Colts Squeak By Patriots To Clinch #1 Seed

Bill Brooks hauled in 3 Touchdowns, including the walk off winner in overtime to clinch the #1 seed in the AFC Playoffs

TECMO BOWL

Lleyton Verheul

10/6/20233 min read

FOXBORO, MA- In a week overshadowed by achievements, the Colts forgot one thing, they have a game against New England on Wednesday night, a pretty important game if San Diego can take care of business against Kansas City. Coming into the day, Kansas City had a 2 game deficit to Indianapolis with 3 to play and Indy looking ahead at 2 teams under .500 left to go, so the odds were already against Kansas City, but the Patriots played like their life depended on it or the Chiefs life depended on it. The one thing Head Coach Alex Boyajian tried to relay to his players, "These guys won't just lie down and take it, we need to keep the gas on, celebrate on Monday and take care of business Tuesday-Sunday, they know us now, the worst thing we could do is think we won the game before the game is played".

The Colts offense came out smoking, hitting a wide open Bill Brooks for 71 yards on the first play, seriously wide open, like, no players within 30 yards of Brooks as he danced around the goal line to run clock off. Indy felt invincible, there was nobody that could stop them, after an overtime victory over the 1st place Packers and a dominant victory over Cleveland to clinch the division, who else could stop them? Only the Colts could stop themselves. Jeff George throws a pick on a deep ball on the next offensive drive and suddenly the life was sucked out of the Indy sideline.

The run game was a problem all game, the Colts struggled to run the ball all day, so the pass was the only offensive weapon possible. The Colts defense stood tall against an underwhelming Patriots offense, getting the Colts the ball with 2:35 left in the half, Indy converted a 3rd and 16 but clock mismanagement resulted in a missed scoring opportunity at the end of the game, "Yeah that's on me, I should have had Jeff throw it as fast as possible and hope a drag route could find a hole, if not I would take the field goal, he sat too long and missed a big opportunity".

In the 2nd half, Coach Boyajian's frustration with the offensive line started to boil over as he went for it on 4th twice, one of those resulted in an interception. The second try resulted in a Patriots game tying touchdown after they missed a long field goal. The Colts answered with a long touchdown to, you guessed it, Bill Brooks to retake the lead at the start of the 4th. With 2:15 left in the game, the Patriots evened the score with a long run by John Stephens, but it felt like this was just enough time for the Colts to go down and kick a field goal to win it or maybe even score a touchdown. The Colts stalled and went 3 and out, running about a minuet and a half off the clock. They punted away to New England who could not do much with the ball as they sent it to OT. In overtime, the Colts got the ball first and didn't waste much time, on the first play they threw a deep ball to Bill Brooks for the game winning touchdown, akin to how they started the game.

"Every week is a test, those tests vary, but they are tests, this week was a test of discipline and readiness for the unexpected, I don't think we passed, I think we failed, I don't care about winning, I care about how we win", said an extremely frustrated Alex Boyajian in his postgame press conference. "I'm really disappointed in the trenches, running the ball and stopping the run was a problem all day, we can't deal with that in the playoffs or even next week against Buffalo". Although the head coach was frustrated, this Colts team still came out with a win, but can it propel them against the hated Buffalo Bills next week?