Anatomy of Colts' collapse: How breakdowns, penalties, time led to wrong side of history

INDIANAPOLIS — The loss, the way it happened, like a dam bursting open at the seams, stuck with defensive coordinator Gus Bradley.

Even though his defense had been hung out to dry, the way the Indianapolis defense has so often been forced to try to carry the weight of the Colts’ anemic offense this season.

Bradley’s job isn’t to worry about the offense. Fair or not, his defense hadn’t been able to slow down the avalanche the offense unleashed on it in the fourth quarter against Dallas, and it stuck with Bradley and the rest of the Colts’ defensive coaching staff.

They had a bye week to think it over. Before Minnesota, before the Vikings pulled off the biggest comeback in NFL history on Saturday, Indianapolis got outscored 33-0 in the fourth quarter in Dallas, and even though his defense had been handed short fields by the offense’s turnovers time and time again, Bradley believed his defense should have done more to keep it from getting out of hand.

“Let’s talk about the Dallas game,” Bradley said Tuesday. “There were 14 plays at the end of the game that we really took a hard look at, and felt like, (from a) ball-ready, we’re ready, we’re down, Cobra demeanor, everybody’s on the same page (standpoint). It felt like we weren’t quite ready at times, and they quick-snapped us a couple of times. We just weren’t ready to play ball.”

When Bradley and his staff turned their attention to tape of the Vikings, they saw the potential for another outburst.

“They were a tempo team, too, so that was a big emphasis with our guys,” Bradley said. “Tempo, effort, fundamentals, tackling and getting the ball were really our keys going into the Minnesota game.”

The Indianapolis defense dominated for a half.

What happened after halftime in Minneapolis is going into the NFL’s record book.

And as hard as it was in Saturday’s locker room to make sense of the comeback, Bradley has a better grasp on it now.

How did the Colts blow the biggest lead in NFL history?

Before Bradley takes blame for the failed stops and breaks down the defense’s mistakes, it’s important to recognize the offense’s role in the biggest NFL collapse of all-time.

Because Bradley wasn’t about to pass the buck.

A Colts defense that dominated Minnesota in the first half didn’t completely capitulate in the second half and overtime. The Indianapolis defense got stops after halftime.

The Colts forced a three-and-out on the first series of the second half. Rodney Thomas II picked off Kirk Cousins in the red zone in the fourth quarter. The defense took full advantage of the gift given to Indianapolis when the referees blew the whistle early on Chandon Sullivan’s fumble recovery for a touchdown, stopping Cousins cold to maintain the lead. The Indianapolis defense even got a stop on the first series of overtime, giving the Colts offense a chance it didn’t deserve to win the game.

The Indianapolis offense couldn’t take advantage of any of it.

Instead, the Colts offense kept sending the defense back out there.

“We couldn’t put together or sustain a drive to put it away or finish it,” interim coach Jeff Saturday said.

Indianapolis didn’t have a drive in the second half that took longer than three minutes, 29 seconds.

Six drives, not including the knee the Colts took at the end of the fourth quarter, took less than two and a half minutes.

Two drives took less than a minute.

“It’s a line you walk,” Colts play caller Parks Frazier said. “You take your chances on when you want to be a little bit more aggressive, and then you take your chances on, ‘Hey, let’s milk some clock right here.’ Even in times when you milk the clock, it’s not that you’re conceding to a punt. You’re still trying to get first downs.”

The Colts offense didn’t get enough of any of it.

And the defense kept getting sent back onto the field, facing an incredible 61 plays in the second half and overtime, so many plays that the seven sacks and three takeaways the Colts defense posted ended up getting overwhelmed by all the offensive plays the Vikings ran.

The pass rush is supposed to close games.

Hard to do that when the quarterback keeps getting chances.

“Sacks are a good barometer to look at, but I think there were 54 passes in the game; how much did you affect him on the other plays?” Bradley said. “There were times, the pressures that we ran at the end, we didn’t hit him, but we affected him. We had some plays like that, but when he has that many opportunities with that skill set, we’ve got to do a good job of affecting him, making him hitch and allowing the rush to get there. We’re always going to ask for more.”

