The Official 2020 NFL Season Discussion Thread

Now just need the Saints to take care of business against Pittsburgh and you guys are in!

 

Andrew Luck's fiery halftime speech lifts Colts from slumber

INDIANAPOLIS — They were in there forever.

Ninety seconds until the second-half kickoff, and still no sign of the home team, save the kicker and the holder and the long snapper. Eighty seconds. Nothing. Seventy. Still nothing.

Here it was, the 30 minutes that would either save or sink this stirring Indianapolis Colts’ season ... and they weren’t even out on the field. Time was running out. Intermission was over. No warmups. No stretching. No nothing. Where were they?

Huddled inside the locker room, getting an earful from the franchise quarterback.

“Passionate,” coach Frank Reich called it.

“Down to business,” Andrew Luck allowed.

“Man, everybody was geeked up after that,” said wideout Zach Pascal. “Energized. Ready.”

It was in that locker room, playoff hopes teetering, second-half kick beckoning, where Luck shouted, “It’s all right in front of us!” He told his teammates to play together and to stay together. Told them they’d win this game if they stopped getting in their own way.

“Screaming and yelling, ‘This has got to be better,’” Reich remembers. “‘That was embarrassing. That was pathetic what we did out there in the first half.’”

That’s how a 17-7 deficit became a 28-27 win, the Colts’ eighth in nine games, and one they desperately needed to keep this improbable playoff pursuit of theirs alive for at least one more Sunday. They finally did make it out for the second-half kickoff with seconds to spare. “We had guys running straight from the tunnel and onto the field,” kicker Adam Vinatieri joked later.

Revved by Luck’s midgame message, the Colts washed away a lifeless first half with 30 minutes of football that did far more than avoid the embarrassment that would’ve come if their postseason hopes died with a loss to the lowly Giants in the home finale.

In this comeback was the Colts’ 2018. Slow start. Sizzling finish. Belief unbowed.

“Last year, maybe even earlier this year, it would’ve been, ‘Oh (expletive),’ same thing, same old story,” cornerback Quincy Wilson said, a player whose own growth this season mirrors that of his team’s. “Today we went down 14-0 and we said, ‘We’re gonna win this game, but we need to clean this (expletive) up.’”

So they did.

Luck shouted. They listened.

“Passionate’s a good way to describe it,” the QB said. “What are the things we can improve? And I think we did improve. I think we did come out of that tunnel with a better mindset than we started the game.”

While he usually gathers the offense together during halftime, speaking to his line, backs, tight ends and receivers, Luck rarely speaks in front of the entire team. Sunday was different. He was fed up with how they were playing – himself included – so he took the floor and fumed.

And his teammates loved it.

“After that, everyone was yelling, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’” Pascal said.

“This team is very accountable, and there were mistakes made,” safety Malik Hooker added. “We just had to look ourselves in the mirror, you know? ‘Am I doing my job at the highest intensity as I can?’ And we felt like we weren’t.”

An offense that was sputtering in the first half found life in the second. T.Y. Hilton exploded. Chester Rogers caught everything. Dontrelle Inman. Pascal. Nyheim Hines. Marlon Mack. The Colts ripped off 21 points in the final two quarters to win at the buzzer, an outcome by that point that felt more like a when than an if.

Because that much had changed.

And because that’s the Luck effect – what was so sorely missing from this team a year ago.

Give me your eyes, the QB kept telling his receivers in the huddle. Give me your eyes. Down his top two tight ends, down his starting center, down his starting right guard. No matter. Luck drove the Colts 53 yards in eight plays to win it, checking from a called run into a pass on the 1-yard touchdown throw to Chester Rogers that delivered him the 21st game-winning drive of his career.

“This felt like a 2012 game,” said left tackle Anthony Castonzo, referring Luck’s rookie season and the NFL-record seven come-from-behind-wins he orchestrated. “Like, how did we win that?

“There’s just a feeling in this locker room and on this team,” Castonzo continues. “I can’t put my finger on it. But everybody believes in each other, and that matters so much every time we take the field.”

So much of it is Reich, the coach that never blinked at 1-5. The Colts were buried at the bottom of the AFC, tied with the lowly Arizona Cardinals for the worst record in football. He forced his team to block out the noise.

All they’ve done since is become one of the hottest teams in football, one no one in the AFC wants to see come the postseason.

One win became two, and two became five. A hiccup in Jacksonville? They answered that with three straight wins. The Colts are winning in different ways, winning with offense one week and defense the next, by building big leads and by coming from behind. They’ve come together, and they’ve come to believe.

“It’s crazy, it’s crazy,” Reich said. “But the only way that happens is believing in the process and believing in one another. I firmly believe that with every fiber of my being.”

Want some more crazy? The Colts are 60 minutes from the playoffs.

From the depths of 1-5 to one win from the tournament.

Win that one? The Colts will be the most dangerous kind of team entering the postseason: They’ll be a team with nothing to lose.

There's also a scenario where if: the Texans lose, Patriots lose, Baltimore wins and Indianapolis wins, the Ravens get a first week bye as the #2 seed. The Titans can also get it if all those 4 teams lose but I'm not gonna consider that because Luck is undefeated against the Titans 10-0. They also smell. Terribly.

I can see this 'got nothing to lose' Jets team beating New England which would pit us against Baltimore in the WC round but I don't want that scenario. Give me old man Brady over the new hotness Lamar. Our defense is terrible against the run. See: this week's game.

Most likely as you said we're gonna get a rematch with Houston.

 

I didn't watch the game outside looking at the scoreboard but the Lions held the Vikings just fine for most of the first half. I'm betting Chicago holds them to at least 10-14pts.

 

Baker is like the perfect personification of Cleveland.

Couldn't think of a better place he could have gone to.

 

Nope! Definitely a compliment. He GETS the city and the fanbase. He's the perfect man for the job to turn their misfortune around.

 

Unpopular opinion: I though the staredown was unnecessarily petty and immature. Sure... you do it in the first game after parting ways on such cold terms and leave Cincinnati with a win. But continuing this playground animosity? I don't know...

At this point Hue should be beneath them.

 

Baker Mayfield: "If you don't like it, I don't care."

 

Are you sure it's not because he's playing against your team this week?

 

Since 2010, no more than 4 teams have not played in the Wild Card playoff round: Browns, Buccaneers, Bears and Patriots.