The AFC standings are still early enough that one bad Sunday will not define a season, but Week 5 did reveal something uncomfortable for the Indianapolis Colts: the defense has a tackling problem that is bigger than one missed play. In a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Colts missed eight tackles, and linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither was part of that number with two misses of his own.
That is why his postgame message landed with more force than a standard cleanup-the-film comment. Davis-Gaither called tackling a “want to” thing, saying players have to want to be physical if the Colts are going to fix the issue. He also acknowledged that Lou Anarumo may have to make changes if the problem does not improve, which is usually the kind of language a team uses when a coaching staff knows the issue is not just technical.
What the numbers say
The Colts’ tackling rate against Pittsburgh was poor enough to make the problem impossible to ignore. Eight missed tackles in one game is not just a bad number on the stat sheet; it usually means plays that should have ended in modest gains keep turning into something more dangerous. Davis-Gaither’s own line — six solo tackles, two missed tackles and a 25 percent missed-tackle rate — only sharpened the point. If a team is trying to clean up a defensive issue, it is not ideal when the player talking most directly about it is also part of the problem.
That tension matters because the Colts spent the offseason trying to make the front seven younger and more athletic. The idea was straightforward: add speed, improve range and create a defense that could close space more reliably. But athleticism does not solve every issue by itself. A defense can move faster and still fail if the contact itself is not secure. That is what Week 5 suggested here, and it is why the Colts’ inside linebacker group still feels like a work in progress.
Why this becomes a bigger issue
There is a larger defensive story underneath the missed tackles. The Colts are not dealing with a single breakdown so much as a standard that is still being defined. Davis-Gaither’s comments made that clear without sounding dramatic. He did not frame it as a mystery. He framed it as a choice. That is a useful distinction, because it shifts the conversation from scheme alone to execution and intent.
That does not mean the Colts are doomed on defense, or that one game changes everything in the AFC standings. It does mean the margin for error is thinner when the tackling itself is unstable. The teams that rise in the conference usually do two things well: they finish plays, and they limit the kind of self-inflicted damage that extends drives. Right now, the Colts need to prove they can do both.
So the issue is not only how many tackles the Colts missed against Pittsburgh. It is whether the defense can show that Week 5 was a fixable bad day, or the first clear sign that the questions around this unit are going to linger deeper into the AFC standings race.
