Even with Anthony Richardson exiting the game up 14-0 in the first quarter, the Indianapolis Colts still got a win against the Houston Texans and defeated a divisional opponent to get to 1-1 on the season after two weeks. If you weren't following along closely at the end of the game, you may have missed a great coaching move. While Texans first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans was playng checkers on the field, Shane Steichen was playing 3D chess.
With 6:45 left on the game clock, the Colts failed to convert on third down when Gardner Minshew threw a short pass to Zach Moss. Now 4th-and-1, the Colts trotted their punt team onto the field to give the Texans a chance to make it a game.
After 28 seconds on the play clock was burned setting up the punt team for the 4th down play, the Colts threw down the reverse UNO card and sent their offense back onto the field. This left the Texans scrambling to get the right unit on the field.
What the Colts just did on 4th & 1 is Grade A coaching.
— Justin Bauerle (@justinbauerle) September 17, 2023
Bring out the punt unit, then switch it real quick and bring out the offense. Force the Texans to use one of their timeouts, trailing. Then come back out and punt anyways.
Grade. A. Coaching.
Shane Steichen tricked Texans into burning a timeout
It should be noted the game officials were standing over the ball to ensure that the Texans were able to get substitutions in, which is mandatory when the offense makes substitutions, but with less than nine seconds on the play clock, Ryans took his first timeout of the second half.
The Texans had 14 players on the field, so had a play gotten snapped, it would have been an automatic first down whether the play resulted in a loss or not. To make matters worse for Houston, Indianapolis ultimately just punted the ball anyway.
This was grade-A coaching by Shane Steichen to get the Texans to burn a timeout late in the game. Look forward to more masterful coaching decisions to throw teams off their game in the future, especially in tight games where every timeout and second on the clock is crucial.