The Indianapolis Colts are wickedly good at something that’s dreadfully bad: turning touchdowns into touchbacks.
For the second time in nine months, a goal-line gaffe by the Colts proved costly in a road loss when wide receiver Adonai Mitchell botched a potential 76-yard TD catch against the Rams when he lost control of the ball at the 1 and fumbled out of the end zone.
Mitchell was about to put the Colts (3-1) back in front when he was racing down the sideline in the third quarter Sunday. With no defender nearby, he started to reach the ball out as he neared the goal line, bobbled it and frantically tried to corral it before it trickled out of the end zone for a touchback.
“It was a matter of losing focus, and, you know, just a play that just can’t happen,” Mitchell said after the Colts’ 27-20 loss knocked them from the ranks of the unbeaten.
Mitchell’s blooper, which cost him his first touchdown in 21 NFL games, was eerily similar to star running back Jonathan Taylor’s goal-line gaffe in a 31-13 loss to the Broncos last December that all but ended Indianapolis’ playoff hopes.
Ever since that play, coach Shane Steichen has stressed “letters and logos,” Mitchell said, which means possessing the ball until reaching the middle of the end zone.
Failing to do so wasn’t his only mistake, though. Mitchell also was called for a holding penalty that negated Taylor’s 53-yard touchdown run with the game tied at 20 in the fourth quarter. A few plays later, Rams QB Matthew Stafford threw an 88-yard TD pass to Tutu Atwell when Indy had just 10 men on the field.
So, Mitchell wasn’t the only one to blame for the Colts’ first loss, but his blooper won’t fade so easily, just like Taylor’s 41-yard touchdown-turned-touchback, which allowed Denver to turn what would have been a 20-7 deficit into a 31-13 victory last December.
Taylor’s blunder was exacerbated by the timing of it. It came on the first weekend of fantasy football playoffs. In standard scoring leagues, Taylor, a star who gets the starting nod better than 99% of the time, would have produced a 10.1-point play had he held onto the ball a millisecond longer to complete his 41-yard touchdown run. Instead, the 40-yard run and fumble produced just 2 points.
Taylor swore it would never happen to him again. Instead, it happened to his teammate when Mitchell joined the ignominious club of pros whose goal line goofs live in infamy.
In 2008, Eagles rookie receiver DeSean Jackson celebrated a touchdown against the Cowboys by flipping the ball behind him — at the 1-yard line. The most famous goal line gaffe came during Dallas’ 52-17 blowout of Buffalo in the Super Bowl following the 1992 season when Don Beebe chased down 290-pound defensive lineman Leon Lett and knocked the ball out of his right hand as he held it out in premature celebration of a touchdown.
Maybe Steichen should take a page from Jack Del Rio — and require his player to hand him the ball on the sideline after scoring.
Back in the 2013 NFL opener, Broncos linebacker Danny Trevathan was about to score a pick-6 in his first NFL start when he dropped the ball as he approached the end zone. Although it didn’t matter in Denver’s rout of the Ravens that night, Del Rio admonished Trevathan to bring the football back with him to the sideline if he ever reached the end zone again.
Trevathan did just that when he scored his first and only NFL touchdown on a 25-yard pick-6 of Philip Rivers’ pass two years later.
Packers problems
The debate in Titletown this week is whether coach Matt LaFleur’s decisions were worse just before halftime or at the end of overtime in the Green Bay Packers’ 40-40 tie at Dallas on Sunday night.
LaFleur lost a gamble at the end of the first half that resulted in the Cowboys scoring touchdowns 32 seconds apart, and with the Packers on the Dallas 12 with 32 seconds left in overtime, LaFleur and QB Jordan Love frittered away 31 seconds before Brandon McManus nailed a 34-yard field goal with no time left.
The Packers reached the Dallas 12 with 45 seconds left in OT and snaped the ball at 32 seconds. Rookie receiver Matthew Golden was dropped for a 3-yard loss on a screen and instead of calling for Love to spike the ball, LaFleur burned his final timeout at 28 seconds.
“It’s third-and-long then,” LaFleur said of spiking the ball. “The closer you get, the longer the yard situation, the harder it is to convert. Obviously, the play call sucked.”
Then, a pass to Emmanuel Wilson resulted in a 1-yard loss. So, “obviously, moving clock, no timeout situation, we’ve got to get a call in,” LaFleur said.
Love began calling the signals for third-and-14 from the Dallas 16 but everyone around him was moving without a sense of urgency. The ball wasn’t snapped until 6 seconds remained and then Love took his time and tried to hit Golden in the back of the end zone.
Incompletion. One second left.
Had the ball bounced up instead of down, time runs out and Dallas wins.
“The operation is just way too slow,” LaFleur said. “I don’t know if our guys didn’t know we were in 2 minute or what, but obviously the communication has to get better, myself to Jordan, Jordan to the huddle.”
In the first half, the Packers had the ball at their 20 with 41 seconds left and were clinging to a 13-9 lead after Dak Prescott’s short TD run. On first-and-15 from their 27, LaFleur called for Love to throw downfield. Linebacker James Houston strip-sacked Love and recovered the ball at the Green Bay 15 with 13 seconds left. The Cowboys scored a touchdown on the next play to take the lead.
“It’s not a great play for the coverage they played,” said LaFleur.
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AP freelancer Dan Greenspan contributed to this report.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
By ARNIE STAPLETON
AP Pro Football Writer
