The image had remained fresh and the days were long for almost two weeks back in January for Indianapolis Colts return specialist Josh Cribbs.

The Colts defense had held New England to a three-and-out on the Patriots’ opening offensive possession in the AFC Championship Game when Cribbs, who was standing back at Indianapolis’ 22-yard line, muffed the punt off his helmet. The Patriots recovered the ball and scored a touchdown six plays later. That was the end of Cribbs returning punts in the game. Colts coach Chuck Pagnao replaced him with receiver T.Y. Hilton.

“It ate at me, definitely,” Cribbs said last week. “I took maybe two weeks to get over it. Put the weight on my shoulders because it was the end of the season. If we had another game, I would have had no choice but to bounce back, but because it was the end of the year, one game away from the Super Bowl, it stung even more.

“I gave myself about two weeks to drown in my own sorrows and take the blunt of everything like it was all my fault even though I know the score told a different story and that we flat out got beat. I just had to look at myself and take responsibility for my own self.”

Cribbs admits he didn’t know what his status would be after that game. He signed a two-year contract with the Colts in the second half of last season, but he knows he could be without a job again at any moment.

It was the second straight week that Cribbs had fumbled a punt. He dropped the ball after teammate Dewey McDonald was blocked into him against Denver in the divisional playoff round. The play was reviewed and eventually reversed.

Cribbs, who has returned eight kickoffs and three punts for touchdowns in his career, is a risk taker when it comes to returning kicks. He prefers to return a punt in traffic or bring the ball out of the end zone nine yards deep on a kickoff than fair catch or take a knee. Cribbs took a number of hard hits with that approach last season.

Cribbs, who is under contract for one more year, finished the season averaging 32.0 yards on kickoff returns and 6.6 yards on punt returns.

“You just don’t know,” he said. “You wonder if you did enough. That’s out of my control. I think I showed a lot in the first couple of weeks I got here that if you give me a training camp and time with the team after coming here in Week 10 last season that I can turn this thing around. (New England) was a big game, but if it were a smaller game nobody would think about the muff. They’d look at all the good things you did.”