Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

Colts at Titans, 1 p.m. Sunday, CBS

His team is off to its worst start in his five seasons as coach; they’re reeling, still stunned 24 hours later, still wondering how in the world that happened.

The Indianapolis Colts gave up 17 points in the final 2:37 plus overtime Sunday night in Houston. They folded, collapsed, threw up on themselves with a golden opportunity sitting there, ready for them to snatch it.

What happens to coaches after losses like that? What happens to coaches after 2-4 starts?

At the very least, the seat warms. At the worst? Well, you know.

On Monday afternoon, hours removed from one of the most humiliating defeats of his five-year tenure as Colts coach, Chuck Pagano didn’t seem fazed.

“I’m encouraged,” Pagano said a day after his team’s 26-23 overtime meltdown in Houston. “You guys probably think I’m crazy, but I’m encouraged.”

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Encouraged? After one of the most epic choke jobs in this team’s recent history? That’s Pagano. The glass is eternally half-full. There is always hope, always promise. Mondays this season at the team's West 56th Street facility are starting to feel like a broken record. The loss was hard to swallow, the mistakes are correctable, the coach still believes.

Problem is nothing seems to change.

“I think we’re a three-quarter team,” Pagano said. “We gotta figure out a way to become a four-quarter team.

“We got a group of guys and coaches who care. They’ll fight. There’s no pity parties in this building. There’s no pity parties in football.”

No, he isn’t backtracking on the decision to go for it on fourth-and-inches late in the third quarter deep in Texans territory. It wasn’t the aggression that seemed strange as much as the play call: Needing only a matter of inches, why line up in the shotgun and try and throw it? It wasn’t the first time this season a Colts’ critical play call has seemed more than puzzling.

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“Stand behind the call wholeheartedly,” Pagano said. “They executed and we didn’t and that’s the bottom line there.”

No, he isn’t admitting the defense softened in the final seven minutes, or retreated into the passive prevent scheme that’s buried them before (see: Week 1 vs. Detroit). A 14-point lead with 7:04 left vanished as Texans quarterback Brock Osweiler torched a hapless Colts defense for two touchdowns, then moved the ball down the field in overtime to set up an easy game-winning field goal from Nick Novak.

“We weren’t doing anything different,” he said. “What happens is you get in these ballgames and momentum shifts and you can’t get away from what got you to that point. And that just comes down to we gotta execute. And we gotta get the job done.

“I don’t think we were passive or soft or anything like that. I think (Houston) executed better than we did.”

No, he isn’t excusing what has to be this team’s worst defensive snap of 2016. A third-and-7 dump-off in the fourth quarter to Texans running back Lamar Miller resulted in a gag reel of missed tackles. Erik Walden over-pursued. So did Daryl Morris. Clayton Geathers missed. D’Qwell Jackson missed. Kendall Langford missed. One whiff after another after another.

“You’d like to think we’d get that guy down, as many bodies as we had surrounding him,” Pagano said, pointing out each of the mistakes.

Most significant: Pagano’s Colts are drowning. They're regressing. And anyone with eyes can see it.

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He backed off his criticism Sunday night – that his team lacked a “killer instinct” – but Pagano was just being diplomatic. Everyone saw what happened. This team took its foot off the gas, and paid dearly for it.

A soft schedule early is now history, the opportunity wasted. The Colts travel to Tennessee on Sunday before hosting the Chiefs then traveling to Green Bay. They still own dates with Pittsburgh, undefeated Minnesota and Oakland before the season’s over.

It will get tougher. Pagano knows this. And he knows there’s no longer any room for error. It starts with him.

“The expectations are the expectations, that’ll never change,” he said. “This is a winning, winning organization that won a ton long before I got here. We’ve had good success since I’ve been here. The expectation is to win.

"Our goal, if that’s what you’re asking me, my goal and the team’s goal is not any different, whether you have zero years or one year or two years (on your contract). I’ve said it before. We’re all on one-day contracts. That’s it. One day-contracts. And everybody that coaches and plays in this league understands that. As long as you can understand that you can deal with that. And that doesn’t affect how you go about your business.”

Pagano often leans on metaphors like that. One-day contract? It didn’t feel like he was on a one-day contract when the Colts were going 11-5 his first three seasons and reaching the AFC Championship Game.

Now, especially after Sunday night’s debacle? It's starting to feel like it.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.

Colts at Titans, 1 p.m. Sunday, CBS