DENVER – Frank Reich wasn’t in the mood to be critique his team’s offense in the immediate aftermath of the Colts’ 12-9 win over the Denver Broncos Thursday night at Empower Field at Mile High.
“Isn’t it awesome that you can have a game like that and still win?” Reich said. “It really is. I’m really happy that we made the plays against a good defense. This is a really good defense, so we played well enough on offense to win the game today.
“It wasn’t good, we didn’t play good offense, so I’m not going to be critical of the offense right now. We know we need to get better. We won the game; these are hard to win on the road on Thursday night. … This is a win. We’ll figure out how to get better on offense, but we played good enough to get the win tonight.”
That critique will come as coaches and players review the film from a game in which the Colts didn’t score a touchdown, managed 4.2 yards per play and converted four of 16 third downs. Of course the Colts, collectively, acknowledge the need to play better on offense. But in the early hours of Friday morning, this was a win the team earned the right to enjoy.
“It shows we can win in the hardest way possible,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said. “It shows the type of grit that we have, and it’s a good foundation that we can build off.”
The Colts and Broncos combined for 27 possessions on Thursday, and only two ended in the end zone – first, when Stephon Gilmore picked off Russell Wilson in the fourth quarter; second, when Gilmore swatted away Wilson’s fourth-and-one pass in overtime. All week – well, for about three days – the Colts heard about the Broncos’ top-five defense. That understanding of their opponent’s strength had a two-pronged effect: First, the Colts knew they’d probably have to win a grind-it-out, close, low-scoring game; second, Gus Bradley’s defense took it as a challenge.
“Coming into the game we all understood what type of game it was going to be,” linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “We know…
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