Nick Martin: I let the team down

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A bad shotgun snap by Texans center Nick Martin derailed Houston’s chance to upend the Colts on Sunday. On Thursday, Martin explained what happened on the play, and how he has reacted to it.

“Plain and simple I got zoned in on the play too much and I didn’t do my first job, which is snap the ball and get Deshaun [Watson] the ball,” Martin told reporters. “My reaction was I was very upset. One of my — really the main reasons why I play this game too is to not let the team down, and that’s what I did. I own that and I really can’t put into words how frustrated I was with it. It’s definitely behind me now because we have to move on to the Bears. But I let the team down. I love my brothers, I love Deshaun. He does so much for this team and really my job is to make his job easier, and I didn’t do it on that play. I let the team down, the organization down, the city of Houston down.”

So how will Martin put the mistake behind him?

“You have to learn from it,” Martin said. “It can’t happen again. You do have to learn from it. You have to look at the play, look at the whole game. Obviously take the good from the game and obviously the negatives, which is something I focused on more this game with the end result. But then learn from it and move on. There’s a lot of football to be played. We have four more games and we have to move on and continue to win.”

Texans offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Tim Kelly defended Martin.

“First of all, right away, you can’t let that play define your day, define you as a person, define you as a player,” Kelly told reporters. “It was one snap. All the other ones that we had throughout the day, however many snaps we had, all of them were fielded and he was able to go out there and execute. It’s unfortunate that that happened at that point and that juncture of the game, but that was just the biggest message that I just tried to talk to him. I told him he needed to keep leading and keep being the good pro that he is.”

It’s unfortunate that it happened for Martin, but it happens. The challenge for Martin, as he said, becomes putting it behind him, as quickly as possible.