Colts head coach Chuck Pagano on loss to Steelers: "They kicked our ass"

After the Colts 45-10 loss on Sunday Night Football to the Pittsburgh Steelers, head coach Chuck Pagano understandably wasn't in a great mood at his postgame press conference.  He was, however, blunt and to the point, not sugarcoating a bad loss.

"They kicked our ass.  Period," Pagano said, going on to explain that the Colts were "beat thoroughly in all three phases of the game."  Per usual, Pagano praised the effort of his players ("our guys competed their asses off") but understood that it was not a good performance ("we didn't play well").

Often, coaches will look for the positives in their postgame pressers, but that wasn't Pagano on Sunday night.  Instead, he kept it simple and he kept it honest: the Colts got their butts kicked.  The Steelers dominated in every area of the game: points (45 to 10), first downs (24 to 11), third and fourth down conversion percentage (61.5% to 23.5%), total yards (522 to 240), passing yards (364 to 186), rushing yards (158 to 54), yards per play (7.4 to 4.2), and turnovers (2 to 3).

"We had some opportunities early in that ballgame, and we did not capitalize on those," Pagano said.  "We had the fumble recovery on the kickoff and turned the ball over without getting any points.  Then we got another turnover and settled for three.  We take a lead.  Then they score and get a two-point conversion.  Then they got another score at the end of the half in a two-minute situation.  It's 21-10.  Then we come out and don't get anything going offensively.  They go right down the field and put another on the board.  It was downhill from there.  We couldn't get anything going offensively.  No big plays on defense.  No run game or pass game.  We gave up a punt return at the end.  We got beat thoroughly in all three phases.  We don't have a lot of time to sit and dwell on this.  It stinks but we have to move on."

Moving on for the Colts means a trip to Jacksonville this Sunday for a key AFC South matchup against the Jaguars, and Pagano is confident his team will rebound.  "We'll come through again, yes." he said.  "We don't have a choice, so we will respond."