Head coach Shane Steichen said tight ends coach Tom Manning proposed the play while the Colts’ coaching staff was gameplanning for short-yardage situations last week. The Buccaneers had a specific look when in their goal line defense, and the Colts felt they could exploit that in a short-yardage situation further upfield.
Steichen liked it. But the play required a fullback. So Steichen’s follow-up question was: Who are we putting in there?
The Colts settled on an unconventional player: Linebacker Zaire Franklin.
Steichen went to Franklin and told him he’d get his first career snap on offense if the play were called, with the directive to work inside out and set the edge for Minshew on the play-action pass. Franklin, jokingly, lobbied for the ball to be thrown his way. Maybe next time, Steichen laughed.
But by putting Franklin on the field, the Colts went for a hard sell that they’d call a running play. Again: It worked.
“Anything I can do to the help the team,” Franklin said. “Shoutout to Shane for being creative, shoutout to the offense for helping me out.
“… Now I got a play in,” Franklin added with a grin, “now I need targets.”
The Colts didn’t rep the play in practice, Alie-Cox said, just in a walkthrough setting. And it wasn’t intended to be called near midfield – the thought was, if we have a short-yardage situation inside the Buccaneers’ 30-yard line, we can call it then. Nobody flinched, though, when Steichen called the play at the Buccaneers’ 49-yard line.
Alie-Cox gained 30 yards – which would’ve been a touchdown had the play been called inside the 30.
This was one of the Colts’ three fourth down conversions – on four tries – on Sunday. A similarly well-designed and executed playcall generated a 24-yard completion to wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. on fourth-and-one near midfield in the second quarter, with Minshew scrambling for a touchdown six plays later. The second…
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