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Colts sign punter Thomas Morstead as insurance after disastrous day
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- Colts sign punter Thomas Morstead as insurance after disastrous day
INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts are still feeling the effects of one of the worst games of Brian Mason 's four seasons in charge of the Indianapolis special teams.
Indianapolis signed veteran punter Thomas Morstead to the practice squad Tuesday, adding insurance for an ailing Rigoberto Sanchez, who got obliterated on the blocked punt that gave Tennessee control of a shocking 26-20 upset on Sunday.
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Sanchez was optimistic that he'd be fine when he spoke to the media after Sunday's game.
"Rigo did get banged up in the game," Mason said Tuesday. "That's something that we'll still monitor as we work throughout the week. Fortunately, there was nothing that was structurally wrong."
Sanchez returned to the game to hold an extra point for Spencer Shrader, and he was able to punt into the net.
But there is still a lingering issue for Sanchez.
"Obviously, Rigo, he's overcome injuries, he's overcome adversity, he's overcome a lot of different things throughout his career," Mason said. "We know he's a really tough, gritty guy that's always going to be there for his teammates."
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Indianapolis signed Morstead to the practice squad, bringing a blast from the Colts ' past into the fold in case Sanchez isn't ready to go for Sunday's game against Minnesota.
Morstead, 40, has spent the past five seasons bouncing around the NFL, punting for the Jets, Dolphins, Falcons and 49ers. Before that, though, Morstead spent 12 seasons punting for the Saints, and he played a key role in one of the worst special-teams moments in Colts history.
When he was a rookie, Morstead was the kicker on "Ambush," the onside kick the Saints called to open the second half of Super Bowl XLIV, a play that turned the game in a Super Bowl the Colts eventually lost.
Morstead has bounced around the league, but he'd punted in all 17 games in each of the four seasons prior to 2026, staying sharp enough to serve as an emergency punter.
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No matter who's punting, the Colts have plenty to fix after a pair of breakdowns that cost them the game Sunday.
Under Mason, Indianapolis has typically been one of the NFL's best punt teams, finishing second in the NFL in 2025 and ranking second in the NFL through the first five games of 2026.
A total breakdown happened against Tennessee.
Beginning with the first punt, which seemed successful when Tennessee's Truman Jones ran into Sanchez, leading to a first down by penalty.
Jones should never have gotten that close.
"The very first punt was actually a return that they had set up," Mason said. "They rushed one guy to force in the A-gap, he did a really good job of working his hands. We were in a good position to be able to block our guy. We whiffed on our block. ... We've got to do a better job of striking and using our hands."
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The penalty saved the Colts on Sanchez's first attempt.
A total breakdown happened on the second.
"I made a really big mistake by deciding to punt a big-field punt to the right," Mason said. "That is certainly something that I own. I made that mistake."
The call was wrong because Indianapolis did not have its top two gunners. Ashton Dulin was out due to an ankle injury, and Cam Taylor-Britt had been moved up to the top defensive unit due to Sauce Gardner's injury.
Deion Burks and Kapena Gushiken were in the game instead.
Under pressure again, Sanchez launched a 57-yard blast to Chimere Dike, the NFL's All-Pro return man last season.
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"We slightly out-punted our coverage," Mason said. "We have one gunner that shows up there to be able to make the play and is right there to make it, but we don't finish making the play. Kind of becomes a bad string of events from there, where we don't have our (personal protector) and long snapper out into protection, or out into coverage like we should. The first two guys in the interior don't do a good job of squeezing to the ball. We have two guys run into each other. We have another guy miss a tackle. We don't fold to the ball correctly. It's an unacceptable, undisciplined coverage play that should not have happened."
Mason took responsibility for the mistake, clearly upset that Dike was able to rip off a 58-yard return, stopped only by a valiant effort from Sanchez and a hustling play from Gushiken.
An even worse disaster happened on Sanchez's third offering.
Titans running back Julius Chestnut blew through the Indianapolis line and crushed Sanchez, leading to the go-ahead Tennessee touchdown and the predicament the Colts find themselves facing this week.
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"We did not make the correct protection call, we did not communicate correctly at the line of scrimmage, which led to some issues," Mason said. "We need to survive the down. Things are not always going to be perfect by being firm and stepping up to protect in the A-gap, which we did not do, and obviously got ran into the punter. We had to protect Rigo and take better care of him."
Mason's units have typically been excellent and Sunday's performance against Tennessee clearly left him frustrated.
The Colts don't have much time to get it fixed. Minnesota's punt return unit is one of the NFL's best.
"We've got to get those changes made," Mason said. "We've got to be able to perform at a higher level, which we've shown to do in the past, which we believe we will do. I'm not going to coach scared. We're not going to play scared. We're going to get back to work. We're going to keep swinging, and we're going to be a really good special teams unit, like we've shown to do in the past."
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Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter .
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts sign punter Thomas Morstead as insurance after disastrous day
