4.) 2008 Week 10 - Colts 24 @ Steelers 20
This is in a way an indefensible pick. It didn't have a huge outcome on the season. Flip the result, and the Steelers go 13-3 and still get the #2 seed, the Colts go 11-5 and still get the #5 seed. But coming right in the middle of my personal favorite (ad most invested) NFL regular season, it holds a special place in my heart - and my mind; my memories of Peyton Manning. I've written often about the great 2008 season. A strange season, it followed a season so driven by its great teams. 2007 was defined by the Patriots chase of perfection, but also right below a trio of 13-3 teams, the Colts, Cowboys and Packers. In 2008, there were no great teams. But a lack of truly great teams left us with a slew of good ones. Coming into this Week 10 matchup, the 4-4 Colts were not one of them.
They had just beaten the Tom Brady-less Patriots 18-15 the week prior. Peyton Manning ruptured his bursa sac in training camp, didn't play at all in the preseason, and then looked a slightly more mobile, youthful version of the player who spraying balls all over the field this year. The Steelers entered the game at 6-2, with the NFL's best defense. The Colts had a 5-year streak of 12+ wins, and math told us that a loss in Pittsburgh means the streak is over. Given that the streak went to 7 in 2009, it obviously wasn't over.
It was a very weird time for Colts fans in the lead-up to this game, and even weirder for me. The season started, as morbid as this sounds, with such great promise with Tom Brady tearing his ACL less than 10 minutes into the first NFL Sunday. But the Colts were not taking advantage, they were struggling, losing winnable games and even getting pounded once. But for me, this was a transformative year as a fan. Like most humans, the exploits of the '07 Patriots ramped up my interest in the NFL, but the exploits of the other 31 teams, with the Big, Bad, Pats essentially sidelined, my interest exploded. I had finished my SATs / APs and all other grades that mattered leading into Senior year, and my Senioritis, coupled with more free time and freedom than usual, allowed me to really sink my teeth into the 2008 NFL season, and thusly do so with defense also.
I've written about how I really am a fan of defense at heart, and in a season somewhat defined by the defenses dominating (the best teams were mainly all defense-first), teh Steelers were the best unit. They had the best rush defense and the, somewhat surprisingly, best pass defense. This was not going to be an easy game going into it - but I had faith in a Peyton Manning still recuperating. I had faith in their resilience.
That is not a word one normally ascribed to the Colts. Despite their comebacks, or their run to a Super Bowl beating the NFL's three best defenses in 2006 back-to-back-to-back, the Colts were not seen as the type of team that could walk into the home of the league's best defense and will their way to a win, but that is exactly what Manning and Co. pulled off in this game. For much of the game, the Colts offense looked much like it did for the first 8 games of the season, slightly off and disconnected. Manning threw into the ground, missed Marvin Harrison by a half step on a half dozen deep posts, and lucked their way into their first score, a throw that probably should have been intercepted but fell to Reggie Wayne for a long TD. But the defense kept them in it.
They picked off Roethlisberger three times, including a huge one right before the half to lead to a Colts TD to make it 17-14. They had a huge goal-line stand in the 4th quarter, highlighted by a stone cold stop by Eric Foster. Guys like Kiewan Ratliff had big plays. It was the Colts defense at its most resourceful as well. But as always, it came down to Peyton. Despite his issues that year, or even in that game, he made a few great throws. The final score was a perfectly arched lob-swing pass to recently re-signed Dominic Rhodes, right after the outstretched arms of Troy Polamalu, to take the 24-20 lead.
It wasn't the prettiest game, and it wasn't from a noted rival of Manning (the Colts / Broncos and Steelers played oddly few times in the Manning era), but it was a game that meant so much and showed so much of what the Colts really were during the Manning era. It wasn't about the fireworks and the comebacks. Somewehre around 2006, they did become tougher, more ale to compete in these types of games. Manning could gut it out, tough it out, ugly it out, on the road, against the league's best defense, and come out on top. In my favorite season, it stood out as my favorite Colts game. Most of the games on my Top-10 will be remembered forever as integral parts of Manning's legacy. This won't, but for me it always will be representative of all that made the Peyton Manning era more fulfilling than anyone will ever remember.
