Colts' Saturday defends clock management: 'Thought we had plenty of time'

Indianapolis Colts interim head coach Jeff Saturday believes he managed the clock adequately on the final drive of Monday night's loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Colts were down 24-17 with 59 seconds left in the game when quarterback Matt Ryan ran for 14 yards to the Steelers' 26-yard line to set up a third-and-3. Saturday neglected to use one of his three timeouts after Ryan's run, and the clock ticked down to 30 seconds before the next snap.

"I thought we had plenty of time," Saturday said, according to Clayton Holloway of NFL Network. "I wasn't too concerned."

Indianapolis' third-down play was a Jonathan Taylor run that was stopped for no gain, forcing Saturday, who was in his third game as an NFL coach, to finally use a timeout.

"I didn't feel like time was really of the essence at the moment. I thought we had a good play ... I felt like we had time, we have timeouts afterward. We were in striking distance. I never felt the pressure of needing a timeout," Saturday added, per Andrew Mason of 104.3 The Fan.

Ryan ultimately threw an incompletion on fourth down, which ended Indianapolis' last-ditch effort to tie the game.

The Colts' offense struggled to move the ball in the first half, totaling only 66 yards and five first downs. They had 266 yards in the second half, but it wasn't enough to keep pace with the Steelers.

Saturday confirmed postgame that Ryan will continue to start at quarterback going forward, according to James Boyd of The Athletic.

The Colts' loss drops them to 4-7-1 on the season and 1-2 since Saturday took over as interim head coach in place of Frank Reich.