There may have still been 12-plus minutes left in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game, but the interception thrown by Indianapolis Colts’ rookie wide receiver AD Mitchell that was returned for a touchdown seemingly zapped any remaining hope that remained when it came to winning this game.
“I don’t think he saw the guy to be completely honest,” said Shane Steichen post-game. “But yeah, if he didn’t have it, throw it away.”
Trailing 17-13 and in Denver territory at the 40 yard line, the Colts’ offense faced a 2nd-and-7. Lined up in shotgun with four receivers to his right, Anthony Richardson took the snap and Mitchell retreated backwards a few yards while the three receivers in front of him blocked as if it were a screen.
However, this was no designed screen and in the heat of the moment and effectively, with the season on the line, it was up to Mitchell to either throw the ball away or toss it back to Richardson.
As we know, Mitchell would opt to throw it back to Richardson, a throw that he thought was the right decision. But positioned perfectly and waiting for the ball was defensive end Nik Bonitto who return it for a touchdown.
“Shane came over,” said Mitchell after the game, “talked to me and said, ‘If it’s not there, throw it away.’ So, if you kind of look from my perspective, it was there pretty much until 15 turned into Ed Reed and just came through out of nowhere. I mean it was a great play by him, just have to execute it better.”
At this point, the Broncos now had a 24-13 lead and the Colts faced an 11 point deficit that felt insurmountable given the struggles on offense.
Despite the outcome, this was a play that the Colts had practiced all week and obviously they felt good about calling it at a crucial point in the game.
“We repped that play all week, and it was great,” said Steichen. “It looked great all week, and we had it up, and it was good in practice. He’s threw it great. Obviously he’s thrown double-passes before that he’s had success with and that one didn’t work out.”
In a vacuum, with the offense struggling to move the ball for the entire second half and in need of a spark, we can see why Steichen felt the need to dial up a trick play.
However, on this drive, prior to this trick play, the Colts were actually finding some success with Richardson connecting with Kylen Granson for 14 yards and then Andrew Ogletree drawing a penalty that moved the ball an additional 13 yards and onto the Broncos side of the field.
“That was a play we were looking to get called,” said Steichen after the game, “and that was the first drive we started to get something going and then we got that ball on that play and credit to 15, he made a hell of a play. And that’s what happened.”
While you can pick apart Mitchell’s decision to make that throw back to Richardson, the decision to call this play by Steichen is the far bigger issue at hand here.
With their season hanging in the balance, Steichen dialed this call up for Mitchell, who has often played roughly 12 snaps per game this season due to inconsistent play, which put a monumental decision–whether to throw the ball to Richardson or to throw it away–on the rookie’s inexperienced shoulders.
“I executed. I saw it. (Anthony Richardson) was open. I threw it. Turned out, he wasn’t open,” Mitchell said.
This ended up being one of those instances where the Colts tried to execute an intricate play-call when the passing game was struggling to execute in general for much of the game. And the result was that the Colts were burned badly.
