All right. Injury-wise, (Tyjae) Spears left with a hamstring, did not return. He's the only significant injury that did not return to the game at any point. So we'll monitor that and see where he's at next week.
Story of the game; kind of penalties at critical times. Had to get off the field in some of those spots to create some plays and we weren't able to. We had a three-and-out on offense or two, had too many. We had a couple really nice drives and a couple of ones that didn't do much. We didn't really eliminate the chunk plays. They had a few that we were trying to get rid of. Positive side, ran the ball well. The run defense was good. First interception we got in the game, we went down and scored seven points. So, we flipped it on that one, which was good to see. And then, we had two really, really good drives on offense, but not enough. At the end of the day, just didn't make enough plays when we had to make plays, particularly down the stretch in the fourth quarter when we needed something to happen, and we couldn't get anything going. So, frustrating. I still think we're better than what our record says we are, but we also aren't making enough plays to win tight games, and we got to find a way to do that, and I got to find a way to help us get there because right now, losing games in our one score games is tough. We're in the mix and we're fighting, and guys play hard as hell, but right now we're not doing enough to win the games and that's why we've only won one.
Can you walk us through the decision to punt on the fourth and seven there at the end of the game?
The fourth and seven at the end of the game. We were going to turbo punt and try to see—it was only a three-point game. So, we tried to turbo punt, get the ball back. If you get a stop, then you're going to have a little bit of time left to try to manage a field goal drive out of it. So that was the thought. Fourth-and-seven would have been a tough conversion for us. And then we thought if we could—our defense would be able to put us in decent position to get the ball back and try to get into field goal the range. That was the rationale behind it.
You targeted Calvin Ridley eight times, he didn't catch a single ball today. Can you win without him being involved in the offense?
No, we can't. We can't win like that. I'm sure he'll be the first one to tell you that that was disappointing. But he's one of our best players and he's—we look to him to try to make a play or two and we didn't get it done at the end of the game. We got to be better all the way around, offensively. We just don't have enough consistency from series to series. We do a lot of things well and then we stall, and then we do some more things well, and then we stall. And so, I got to figure out the best way to get us out of those slumps, to get us a little more consistent so we can put together more scoring drives because again, 17 points a game is not going to win you many games in the NFL at this point.
What's happened specifically with him (Calvin Ridley)?
I can't comment on anything specific. I mean, there's nothing that would have let me believe that he would have had no catches in the game or whatever it ended up being or eight targets. I don't know the stats off the top of my head. But yeah, I wouldn't have expected that. So, there's nothing I can point to at this point.
On the pick, did the ball just end up hanging up there for too long?
Yeah, the ball hung. We had a little bit of pressure, but I thought that if we got it up a touch quicker, we would've had a shot. I knew they were going to be in a man coverage on that get-back-on-track spot—it's what they had done earlier—and try to take a shot to (Calvin) Ridley. Just wasn't timed out right, and then the ball kind of hung up. Again, didn't kill us, but it lost us time. It wasn't a scoring play or anything like that. But it didn't give us a chance to try to go win the game. We lost some time off that drive.
With the lack of success in the passing game, how much does that force you to be a little more conservative? How can you get out of that and find a way to get Will Levis going?
Yeah, that's my job. I got to figure that out because right now we're not—we're running the ball well. But as you can see, even running the ball well doesn't give you enough. You got to be able to throw it and throw it with some efficiency, and we've not done a good enough job of that. And that ultimately is on me. That's my job. I got to find ways to put guys in better position, got to find things that we can execute better than we have, and that's really all there is to it. You got to throw the ball in the NFL to win, and that's the bottom line. I mean, you can run the ball really well and we do. We do that well. But we got to find ways, when the game is tight and we got to throw it, to make enough plays to give us a chance to win the game.
So you admit that the struggles passing the ball has forced you to be a bit more conservative?
Yeah, I think we try to lean into our strength, which right now is running the football. We did a lot of that throughout the course of the game. We ran the ball well, tried to do what we do well and then try to pick our spots to go throw it. And as of right now, again, we're a one-win football team. Nothing really is good enough at this point.
