A day later, Chuck Pagano has no remorse about the Indianapolis Colts' misbegotten fake punt call in the loss to the New England Patriots.
"No, not at all," Pagano said Monday when asked if he regretted the decision. "Not pleased obviously with the way that we prepared the guys or coached the guys to go out and execute the play. That's on me. I talked about that at great length and I got to be better. But I don't regret the play call at all"
The play, in which receiver Griff Whalen snapped the ball to safety Colt Anderson, led to a cacophony of snickering and a zillion scolding hot takes Sunday night and Monday morning.
Pagano stuck to his postgame claims that the botch was based on miscommunication rather than a poorly conceived play. The coach took blame for the lack of preparation.
"The design was to actually maybe get them to burn a timeout that they might need later on at the end of the game or catch them with too many man on the field, yada yada yada. Didn't work out that way," he said. "I obviously didn't do a good enough job of getting the thing coached up correctly to handle every scenario that could come up. Again, that's on me. That ain't on these players."
Already on the hot seat, the special team's flub could be Pagano's legacy in Indy if the Colts (3-3) don't turn the season around and he's eventually fired.
