3 Colts most responsible for fourth-quarter choke vs Ravens
By Josie Rohach
The Indianapolis Colts are now 1-4 after a disastrous fourth-quarter flop on Monday night. After gaining a 22-3 lead over the Ravens late in the third quarter, the Colts packed up all of their talent and effort and proceeded to get pummeled by Lamar Jackson and their own offensive inabilities to end up falling 31-25 in overtime.
There are a lot of pieces to point fingers at in this one. It was a whole team failure that led to a systematic domination by Baltimore.
Defense gave up 16 points in the fourth quarter to set up their struggling kicker for a disastrous attempt at a tie-breaker in the last seconds of regulation. Offense couldn’t find the end zone before Baltimore, and they all joined in the struggle fest to hand the game to Jackson and company.
At the end of the day, despite a colossal flop, there are a few key Colts to scrutinize for losing this game above all others.
These 3 Indianapolis Colts are to blame for their embarrassing fourth quarter defeat against the Ravens.
3. Thakarius “BoPete” Keyes
Former Kansas City Chief BoPete Keyes had a shameful outing with the Colts on Monday night. The second year cornerback replaced the injured Rock Ya-Sin in the primetime contest, and gave Ya-Sin quite the motivation to make a speedy comeback for his team.
Keyes was highly touted coming into his sophomore season, but he failed miserably to make the right impression against Baltimore. His struggles were most glaring in the third quarter, when his spotty coverage of receiver Marquise Brown resulted in a 43-yard touchdown reception for the Ravens. Keyes was burned early on the scoring play and trailed far behind Brown by the time he caught the six point pass.
That touchdown gave Lamar Jackson the fire he needed to tear apart the rest of the secondary and shift momentum away from the Colts to win the game. Jackson had two more touchdown passes in the fourth quarter and the game-winner in overtime. In the case of Keyes, it was his incompetence at cornerback that started a downward slide for Indianapolis that they just could not recover from.