Critical turnovers continue to kill the Colts

The Colts had a big theme last year; bad turnovers at critical game times. That theme popped up again yesterday, and it needs to be fixed immediately.

Turnovers kill teams. The turnover margin is one of the most important stats in the game of football. Whoever wins that battle typically wins the game. The Colts don’t seem to win that battle, and even if they tie their turnovers cost them games.

This happened again Sunday. Andrew Luck threw a pick on his very first pass. And it happened in the red zone. The Colts were in perfect position to get points right out of the gate. Instead, they gave the ball right back to the Bengals.

They started the game with a turnover and ended the game with one too. Jack Doyle, who is normally the most reliable player on the team, coughed up the ball in the red zone as the team was trying to mount a comeback. The Bengals scooped up his fumble and returned it for a score.

These things cannot happen. If you want to be a good football team, you have to take care of the football. Especially in the red zone. Turnovers have been the big knock on Luck in his career so far. Sunday did nothing to quiet that talk.

Give the Colts credit for fighting back. They were on a good drive trying to have a game winning score. But then that fumble happened. You can’t keep shooting yourself in the foot late in games if you want to be a playoff contender.

Frank Reich will do his best to address this in practice. He knows that it is an issue that needs to be fixed immediately. But anyone who watched this team last year shouldn’t be surprised that it happened again. And Reich is going to have to do a heck of a job to make sure it doesn’t keep happening.