Monday morning thoughts

– Given the circumstances, we made the right decision punting and taking the tie. All the angry comments I've been reading on this sub about this decision are really cringe.

– The Colts beat us 31-3 twice last year. Completely dominating us in the trenches on both sides of the ball each time. The Colts are one of the most physical teams in the NFL and we held up well for most of the game all things considered

– Yes, we should have won. In the NFL if you have a 3 possession lead at any point in the 4th quarter you should never lose. I get it, we s**t the bed and went completely anemic from the middle of the 3rd quarter onward. It sucked and was hard to watch, but we didn't lose. We tied. In a few months if we're somehow still contending for the playoffs we'll be grateful that we punted

– Most games last year we looked physically overmatched and the talent gap was very apparent. I thought we looked like a real NFL team yesterday

– This game reminded me a ton of the Patriots game last year. In both games we took a seemingly insurmountable lead and had all the momentum late in the 3rd quarter (both games we had big flee-flicker plays in the 3rd) at home then the play-calling got conservative on both sides of the ball and we went completely anemic and collapsed

– In bigger moments thus far in Mills career, he's had a tendency to get nervous, hold onto the ball longer and miss throws. This is completely normal for a QB at his stage of development, but given his lack of success at Stanford I am somewhat worried that he's not clutch

– Mills had the ball 6x after we took a 20-3 lead and in those 6 drives we punted 5x and he lost a fumble. If we scored on any of those possessions we almost certainly would have won

– Mills played a good game overall and given that he's a 23 yr old 2nd year 3rd rounder I think we should all be pleased with how he looked. This was probably the 2nd or 3rd best game he's played in his career and it was against a good team, I'm excited.

– The play-calling down the stretch sucked. The 3rd and 1 run with Rex was just terrible

– The defenses overall numbers are ugly, but I thought they played well most of the game and made some gritty plays down the stretch that preserved the tie. Yes we got lucky with the missed FG, but when the Colts got to the 20 they made a TFL on a run then forced Matt Ryan to take a sack, making what should have been a 35~ yard FG a 42 yard one. They also forced a punt at the end of the 4th when I fully expected the colts to drive down and kick a game winning FG as time expired

– We've beaten the Rex Burkhead over-usage horse to death so I'm not going to expand on it as I'm sure the coaching staff has their reasons, but it was stupid and I hope they give Dameon more carries next week as he looked physical and explosive

– Chris Moore played a good game. Definitely earned the #3 WR job

– The initial advanced stats show Kenyon Green had a good game. I expect he'll start next week or by week 3/4 at the latest. Overall I thought the Oline was solid. It's great having Tunsil back even if he looked a bit rusty at times

– OJ Howard obviously made an immediate impact and I'm pumped we signed him. We targeted our tight ends a lot the first 2.5 quarters then stopped. We're a better team when we involve them

– Brandin Cooks is our best offensive player and I'm he took off right where he left off last year. With this being said though, Mills tries to force him the ball too much and hopefully he looks elsewhere more

– Was great seeing Greenard play well. We really need him to build off his promising 2nd year and become a young star for us

– Jerry Hughes was probably the overall MVP for us. Great veteran signing. Hopefully he keeps it up!

– Maliek Collins had an impact as well against the best interior Oline in the NFL. Pleased to see it

– I thought Jaelen Pitre played well and looks like a star in the making. We expected this and hes delivering

– Stingley made a big time play to force a FG at the beginning of the 4th, but he still seems a bit lost in Zone coverage. PFF thinks he had a poor game, but I'm not concerned. I saw a lot of great things, including a play early in the game where he effortlessly got off his block and forced JT to take a bad angle. Also at the end of the 4th he got JT to go out of bounds short of the first down getting them to punt forcing OT

– Kaimi had a good game. Love seeing him start the season confidently

– Kamu, Jonathan Owens and Desmond King made a lot of plays and deserve shout outs

– Tie-ing is undeniably a weird feeling, but its def better than losing