It was a dark and rainy night for the Colts on Saturday in the AFC Divisional playoff game.  There were plenty of opportunities that the Colts could’ve taken advantage of but ultimately failed at in the game.  The game was in reach in the fourth quarter when the Colts were down 29-22 but the Patriots would not allow another comeback from Andrew Luck like he did against the Kansas City Chiefs last week in the Wild Card game.

So what exactly went wrong for the Colts in this loss?  Well first it starts with Andrew Luck.  I wrote an article last week stating that if the Colts want to win this game, Luck has to limit his mistakes.  And that’s exactly what he didn’t do.  Luck threw four interceptions and two of those four turnovers led to touchdowns for the Patriots.  Take those points away and add just two field goal drives to the Colts, we have a score of 29-28 and the Patriots are ahead by the skin of their teeth.

Now of course we don’t know if the Colts would’ve scored on those interception drives.  Both turnovers that led to touchdowns were committed deep in the Colts own territory so it made it easy for the Patriots to score.  It is very possible that the Colts could’ve gone three and out or eventually punted after a first down or two.  Or it’s even possible that Andrew Luck throws two touchdowns on those drives and the Colts have a commanding lead in the fourth quarter.  It’s impossible to know what would’ve happened but it is interesting to think about how the game could’ve turned out.

Another factor that played in the role of the Colts losing is the defenses inability to stop the run.  Going into the game it seemed that the Colts were strategizing to stop Tom Brady which they did statistically by keeping him and the receivers out of the end zone.  But the Colts defense failed from holding Brady on third down and was 2 for 2 when passing on third down in the fourth quarter which extended the drive and took the clock down as low as possible.

LeGarrette Blount had a career game against the Colts by rushing 166 yards and four touchdowns.  The Colts defense had absolutely no answer to his style of power and speed.  Yes the Colts kept Brady’s arm out of the end zone but they were tremendously unsuccessful at keeping Blount out of the end zone.  Three of his four touchdown rushes were from two yards out and in the fourth quarter he put the dagger in the Colts by having a 73 yard touchdown run.

Like Brady, what was most impressive by Blount and the other running backs of New England (Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley) was the ability to keep possession of the ball by converting third down plays all game.  The running backs converted five of seven third down opportunities and simply dominated at the line of scrimmage.

The Colts can purely put the blame on themselves for losing this divisional playoff game.  Yes the Patriots dominated the run game and extended drives by converting 11 of 18 third downs, but the Colts had multiple opportunities to stay alive in the game and simply were unproductive.  The Patriots move on to play in the AFC Championship game against the Denver Broncos at 3pm Sunday afternoon.