INDIANAPOLIS -- Colts return specialist Joshua Cribbs will learn the fair catch signal on punts at some point.

You hope that's the case at least.

Cribbs, who has 11 returns for touchdowns in his career, has often flirted with danger by not fair catching on punts because he's so eager to run one back. He's taken a number of hard hits where you wonder how he continues to get up, let alone hold onto the football.

That danger finally caught up with Cribbs against Denver when he took a hit that caused him to drop the ball and left him on the ground momentarily.

Cribbs fielded the punt and was crushed by teammate Dewey McDonald, who was blocked into Cribbs by Denver's Omar Bolden. The ball came loose and the Broncos recovered it while Cribbs remained on the ground.

The play was originally ruled a fumble but was reversed after being reviewed.

"Know when to say when," coach Chuck Pagano said. "He's such a competitive guy, and he's been doing it for so long. He wants to help this team. He wants to make plays, but then you've got to have a sense when the gunners are on top of you, so to speak, and know when to say when and get the hand up, make a fair catch and just possess the ball and not take a huge hit and risk a turnover. Everybody's got to be working together. We've got to do a better job of blocking those guys, too. Credit Denver, their gunners did a nice job and covered the punts well. We're better outside at the vice than what we played like [Sunday] and what we showed [Sunday], so we've got to do better."

The reversal of the call was huge for the Colts because they were only leading 21-10 at the time and the fumble would have given the Broncos the ball at Indianapolis' 39-yard line.

"You never know anymore how the calls are going to go," Pagano said.