Colts vs. Texans: Week 12 special teams grades

One of the few areas where the Colts did not struggle on last night was special teams. The unit was actually pretty good.

Special teams has been an area where the Colts have sometimes struggled. The kicking game has been up and down, and there have been mistakes made on punts. But that wasn’t the case against the Texans last night. It didn’t matter as they still lost 20-17.

Adam Vinatieri made all of the kicks that he attempted last night. He made both extra points as well as a 36-yard field goal at the end of the first half. Vinatieri has been perfect the last couple of weeks. That has likely saved his job until the end of the season.

But moving forward into next year, this is still a position that the Colts need to address. Vinatieri will likely, or at least should, retire at the end of the season. But as far as this season goes, Vinny is the guy and has kicked well over the last couple of weeks.

Rigoberto Sanchez was used a lot last night. He punted 5 times during the game. He had a long of 52 and had three of his punts downed inside the 20. The only reason this grade isn’t higher is because the Colts had some penalties that hurt them.

Again, this grade would be higher if not for some costly penalties. The Colts also had a chance to block two different punts and somehow missed. Those would have been game-changing plays. Instead, the Colts committed penalties that put them behind the eight ball in the field position battle.

This unit played well enough to win. Hopefully they can keep playing this well the rest of the year.