the gas.

“When you get lackadaisical sometimes, things like that happen,” safety Julian Blackmon said. “History just happened, and we’re on the wrong side of it.”

But there was no consensus on that particular point.

Far more Colts said the defense’s collapse came down to execution, rather than effort. Buckner, middle linebacker Zaire Franklin, cornerback Isaiah Rodgers, even interim head coach Jeff Saturday.

“We didn’t overlook (the Vikings),” Saturday said. “We understood how explosive this offense (is), how many points they put up.”

The Colts could agree on one thing.

Minnesota didn’t make any major adjustments, didn’t find something in the playbook that Indianapolis hadn’t prepared to play.

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A development that makes the reason for the collapse all the more puzzling. Facing off against the same plays, the same looks, the Colts defense played the biggest role in building the 33-0 Indianapolis halftime lead.

By the time the halftime horn sounded, the Colts defense had tagged Kirk Cousins for three sacks, stopped a promising early Vikings drive when Franklin forced a fumble, Blackmon had picked off Cousins for a touchdown, Indianapolis had stuffed two fourth-down attempts from the Minnesota 31-yard line and the Colts had given up just 82 yards.

Minnesota’s offense looked completely overmatched.

“At first, we were doing whatever we wanted, making every play,” Franklin said. “Then it was just like, one play here, OK, let’s be better. Then another play here, and the next thing you know, you’re in that battle.”

What’s remarkable is that this time, the Colts defense didn’t follow its same old script for collapsing and capitulating. For years, Indianapolis has given up leads because it can’t generate enough pass rush, and in this ugly 2022 season without Shaquille Leonard, the Colts haven’t been able to turn teams over enough to make leads stick.

But this time those plays kept coming.

Indianapolis sacked Cousins more times after halftime, four, than the Colts had in the first half. Rodney Thomas II ended a potential Minnesota scoring drive by running down a miscommunication of a throw at the 2-yard line. Even after the Vikings tied the score, the Colts got stops at the end of regulation and the first drive of overtime when Minnesota had a chance to end the game.

“We’ve got to make them, in key situations, get off the field,” Buckner said. “Try to create more turnovers. Some of the sacks, we’ve got to make them sack-fumbles. Real game-changing plays.”

Buckner was told the Colts finished the game with seven sacks, three turnovers and gave up just 82 yards of offense in the first half.

A statistical profile like that typically leads to dominance.

“That’s an unbelievable stat,” Buckner said. “Hearing that, I’m just even more in disbelief.”

Indianapolis instead gave up 436 yards and 39 points after the halftime break.

“I think it was more of us,” Blackmon said. “We were getting the same looks the whole game. Of course, they tried to open up the playbook, they were down 33, so it became 7-on-7, but we’ve got to make plays at the end of the day.”

There are plenty of reasons.

Indianapolis had to face 61 plays in the second half and overtime, both because the Colts couldn’t get off the field and because the Indianapolis offense failed to put together any drives that took more than three minutes, 29 seconds.

And it’s not only the offense’s fault. For every big play the Colts defense made, they gave up another, hemorrhaging gains of 64 and 63 yards in the second half. Indianapolis cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore and Isaiah Rodgers started losing their matchups to Justin Jefferson and K.J. Osborn, respectively, after dominating the first half; Jefferson and Osborn combined for 22 catches, 280 yards and two touchdowns.

“He made some plays. I made some plays,” said Gilmore, who had seven tackles and three pass breakups.

Indianapolis also committed six penalties for 78 yards in the second half.

A few of those calls were questionable, but the referees likely also cost Vikings cornerback Chandon Sullivan two touchdowns on fumble recoveries that should have gone Minnesota’s way.

“A lot of times, I feel like a penalty will go the wrong way, and then you’ll get it back,” Franklin said. “A couple of the plays were tough, but to be honest, I really feel like it evened out.”

But identifying all the bad plays from that game, or from the team’s 33-0 fourth-quarter collapse in Dallas two weeks ago, or the game-winning drives the Colts defense gave up to Washington and Pittsburgh, is the easy part.

Identifying the underlying reasons is much harder.

And a Colts defense that has played a lot of good football this season — much more than the pathetic Indianapolis offense — can’t find any concrete answers for their worst moments, including a comeback that will now go down in NFL history with their names on the wrong side of the ledger.

All that’s left is the feeling, a feeling summed up by Buckner.

“It’s embarrassing,” Buckner.

Embarrassing, and apparently inexplicable.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts vs. Vikings: Defense can't explain biggest collapse in NFL history