Was it something more that the Colts were doing or was it by design? It seemed like all the throws until you got desperate there on the last drives at the end were shorter by design. There weren't very many intermediate throws that could maybe move the chains.
We had a couple. I called a couple deeper shots. They pressured a few of them. But yeah, I mixed it up relatively well. I try to make sure we were trying to get the ball in guy's hands. They do—it is what it is. I mean, I called quite a bit of different things and some of them work, some didn't.
For Will Levis, do you still remain committed to him?
I do. Yeah, I thought, outside of that turnover, I thought he did a nice job with the game. I thought we needed more help around him. Guys need to make more plays for him when he puts the ball in certain spots. And I think we just didn't do a good enough job of that today.
Dennard Wilson said this week that L'Jarius Sneed is the best cornerback in the league. Do you feel like he looked like the best cornerback in the league today?
I don't need to comment on that. I think L'Jarius (Sneed) is really a good football player and I'm glad we have him. (Alec Pierce) has beat a lot of guys on go-balls so far this season. That one—there was one jump ball and it was one down the sideline that got called for PI. But I'm glad we have him. He's a really good football player.
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine caught a touchdown with his only target for the game. Is there a way you would like to get him more involved in the offense to put those weapons that you mentioned around Will Levis?
Yeah. I mean, he's a consistent player. There's room for him to get some action. He plays quite a bit but there are some passes called that may not go to him and all that. But yeah, I mean he can help us for sure. So anyway, they can help us, I'm all for.
The lack of plays, do you put that on what the defenses are doing? What you're not doing as an offense? How much is it hurting you when you have to put together long drives?
Yeah, it's not really an overall sustainable way to play. I mean, it's not for lack of effort. There's plays that are called that take advantage of deep shots and sometimes you don't have them. But we got to find ways to be more explosive in the passing game in general because it's all the same thing. The explosive plays is what wins in this league, and we're not doing a good enough job of finding them, hitting them, calling them, however you want to say it. It doesn't really matter where the blame is placed. We just have to do a better job of it, and it's ultimately on me to do.
What's the sense of urgency like at 1-4? How much do you feel like you've got to get things fixed?
I don't think our sense of urgency has dipped at all. I mean, we—our team's competitive. They play hard, and we've got to find ways to make plays when it matters to win the game, which through the Chicago game, through this Indy game, through the Jets game, we didn't make the plays in any part of the game to give us a chance to actually win the football game. And so, our urgency has been high since we started. I don't think I've ever felt the dip in it, and we just had to keep going. I mean, we got a lot of games to play and then we got to keep rolling. The next one's coming right at us again. So, we got to go play some good football teams and we've got to find ways to get better.
We saw you talking to the sideline judge after the no-call on DeAndre Hopkins. What was the explanation there?
You guys know that I can't—I didn't agree with a lot of the things that got called in this game.
But what's the explanation they gave you?
They don't give a lot of explanation. They just said, 'He didn't see it the way I saw it,' and that's what it is. So, there's nothing I can do about those, and I can't really comment on them, even though I'd like to, but I can't.
Are guys getting enough separation in the past game for the quarterback to be able to make on-target throws?
I think so. I think at times—again, probably nothing that we're doing is probably at the level it needs to be. So yeah, I think there's times when it is. I mean, we try to help guys get open and try to manufacture separation and do all the things to help them keep find ways to do that. But yeah, I don't feel like we lack separation necessarily. I just don't think we've had enough plays made.
Who is responsible for the illegal formation on the kickoff and how is that penalty humanly possible?
I'll be honest with you, I didn't see where the penalty was. I didn't see a replay or anything like that. And then the picture didn't look like there was a penalty. So, again, I don't know. That's ultimately my responsibility. So, that was surprising.
What were they doing to get Josh Downs open effectively beside the fact that he's a very good player?
Yeah, he's a very good player. Dennard (Wilson) does a good job mixing the coverage schemes and they just found every which way they could to get him the ball because he's great with it. So, they found some bubbles and they found some underneath stuff. And that's sort of what he does. And he's really good after catch and with the ball in his hands. So, he just had a—felt like a high volume of targets with quick throws that over time add up a little bit.
