Colts Gab

A lot of people have been saying a lot of crap about the Indianapolis Colts. They say the Colts are going to lose another playoff game just like every other time they are one-or-two-seeded team. Well, listen here: it’s not going to happen this time.

Yeah, the Baltimore Ravens shocked the New England Patriots, but I don’t see them beating a team like Indy.

Also, a lot of guys have been saying the Colts care about individual stats more than they want to go 19-0. Okay, seriously, who cares about going 19-0, okay? Really? Yeah, I was rooting for them to go for it, but it won’t matter really. So what if you go 16-0? What if you lose in the playoffs, huh? The Colts will then most likely have too much confidence and think every team is easy.

Just ask the Patriots. They’ve expierenced it. They went 18-0, and loss in the Super Bowl. That could happen to any other team. The Dolphins are the first team to go undefeated in a season, and the only team ever (the Patriots count if it was regular season, but I’m talking the full season…including playoffs!).

The Colts will beat the Ravens. Listen, I don’t care if the Chargers won eleven straight, so what? The Colts benched their players in the last two games of the season. And seeing Curtis Painter play made Peyton Manning more valuable to his team, allowing him to win his fourth MVP award.

And Manning, of course, is going to play in that playoff game. He got Baltimore last time, how’s there a chance he won’t get them this time? He’ll get ‘em, don’t worry. I guarantee a win here. No loss. None, nada.

You don’t think the Colts know that the Ravens are going to run the ball on them? Of course they are going to know! That’s how they got those Patriots. But the Colts got those Patriots, and were trailing by about two touchdowns with five minutes to go until regulation!

The Ravens dominated the Pats, so what? The Patriots aren’t on their game. People are very hyped on this Baltimore team…and the Jets!! I mean, if the Colts didn’t bench their players, they would be hottest team entering the playoffs, guaranteed. I bet you.

This game is a win, folks. It’s a guarantee. Stop saying lies. You know you are. This is the truth.

The Indianapolis Colts look to strive for 14-0 on Thursday Night. And man, what a great week for NFL Network, eh? They got two undefeated teams playing on their channel, exclusively. They got the 13-0 Indianapolis on Thursday Night, like I said, and then the Saints against Dallas on Saturday.

But enough. It’s time to talk Colts. The Colts are going to probably rest a few players throughout the game, but I still think Indy can come out with a win. It really won’t be that hard, really.

I mean, I just can’t see a 7-6 teams getting at a 13-0 team, other than the Chargers in 2005. But the Chargers always get us (maybe not this year, though!). But this is Jacksonville people!

And then after that, Indy has New York, and Mark Sanchez always struggles. Then they end it with the Bills, which would most likely turn out as a win. The last three games look to be very easy. The Colts can get this easily.

Manning is only 95 yards away from 4,000 and one touchdown away from the big 30. Joseph Addai may be striving for 800-1,000 yards there, and Reggie Wayne is already having a fantastic year, and is well on his way to 100 catches.

Meanwhile, the only good thing for Jacksonville on offense is Maurice Jones-Drew, with his running. But David Garrard hasn’t even hit 3,000 yards yet, and only had ten touchdowns. And their leading receiver is Mike Sims-Walker. Let’s compare Sims-Walker and Wayne for a sec:

Wayne: 87 catches for 1,078 yards and 9 TD’s

Sims-Walker: 53 catches for 758 yards and 6 TD’s

Now tell me, who do you think wins this matchup? And Wayne wants 16-0 badly, as well as Manning, so you won’t see them benched. The Colts are going to move up to 14-0 people!

I am thinking of a score of 20-10, or something like that. It looks like a good game, and I am looking very forward to it watching it on TV on Thursday Night.

The Colts and Saints got a huge week.

And also, there’s NFL Network.

The future of Colts head coach Tony Dungy is expected to come within the next 24 hours according to ESPN.  The Colts coach said that he was going to take some time once the season ended to make a decision on if he would or would not come back to coach the team next year, and apparently that decision has been reached.

If Dungy does not come back, the teams associate head coach, Jim Calwell, will be the teams next head coach.  That was decided upon before last season began when many felt that Dungy would hang it up.  Dungy and the Colts season ended last weekend with a playoff loss to the Chargers.

Dungy has been a head coach since he took over the Tampa Bay Bucs back in 1996, and coached there for six seasons before being fired.  The Colts snatched him up right away, and he’s been with them since the 2002 season, and has led them to a 85-28 record, 7-6 in the postseason.  He has led the Colts to the playoffs each season as head coach, and the team won the Super Bowl, beating the Bears three seasons ago in Super Bowl XLI.

The Colts entered the playoffs as the hottest team in the league. They exit with just another letdown, this time beaten not by a former MVP, but worse yet – his backup. There is no doubt that the Colts defense played well enough to win for most of the night, but in the end, they were letdown due to some big runs by Chargers backup RB Darren Sproles, as well as some huge overtime penalties that made this 23-17 loss a tough one to swallow.

“It’s disappointing, you know?” middle linebacker Freddy Keiaho said. “A lot of guys stepped up and played hard. I’m really proud of the defense. We just had a couple costly penalties and they were able to capitalize.” Three of those costly penalties came in OT, one, a pass interference call, gave the Colts a big first down, and other was a facemask penalty that gave them 15 yards on their march to the winning score.

“The pass interference was a questionable call. Me and him, we had been battling all day,” cornerback Tim Jennings said. “Some of ‘em went my way and some of ‘em didn’t. You’ve got to tap your hats off to those guys. They played well. When it came down to making plays, they did and we didn’t.”

