Three words echoed across the underbelly of Lucas Oil Stadium in the aftermath of the Colts' 41-23 season-opening loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

"Not good enough."

Head coach Shane Steichen opened his postgame press conference with that phrase. So did quarterback Daniel Jones. Wide receiver Alec Pierce and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner repeated them in the locker room.

Losing by 18 points and being doubled up in yardage by the Ravens was not on anyone's bingo card at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center this week. The Colts, collectively, felt prepared for a Ravens team with known superstars but unknown coaches. They felt good about training camp and good about their week of practice leading up to Sunday.

And yet, the final score doesn't lie.

"I think we expected to play well and to play at a really high level as soon as we got out there," Jones said.

To be fair, the Colts did play at a high level as soon as they took the field: Jones surgically led the Colts on a nine-play, 65-yard drive to open the season, with running back Jonathan Taylor finding the end zone on a one-yard touchdown to cap it off.

Things cascaded downhill from there. Kicker Spencer Shrader missed a PAT, Ravens returner Chris Moore chewed up 42 yards on the ensuing kickoff and Lamar Jackson connected with Zay Flowers for a 49-yard completion on the first play of Baltimore's drive. Jackson crossed the goal line two plays later, the first six of 28 unanswered points scored by the Ravens.

"We got to coach better," Steichen said. "We got to play better."

Jones was picked off when he tried to layer a throw over linebacker Roquan Smith, who leapt in the air and generated the game's first takeaway. Taylor caught a pass from Jones and, after picking up a first down, was swarmed by Ravens defenders, with cornerback Marlon Humphrey jostling the ball free for a fumble.

Six of the Colts' drives started at or inside their own 20-yard line, including two inside the 10-yard line. The Colts managed just one score – a 58-yard Shrader field goal – on those six possessions.

"We gotta play together, play better, protect the football and not shoot ourselves in the foot," Pierce said. "... We didn't take care of those things that are so important to winning the game."

The Colts weren't able to take advantage of the Ravens committing 10 penalties and managing just three third down conversions on nine tries. When you generate just 251 yards of total offense and give up 506, it's hard for those numbers to make much of an impact.

"Definitely an eye-opener, definitely a wakeup call," Taylor said. "Like, hey, season's here. Obviously we know no one's gonna give us anything, but it's a good team over there and it's like, hey, doesn't matter what you guys did last year, you gotta prove it again this year."

For the core of the Colts' offense – which returned nine of its 11 starters from 2025 – this game was uncharacteristic. The Colts' 251 yards of total offense stands as the fourth-lowest total in Steichen's tenure as head coach; the only game in which the Colts had fewer yards last year was Philip Rivers' return against the eventual Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.

"Everybody's on the same page," tight end Tyler Warren said. "We know we're better than what we put out there today, but you can't change what happened in the game. Just learn from it and get better as we continue to move on."

But for the Colts to prove this game was uncharacteristic, they'll have to prove the 2026 team is the group they believe it can be – and not the group it was on Sunday.

"We weren't able to play at the level that we expect from ourselves," Jones said. "We'll see where we came up short but we're still confident we got the guys to do it and the system to do it, the scheme to do it, and I think we'll be ready to roll and ready to take a step forward."