Four Kicks, One Touchdown, and How the Indianapolis Colts Escaped a Nine-Game Losing Streak

In Indianapolis that night, Spencer Shrader walked onto the field with a sore groin. He did not score the way a crowd chants a name. But four times in the game, he set the ball down, stepped back a few paces, and kicked it through uprights over five meters tall. Twelve points. More than half of the Indianapolis Colts' total of 19 came from the feet of a man nobody remembers if the team wins.

Final score: Colts 19 - Texans 17. A win. But sitting back to watch the tape in Busan, beside a cup of tea that had gone cold, I realized what I was looking at was not a team finding itself. It was a team finding a way to survive.

To understand this game, it has to be placed where it belongs. The Indianapolis Colts entered their home field on a nine-game losing streak, the longest active in the NFL at the time. Their last win on American soil was October 26, 2026. Their last win of any kind was November 2 in Berlin. Between those two dates lies a silence that any fan who has ever sat in an empty stadium understands. I understand it my own way, after 92 days of a diary from away from the field during the pandemic, when the K-League was suspended and I stood in the rain recording Busan IPark players passing the ball to each other. Silence teaches a person to see numbers with different eyes.

Their opponent, the Houston Texans, were no better. This was the second time in franchise history the team opened a season 0-3. Their offense sat at a level analysts call non-functional: 223 total yards, 16 of 27 passing, 70 rushing yards on 21 carries, roughly 3.33 yards per attempt. Two teams sinking. One had to win to avoid sinking deeper. The other simply sank further.

Reading the box score, what I still call the inventory of truth after the lies on the stands, three numbers made me stop.

First, the Colts' offense produced only 7 points. Seven. A single touchdown, off the foot of Keenan Allen, and it was his first touchdown in a Colts jersey. The rest, 12 points, came from field goals. This win was not written by the hand of a playmaker, but by the feet of a kicker. Across the game, the offense scored exactly one third of the points the kicking game delivered.

Second, Daniel Jones, the man running the offense, completed 24 of 36 passes for 235 yards and one score. It sounds fine. But he lost the ball three times, two of them directly creating chances for the opponent. The second turnover led straight to Houston's go-ahead score. In American football, a turnover at the wrong moment costs more than a whole quarter of good play. This is not a statistical blemish. It is an error pattern: at the very moment when care mattered most, he let the ball leave his hands. I once wrote a piece about Kim Jin-kyu back in 2026, when I looked only at the numbers of 31 touches and 7 lost balls and forgot his unhealed ankle. More than 500 angry comments taught me that numbers do not feel pain. But error patterns remain error patterns, and three lost balls in one game is a pattern.

Third, Jonathan Taylor carried 23 times for 68 yards. An average of 2.96 yards per carry. Under 3 yards a carry means the offense is not opening lanes, or the opposing front is winning early, or both. This number needs no interpretation. It speaks for itself.

But one number runs against all of it. The Colts' defense allowed Houston just 223 total yards. Two weeks earlier, that same defense had allowed opponents to pass 500 yards in two straight games. From over 500 down to 223 is a leap no defense makes on willpower alone.

And this is where I had to stop longer than at any of the three numbers above.

People will celebrate. Headlines will read that the Colts ended a nine-game losing streak. In the stands, fans will exhale. But looking at the box score, I see a winning formula that cannot be replicated: an offense scoring 7 points, losing the turnover battle, and winning on four field goals from a man with a sore groin.

In NFL history, teams that lose the turnover battle usually lose the game. Teams that win on a high rate of field goals usually cannot sustain it. And teams that score only 7 points from their offense usually cannot beat opponents stronger than a 0-3 team.

When I was young in Madrid, an old editor taught me one line: do not look at the score, look at what the score hides. The 19-17 score hides a reality: if Shrader had not kicked well, the Colts lose. If the Texans had a normal offense, the Colts lose. If the defense had not produced that anomalous performance, the Colts lose. I once mispronounced Kim Young-gwon's name three times in a 2026 World Cup match and was mocked across the community. Three times mispronouncing one defender's name taught me to listen before I write. Three lost balls from Jones should teach the Colts to read before they celebrate.

This win is not evidence of progress. It is evidence of survival.

And the question I cannot yet answer: is that leap from over 500 yards allowed down to 223 yards a real correction, or merely the result of facing an opponent destroying itself? When I wrote about Busan IPark's high press in 2026 and met with backlash, I learned that one game is never enough to conclude anything about a system. Fans read with their hearts. A writer must read with his heart, but count with his eyes.

Busan taught me that the fan's heart is the most honest measure, even when it breaks the writer's. As for this 19-17 win, if you asked the 40,000 members of my community group, some would say the Colts are back. Others would say they are still sinking. Both are right, because both are looking at the same score with two different hearts.

I do not know where the Colts go from here. But I know what I will watch over the next two weeks, and it is not the score.

Daniel Jones's hands. If he loses the ball twice in a game again, the story shifts from a relieving win to who starts at quarterback.

Spencer Shrader's foot. If the groin does not hold, the Colts lose what produced 12 of their 19 points, and they lose it right when the offense has not yet found itself.

And the defense. If they again allow over 400 yards against a stronger opponent, this win will forever be just one lucky night in a long sad stretch.

The beat keeper does not need to beat the drum loudly, only on time, in the right place, and with enough love for the craft to stand for a long while. I will stand there, wait for the next game, and let the stands speak before I write.