It's not leadership as much as immaturity IMO. A little too big for their britches!
Sunday will be a good guage as you said.
They are definitely a young team... so immaturity may certainly be a factor. I have watched a lot of football and yesterday's loss came down to a few factors IMO:
1. First drive stalled out and blocked FG gave Indy a HUGE early momentum swing. We were driving the ball well-- and offensive inefficiency reared its ugly head again (so did poor special teams play by the way). This erased points, gave them a boost, got the crowd rolling, and made us push a bit too much.
2. Defense got worked over. Give Indy some credit. They protected Luck well and had a good game plan against our D. Of course, inside info from Eberflus always helps as well lol...
3. Poor officiating. Not blaming the entire outcome of the game on the refs-- BUT, it was clear Indy was getting the calls-- and I counted about 8-10 obvious, blatant holds on our DL that should have been called (lots of others that "could" have been called but would have been more ticky tack). On the other hand-- we had several ticky tack holds called on us. These calls/non-calls ended our drives and extended some of theirs. Not saying it is 100% why we lost-- but the officiating was a FACTOR for sure.
4. Playcalling. We tried to re-establish momentum by being aggressive-- but we got burned. Their D stepped up and we stalled out and failed to keep pace with their offense. We were pressing and just were off our game offensively.
5. Snowball effect. Once you get behind far enough-- you are no longer playing "your game" and you are off your identity. The team was shell-shocked and frustrated (much like NO was against us honestly) and we just took our lumps and decided to pack it in.
6. Buzzsaw Factor... Indy flat out needed this W more-- and they came out hungry and desperate. We came out business-like and got punched in the mouth. Had we scored an opening TD, I think the complexion of the game would have been quite different-- but this happens every year. You get behind and the game gets away from you. Then you start pressing, fail some more, lose confidence-- and take a bad L.