Moving on from Browns loss, focus is on turnovers, not late-game penalties

As the Colts re-convened at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Wednesday to prepare in earnest for Week 8’s home date with the New Orleans Saints, a well-worn sports phrase took hold: Control what you can control. 

The Colts couldn’t control the outcome of Week 7’s loss to the Cleveland Browns. The flags thrown on cornerback Darrell Baker Jr. couldn’t be retroactively picked up and waved off. 

“They don’t take the L away,” linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “They don’t give (EJ) Speed the strip-sack. It don’t really matter. We gotta continue to move on and focus on New Orleans.”

What the Colts can control: Not turning the ball over four times, and not being in a position where refereeing decisions could impact the outcome of a game in the first place. 

“I think we could’ve won that game and that’s on us,” quarterback Gardner Minshew said. “There’s a million plays out there that could’ve been made and we didn’t make them. It’s always convenient to look for excuses, but I think we gotta look at ourselves and figure out what we can do to fix it.”

The winning formula for the Colts is simple: Don’t turn the ball over. This is a team that’s 3-0 when its offense doesn’t give the ball away and is 0-4 when committing at least one turnover. The Saints, meanwhile, have had at least one takeaway in each of their seven games, and have had three takeaways in two of their three wins.

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