Chuck Pagano took the blame for the botched fake punt in the fourth quarter. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS — Late in the third quarter, the Patriots led the Colts 27-21 and Indianapolis was faced with fourth-and-3, with the ball on Colts’ 37-yard line.
Instead of the Colts just punting the ball back to the Patriots, they tried a fake punt, which failed and completely changed the momentum of the game.
The Colts lined up like a normal punt, but then nine players sprinted toward the right sideline and lined up there, leaving only Colt Anderson under center. The Patriots didn’t panic and lined up how they thought they should against the formation, with two players over the ball at the line of scrimmage.
Anderson eventually took the snap and was tackled in the backfield for a loss by Brandon Bolden. A flag was thrown for an illegal formation due some of the players not lining up on the line of scrimmage, but the Patriots declined the penalty and took possession.
LeGarrette Blount recorded a 11-yard touchdown reception two plays later and the Patriots went up 34-21, all but sealing the win.
(See bottom of post for video of the play)
“OK, so we started working on that play last year and then we put it back in this week,” punter Pat McAfee explained. “It’s a play where you try and take advantage of numbers. We try to kind of confuse the defense and hopefully get an edge number-wise. The look was not there that we normally have in practice for it to go. There must have been some miscommunication between the snapper and [Anderson]. It turned out to be one of the most failed fakes probably of all time.
“It’s one of those things where you work and hope you get the numbers. We didn’t get the numbers. It was a miscommunication. As you saw, the results weren’t good.”
Following the game, Colts coach Chuck Pagano took the blame for the call and outcome, which he said should been been not snapping the ball and taking a delay-of-game penalty.
“The whole idea is on a fourth-and-3 or less we would shift,” Pagano said. “Either catch them misaligned or with 12 men on the field. And if you get a certain look you can make a play. But we weren’t lined up correctly and had a communication breakdown between the quarterback out there and the snapper. It’s on me, I didn’t coach it well enough.”
The Patriots weren’t confused, as Bill Belichick said his team was prepared for some sort of trick play in the kicking game.
“We expected this to be a gadget game in the kicking game, the onside kick, some kind of fake — fake punt, fake field goal. The punter ran a sweep against Tennessee a couple of weeks ago. That’s something they’ve done in the past,” Belichick said. “We didn’t know what the play was going to be, obviously, but they went on the swing-gate type play. We went over to the over shift and made sure we covered the inside part, reacted well to it. It was a good heads-up play by our punt return unit. Thought we had good coverage from those guys from the opening kickoff.”
The play completely shifted the momentum of the game, and it was too much for the Colts to recover from, as they ended up by falling to the Patriots 34-27, their seventh consecutive loss to New England.
NORMAL FOOTBALL PLAY https://t.co/oSOoJTpmct
‘ Jon Bois (@jon_bois) October 19, 2015
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