The challenge was the play of the game
“Momentum was going their way, they were moving the ball on us and we had kind of stuttered a little bit on offense,” Indianapolis guard Ryan Lilja said. “Our defense got some big turnovers, that one included. I don’t know if that was the defining moment of the game, but that was huge. That’s seven points for them. That makes it a whole different ball game. We lucked out on that one. That’s the bottom line, we lucked out.”
Manning had the Texans forgetting where to line up all game.
“I just know a lot of guys were getting warned on one side and there were penalties on the other,” Texans right tackle Eric Winston said. “You can’t be in the neutral zone first of all. I just keep hearing, ’98 [Robert Mathis] scoot back, 98 scoot back.’ I guess if you’re doing the penalties you’re going to get called.”
Said Smith: “When they got to doing hurry-up counts and you’re trying to get focused on getting lined up and different things and also trying to focus on rushing the passer, sometimes you tend to get lax on where you’re lined up. And then the rest of it is all on the refs, when they decide to call it.
“They’ll give you a couple warnings, a couple warnings, then bam, they are going to get you. They warned us a couple times. But when you get into that mode and everything is moving so fast you’ve got to focus on the details and that’s something we’ve got to get better at.”
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