Jeff Saturday with No Doubts on 4th-Down Play Call

A litany of things have to go wrong to blow the biggest lead in NFL history, but the Indianapolis Colts had a chance to finish the Minnesota Vikings with a first down or field goal at the end of the game.

Interim coach Jeff Saturday decided against a 53-yard field goal attempt in favor of going for it on fourth and inches with just over two minutes left in regulation and a 36-28 lead.

Being successful on either likely would have prevented the loss, but quarterback Matt Ryan came up short on a QB sneak with 2:23 left and the Vikings out of timeouts.

Saturday has no regrets in electing to try and push for the first down rather than attempt a long field goal that would have put the game out of reach of the Vikings.

"I felt strongly about the fourth-and-inches," said Saturday at his media availability on Sunday. "I wouldn’t change any of it."

"I felt solid with it. I think we were 100 percent since I’ve been here at it. You saw me throw the challenge flag. I felt the play wasn’t blown dead."

"Whatever, it is what it is, but you’ve got to get it. The game is over if we get fourth-and-inches. I’ll never back down from that call, I can assure you. I loved where we were."

"I felt like that was how we were going to close the game out, and unfortunately, we didn’t do it."

The Vikings scored on the next play, and the 33-0 lead was gone.

With time left on the clock, the Colts had a chance to push for their own game-winning field goal in regulation. Saturday again faced a fourth and one, but a false start denied the Colts the chance to go for it again if that was their plan.

"I felt like we could get the jump and I think we would have," said Saturday. "Again, self-inflicted wound. We jump offsides (false start) but yeah, I was pretty aggressive at that moment of going to get the win."

"But not at fourth-and-six, but we felt like we had an opportunity there, felt like we had it dialed in pretty good and again, inopportune time but it’s an enormous play that you can’t have and we have one like that. It takes you out of it, takes you out of your mindset, you have to punt it and try and play D to get to overtime."

Saturday wouldn't confirm one way or another, but if the Vikings hadn't jumped offside, it sounded like he would have gone for it again.

"We had something dialed up," said Saturday. "It was all in succession. So, without going too deep into it, I had a plan in place but ultimately, we couldn’t even get to it."

Another self-inflicted wound helped put the Colts in the history books on last week against the Vikings. There have been too many of those this season.