The facemask call put the ball at the 20, and you could see the defense and the team was cooked from there as Sproles put the finishing touches on the somewhat surprising win. For the Colts and their uncertain future about coach Tony Dungy, it’s another offseason of “what ifs.” For a defense that had played pretty well the second half of the year and during the winning streak, it’s an offseason of shoulda, coulda, woulda.

Sunday at Hinez Field it’s the first of three straight home games for the AFC North first place Pittsburgh Steelers, who start with an interesting test against the 4-4 Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are coming off a hard fought 18-15 win over the New England Patriots at home, but need to keep on winning if they want any hopes of making it back to the post season. They are trailing the Titans by four games, so their only hope of the post season is of the wild card route.

The Steelers are feeling good after a 23-6 win over the Redskins last Monday night on the road. They beat up Washington on defense, and on offense were able to score two TD’s and get three field goals from Jeff Reed. They did suffer some injuries of their own, as RB Willie Parker hurt his shoulder and won’t play, and QB Ben Roethlisberger re-injured his shoulder, but practiced Friday and could play in the game.

This game seems to be headed in the direction of if the Colts offense, ranked 22nd this season, can do much of anything against the Steelers number one ranked defense, allowing just 234.1 yards per game. The defense has answered every test they have seen in 2008, including last weeks game vs the NFL’s leading rusher, Clinton Portis and the Skins.

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The Colts seemed frustrated, yet still confident following Monday night’s 31-21 loss to the still undefeated Tennessee Titans. The Colts had a lead, stopped the Titans run in the first half, yet were unable to do enough to win. One has to wonder, is it just not this teams year?

“We played with energy and emotion, played very hard … but when the game got to the point you had to win it, we didn’t play well enough,” Tony Dungy said today. “We didn’t really stop them in the second half defensively, and we didn’t convert offensively. They outplayed us down the stretch where it was crunch time, and that was disappointing. We’ll have to go back and go to work just fundamentally playing well and making those things happen in crucial situations.”

The issues seem to be many for this Colts squad, from the sub-par play of QB Peyton Manning, to the never ending list of injuries that the team seems to be suffering from. If they are going to make a run at the playoffs at this point, they simply have to play more consistent.

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The Hall of Fame Game this past Sunday marked the first game NFL game played since the Giants and Pats back in February. As a Colts fan I really don’t think I could have asked for a better start to the preseason. Dungy has been quoted saying that it was the best start to a season the Colts have ever had. Which is saying something considering the high caliber team the Colts have consistently been in his seven years at the helm.

The first player to jump out at me throughout the game was Mike Hart. This guy is such a perfect fit for the Colts, and really lives up to the acclaim he received coming out of Michigan. He moved the ball really well up the middle and once he touched the ball you could see him set his lane and power right through it. With guys like Rhodes and Addai on the roster the Colts were in the market for an up the middle down hill runner and I really think they found it in Hart. Never mind the fact that he rushed for an extra 3 or 4 yards and a first down AFTER having his helmet knocked off in his first broken tackle of the run.

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Capping off a tremendous Hall of Fame Weekend, the Colts and Redskins entertained the fans at Fawcett Stadium on Sunday night to a little taste of preseason football, with the Skins outslugging the Colts 30-16.  The story of the back and forth contest was the play of the four Skins QB’s, who are all learning the new system being put in by new head coach Jim Zorn and the fact that the Colts simply seemed to just want to leave Canton with no major injuries.

Jason Campbell, the teams starter this year, was sharp off the bat and on the night, going a perfect 5-for-5 for 61 yards and a TD to Antwaan Randle El from 20 yards out that opened up the scoring just over a minute into the game.  Rookie QB Colt Brennan drew cheers when he came into the game in the second half, and didn’t dissapoint.  He went 9-for-10 for 123 yards with two TD’s, and looked poised for his first action as a pro.

2nd year running back Marcus Mason, from Youngstown State, paced an effective Redskins running game as he ran for 98 yards on 18 carries (5.4 per carry) with a long of 19.  He and Rock Cartwright were the only two ball carriers for the Skins, and they put up a total 156 yards on 31 carries.  As for the Colts, preseason for them is just that – a time to simply get ready for the regular season and not get anyone hurt.  They rested just about all major starters, including players like Peyton Manning, Bob Sanders, Dwight Freeney and Marvin Harrison.  One starter who did give the team a scare was RB Joseph Addai, who left after the second play with a head injury, but seemed all right by games end.

The Colts starters played just one series, and usual backup Jim Sorgi played one series and led the team on a field goal drive, going 7-for-10 for 66 yards.  Former Jags QB Quinn Gray, who was a recent cut by the Texans, saw the most extensive action for the Colts, and went 10-for-19 for 160 yards with a TD to Onrea Jones from 30 yards out that gave the Colts a 10-9 lead with 5:57 left in the first half.

Indy led 13-9 at the half after an Adam Vinatieri field goal from 24 yards out to end the first half.  Rookie kicker Adam Crossett kicked a 28-yard field goal to make it 16-9 Colts with 10:44 left in the 3rd quarter.  That’s when Brennan made his debut, and he quickly made an impact.  He tied the score witha nifty 20-yard TD to wide out Maurice Mann that made it 16 all.  Then with 10:22 left in the 4th he threw a five-yard TD to Mason on the run that put Washington up for good.

Colts QB Jared Lorenzen, formerly of the Giants, took the helm for Indy in the 4th quarter, and threw a pick with 1:50 left that Skins corner Matterral Richardson took back 30 yards to close out the scoring at 30-16.  Indy will head to Carolina to take on the Panthers on Saturday night.