DeForest Buckner: We s—t the bed

Veteran defensive tackle DeForest Buckner has been one of the Colts’ best defensive players since the team brought him over from the 49ers in 2020.

Buckner has seen several late-season collapses with the franchise and offered a blunt assessment of the team in the aftermath of Sunday’s embarrassing 45-33 loss to the Giants.

“We came up short. I’m going to be honest, as [an] entire team, we shit the bed,” Buckner said, via Kevin Bowen of 107.5 The Fan. “Another year and it’s frustrating. You know what I mean? Because like I’ve been saying, I can see what we have. It’s just, we’re not getting over that hump. We’re not — you know what I mean? I just feel like it’s really details that we’re missing that’s hurting us.

“I know the type of guys we have in our locker room. We have a lot of guys in that locker room that care — a lot, tremendously about this team and this organization, this city. We want to put a product out there the city’s proud of. And for it to not go the way you want it to go, it’s frustrating.”

The Colts have been inconsistent throughout the season, going above .500 just once — Week 7 when the team defeated Miami. But after that, the Colts lost three straight and haven’t been able to get back to even.

“It was definitely on us,” Buckner said. “Like you said, big moments where we fell short. We shot ourselves in the foot multiple times throughout the season. Obviously, a lot more downs than ups and that’s fully on us. That’s the most frustrating part about it. Especially early on in a lot of games, one-score games that were lost in moments where if we just make one or two more plays, we come out with a W. But we didn’t. And that’s just the frustrating part about the whole season.”

Now as the season winds down, Buckner is expecting the Colts to make some significant changes in the coming offseason.

“You know, there’s obviously people that are going to be still int he building, people that are not. And, you know, changes are going to need to be made,” Buckner said. “I understand that and we all understand that in the building. You’ve got to make those changes for the better.”