Reich on Blankenship: 'He's Our Kicker'

Indianapolis Colts kicker Rodrigo Blankenship missed a 42-yard field goal in overtime that would have won the game against the Houston Texans.

Instead, the Matt Ryan era in Indianapolis began with a 20-20 tie.

Head coach Frank Reich wasn't ready to discuss personnel following the tie that felt like a loss, giving Blankenship a tenuous vote of confidence.

"You know, I can't even begin to think (about it)," said Reich when asked after the game about potential changes. "In my mind, he's our kicker."

"In my mind he's our kicker."

"We go back and everybody gets evaluated. Coaches, players, we all get evaluated. If I've learned one thing over the years it's don't rush into those kind of decisions. Those are decisions Chris (Ballard) and I get a chance to talk about and everybody gets evaluated."

"Rod has done a lot of good things for us."

Reich felt comfortable sending Blankenship out for the game winner and explained his thought process leading up to the ill-fated field goal attempt.

"No. I didn't see anything in the operation that led to the miss," said Reich. "You’re feeling like you’re in the 80 percentile."

Blankenship is now 15 of 19 from 40-49 yards, 78.9%, very close to Reich's 80% estimate.

For reference, Adam Vinatieri was 84.4% from the same distance with the Colts, discounting his 3 of 7 final season at age 47.

"We had been running the ball pretty well, so we call a play on third down to try to get Matt out in the open," said Reich on the third-down play. "We hit that same naked earlier in the game, so I thought maybe they'd play the run and we'd get Matt out there just, hey, let's take a short sack, run some time off, just in case the worst things happens and we missed."

"Obviously had a lot of confidence that we'd have a 40, 42-yarder worst-case scenario if we had to take a short sack. Best case scenario is we come out of there on the naked and we get something clean, we go down and score a touchdown."

"They played good defense and then we didn't convert."

Reich wasn't ready to discuss personnel on Sunday immediately after the game, but it's a good bet Blankenship's name came up behind closed doors shortly thereafter.

Blankenship might be "our kicker" now, but how long with that last?