Colts had new problems vs. Vikings

When Bradley looks at the Minnesota game, he sees a different problem than the lapses that killed the Colts against Dallas.

Players like DeForest Buckner, Zaire Franklin and Isaiah Rodgers were right.

The effort was there. The execution was not.

“What hurt us was the explosive plays,” Bradley said. “An explosive play is 20 yards, an explosive run is 10, these weren’t, like, 21-yard explosive plays. These were 60-yard explosive plays.”

There were two.

The first, a 63-yard pass to K.J. Osborn that finally got the Vikings offense on track, was a blown coverage.

“We had a miscommunication,” Bradley said. “The Mike linebacker (Franklin) didn’t run with it, and he was wide open.”

The second was a total breakdown, a play that ironically happened in part because the Colts pass rush kept coming after Cousins. Indianapolis had four sacks in the second half and overtime, one more than the Colts had posted in the first-half shutout.

“The series before, if you look at it, first, second, third down, we had pressure on the quarterback,” Bradley said. “A lot of times, when teams see a lot of pressure, they try to check to screens to slow it down. They came out the first play, ran a jailbreak screen, and we were in a zone coverage and misfit it.”

The Colts broke down on both ends of Dalvin Cook’s 64-yard touchdown.

First of all, at the point of attack, Indianapolis allowed a lane to open.

On the other side of the field, the Colts did a bad job of covering for their teammates’ mistakes.

“With that being said, our backside pursuit took some bad angles,” Bradley said.  “So one of our keys to victory was tackling, and good fundamentals, we didn’t use good fundamentals and tackling on that play. Even if we misfit it, it should have been eight, nine yards.”

'Those things have to be eliminated'

The two big plays, and the offense’s inability to play complementary football, gave the Vikings the time they needed to complete the comeback.

Two big plays isn’t enough to overcome a 33-0 deficit.

Indianapolis also gave up drives of eight, six and five plays, drives extended by back-breaking penalties. The Colts defense was flagged six times for 78 yards in the second half and overtime, and although not every penalty led to a score — Stephon Gilmore’s unnecessary roughness and Buckner’s roughing the passer did not — they extended Minnesota drives.

Nearly every one of the penalties was somewhat questionable, especially Buckner’s glancing blow on Cousins in overtime.

But Bradley didn’t put the blame for the flags on the referees.

“We had some foolish penalties,” Bradley said. “The taunting one (a 15-yard penalty on Dayo Odeyingbo) is a foolish penalty. Those things, we’ve got a second-and-long situation and we taunt, those things have to be eliminated.”

The other penalties came down to letter of the law.

For example, Thomas II was flagged for an unnecessary roughness on a key touchdown drive, and the problem came down to technique.

“With Rodney Thomas, he came down and lowered his head to try to get across (Justin Jefferson’s) body, but when you lower your head, you’ve got to keep your head and eyes up,” Bradley said.

Gilmore’s play on Jefferson looked clean, like the veteran cornerback made contact with Jefferson’s chest.

The NFL’s rules took issue with the way Gilmore accelerated into the hit.

“We all learned on the launching with Gilmore,” Bradley said. “Even though it was in the chest area, you can’t leave your feet to launch.”

How much was the Colts defense to blame vs. the Vikings?

Ultimately, the Colts’ defensive performance seems hard to evaluate.

Indianapolis forced three turnovers, sacked Cousins seven times, forced Minnesota to turn the ball over on downs three times, gave up just 82 yards in the first half. Teams with at least three takeaways and seven sacks are 338-19-4 in NFL history, a .942 winning percentage.

But the Colts’ offense kept putting the defense back on the field, and ultimately, the way Bradley sees it, Indianapolis had to get the job done.

“it’s such a precision league,” Bradley said. “It’s not 88 plays, it’s not 90 plays, it’s the whole game. We didn’t play with precision like we needed to, especially in the second half.”

A second half that will be hard to forget.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Anatomy of a collapse, how Indianapolis gave up 33-point lead