Colts stunner: 'A win that could change the season'
GREEN BAY, Wis. — They conceded Sunday night what they wouldn’t all week: A season wasn’t about to be won on this afternoon, but it very well could have been lost.
Yes, it felt like that much was on the line for these unpredictable and unreliable Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in their first visit to Lambeau Field in eight years. Halfway into this 2016 campaign they were a team lacking an identity — to say nothing of a signature win. This clash against the Green Bay Packers, with a bye week peeking around the corner, carried with it a certain weight, an opportunity the desperate Colts needed to seize if they were going to back up all that talk about this being this team’s defining moment.
Turns out, it was.
It was because they went out and stunned everyone, doing what they hadn’t all season. They put together a complete game. They started fast. They finished strong. They looked like the team they’d talked and talked and talked of becoming, but to this point never had.
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A win needed in the worst way.
“One hundred percent,” said quarterback Andrew Luck. “I probably wouldn’t have said that before the game, but we did. We needed it. We needed it for ourselves, I think. We know we can be a good team. There’s things we have to clean up, and we’ve gotta stack these (wins) together. But we needed this in a bad way.”
“Everybody knew exactly where we were and what the stakes were,” coach Chuck Pagano said. “It’s a whole different world today, right now, and tomorrow will be a whole different world. (A record of) 4-5 is way different than going back home being 3-6.”
Luck’s right. Pagano’s right. This was the Colts deciding who they are, and certainly deciding who they are not. (Give them credit: It only took nine weeks.) But they found themselves entering Sunday’s date with the Packers not only halfway into a disappointing season but at a crossroads. They were either going to be a winning team or a losing team, a team with hope over the season’s final seven weeks or a team wilting toward the finish line.
A win and they’d improve to 4-5. They’d feel good about themselves heading into the bye. They’d believe.
A loss? A loss and they’d sink to 3-6, ride a two-game losing skid into the bye and find themselves in a hole that would’ve felt impossible to climb out of.
“I don’t even want to imagine 3-6,” said cornerback Patrick Robinson.
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“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” added tight end Dwayne Allen.
The good news for the Colts: They don’t have to. Sunday was the complete effort that had eluded them through eight games. The story became numbingly redundant: Missed blocks, missed tackles, missed assignments, dropped passes, drive-killing penalties, a season slipping away. Sunday’s win over Green Bay wasn’t perfect — it never will be — but, more than anything, it validated a resolve that’s been put to the test in recent weeks.
They were fresh off a sound beating from the Kansas City Chiefs, their worst effort of the year, an embarrassing 16-point loss at home. They were facing Aaron Rodgers on the road.
Sunday’s was a victory needed in the win column as much as it was in the minds of the players.
“Up here,” Allen said, pointing to his head. “On paper, everywhere. We absolutely needed this. Why? Because 4-5 is a lot better than 3-6.”
“We’re a strong-minded team, but we needed this, point blank, period,” receiver Phillip Dorsett added. “Winning a game going into a bye week can do a lot for your confidence. It could definitely change the season.”
Change the season? Perhaps. They resume play after the bye week with consecutive home games; all told, the Colts will host all three AFC South teams at Lucas Oil Stadium before Jan. 4. Sunday’s win provides them with more than confidence. It provides them opportunity.
They did Sunday what they couldn’t against the Lions in Week 1, what they couldn’t do against the Jaguars in London in Week 4, what they couldn’t do against the Texans in Week 6, certainly what they couldn’t do versus the Chiefs last week. They did Sunday what they couldn’t all year: They got contributions from all three phases and beat a good team on the road in a game no one gave them a shot to win. After all, this was the Colts’ first win at Lambeau since 1988.
“Tonight showed — that was a damn good football team that we beat,” linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said. “That was the one game this year where every phase contributed ... we should walk away from this game and say you know what, we can play with anyone.”
It’s the beauty of sports. The unknown. The unpredictable. A season, teetering on the edge, suddenly rejuvenated in one afternoon. Now this team has a reason to hope. Now, finally, they can say they’ve done it.
They did what few figured they could: They followed up their worst Sunday of the season with their best.
Call IndyStar reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.
Colts have a bye next week; they host the Titans at 1 p.m. Nov. 20