The Colts' Week 13 matchup with the Houston Texans was a game that put one of the NFL's best statistical offenses of 2025 against one of the NFL's best statistical defenses of 2025. Unfortunately, the 20-16 loss was a game in which the defense made more plays than the offense and came out on top.
The Texans put pressure on Daniel Jones, held Jonathan Taylor to under 100 yards (he had 21 carries for 85 yards), and also dominated time of possession. The Colts defense, on the other hand, struggled to get off the field – and were without cornerback Sauce Gardner, who sustained a calf injury early in the first quarter.
In the beginning of the game, the Colts couldn't move the ball or get any first downs. The Texans held the ball for a total of roughly 35 minutes and the Colts had it for about 25 minutes. And the Colts, on third down, were just three-of-10.
You have to be better than that if you want to be successful.
So, looking at this game, the Colts just didn't play up to their expectations of how they knew they could have played in Sunday's game. They were in the game – they were never out of it – but just didn't make enough plays to come out with the victory.
With this game, people are going to talk about the calls the referees made or didn't make. But even after those few controversial calls in the third quarter, the Colts were still only down four with 12 minutes and 38 seconds left in the game. That's plenty of time to go win the game.
Now, it is hard to get in the flow of a game when penalties are (or are not) called, but as a player, you have to put those plays out of your mind and focus on the task at hand, regardless of the referees making calls that go in your favor or making calls that go against you.
You have to focus on your assignment and who you're playing and what you have to do to carry out your assignment as a player. You just have to block it all out. And that kind of reaction comes naturally to NFL players, because you've played the game long enough – from high school, to college, to the professional level – to know that you have to take accountability for all of your actions. If they do make a call you don't agree with, you just have to forget about it and move on.
After the game, you go back and watch the film and recognize that if you did make a mistake you take accountability for it, or you try to find a way to make a play without getting penalized in the future.
During the game, though, you can't try to overcompensate after a call doesn't go your way. You don't try to do anything more to make up for the call (or lack thereof), because then you're trying to do something you normally don't do. You're trying to force things instead of letting the game come to you. When there's opportunities to make a play, of course, you have to make the play. But you can't force something to happen.
That's a difficult thing to do, of course, because you don't want to let your teammates down when you make a mistake. If there's a missed catch or you get called for a penalty or whatever it may be, it's only human nature to try to make up for that mistake. But you also have to stay within yourself and your abilities. If you force things, that's when you just compound the problem by making another mistake and potentially making things even worse.
Against the Texans, the Colts didn't try to force things after penalties. They reacted the right way during the game, staying level-headed and collected as a team. After the game, they took responsibility for not doing enough to win rather than blaming anything on the officiating.
But at the end of the day, they just couldn't play to the level they needed to in order to get the win.
