Kravitz: Bad call or not, Colts are in crisis

CINCINNATI – Ryan Grigson stood in a back hallway in the Colts' locker room at Paul Brown Stadium, collecting his thoughts, searching for the right words to say. The general manager was steaming mad, at the officials, at his team, but with the tape recorder rolling, he was professionally measured.

His team had just gotten battered by the Cincinnati Bengals, 42-28, and he had just witnessed one of the most egregious officiating decisions in recent league history.

"Obviously it was a critical, critical call," Grigson said of referee Jeff Triplette's mind-boggling overturn after it appeared BenJarvus Green-Ellis was tripped up short of the goal line on a fourth-down play.

The eyes, and the replays, showed Josh Chapman got a hand on Green-Ellis. Triplette, however, ruling Green-Ellis never was touched and ultimately bounced his way over the goal line.

Sometime this week, the NFL will call the Colts and apologize for the error in judgment, just as they did for Triplette's monumental goof over what down it was in last week's Washington-Giants game. Maybe Triplette was watching a replay of the live "Sound of Music." Shoot, he probably thinks this column will win a Pulitzer.

"All I could do was like everybody else in the stadium and in the press box, watch the replays," Grigson said. "There was a lot on the line, a critical decision, the difference between 7-0 and 14-0. You hope it's the right call."

It wasn't.

As Antoine Bethea said, "He (Green-Ellis) didn't trip himself."

"There was discussion about whether the runner was touched down at the goal line or not," Triplette told a pool reporter. "When we reviewed the video at the goal line, there was nobody touching him there, and then he bounced into the end zone."

Grigson was fuming, and so was Jim Irsay, emerging from the post-game locker room looking cold and weary. But Irsay spoke the elemental truth as he walked off into the frigid night.

"We've still got to overcome those kinds of things," he said.

True enough.

Triplette's blunder hurt Indianapolis, but it didn't ultimately beat Indianapolis.

What beat the Colts was an offense that couldn't do anything in the first half, especially convert third downs, finishing the game 2-of-10. What beat the Colts was poor kick and punt return coverage, which set up two Cincinnati scores. What beat the Colts was a defense that made Andy Dalton look like Joe Montana. What beat them was lack of poise, as evidenced by Kelvin Sheppard's drive-sustaining taunting penalty after the Colts had the Bengals cornered.

Good teams, special teams, overcome challenging circumstances. Once upon a time, the Colts were a good team, a really good one with reasonable Super Bowl aspirations. Now, today, sliding along with three losses in their last five games, they look like a candidate to be one-and-done in the postseason.

Grigson was asked his level of concern over the way his team has played in the last month and change.

He responded by pointing quickly to the injuries that have mostly decimated the offense. They've lost their two best running backs, best wide receiver, best tight end and one of their best offensive linemen.

" 'Next man up' and everything, but there's got to be a next man," he said. "Sometimes there isn't a next man. We'll continue to scour the street and the practice squads, keep looking under every rock, but we've got to be able to convert on third downs and get Andrew (Luck) back into rhythm. We need a third down option, that go-to guy, and I hope they're emerging now.

"But it seems like at every point in the season we've had a key piece ripped from us to where we've had to redefine ourselves. But we'll keep grinding, keep moving the chess pieces."

If there was any kind of bright spot, it was the emergence of LaVon Brazill and Da'Rick Rogers, who both played productive football on an otherwise dreary day. But that's about it.

This is a team in crisis, a team at the crossroads.

Fans and bloggers want to drop it all on offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton, but what do you call when you have runners who can't run, blockers who can't block and receivers who can't catch? Before receiver Reggie Wayne went down, the Colts averaged 26.7 points points per game. Since Wayne went down, the Colts have averaged 21 per game.

This is not 2006, folks. That 2006 Super Bowl team was relatively healthy and bolstered by the playoff return of Bob Sanders. This team is beat up to the point of no return, and there are no saviors out there waiting to ride in on a white stallion.

The defensive shortcomings are especially galling. The offense can use injuries as an excuse/explanation. The defense? They poured a lot of money into that defense, and it's been a bottom-third-of-the-league statistical defense all year.

"The goal was to keep (the Bengals) below 100 yards (rushing)," Robert Mathis said. "We didn't get the job done. (The Colts allowed 155.) It's back to the drawing board for us.''

As Grigson walked off, he was asked if he might keep tabs of the Denver-Tennessee game, which was just starting when the Colts game was ending.

"Oh yeah," he said as a Tennessee loss would put the Colts in the playoffs. "Oh, yeah."

The Colts will be in the playoffs, and that's a noble accomplishment for a team that was 2-14 two years ago and engaged in a full-scale rebuild. But this group has issues, big issues — issues that go far beyond a simple zebra's folly.

Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at (317) 444-6643 or via email at bob.kravitz@indystar.com. You can also follow Bob on Twitter at @bkravitz.