Rock Bottom

I was happy. I was excited. One possession for each team into last night's game and the Colts had a 7-3 lead with the ball. The offense drove right down the field with throws to running backs and banged home a TD courtesy of a beautiful pass to Jacob Tamme. Rivers and the Chargers bogged down in the red zone and got nothing deep, a win for the Colts. The game was in hand. God, was I wrong. Three hours later I was not mad, just depressed. The Colts were dying in front of me. The "window" is not closed, because the NFL is not the NBA. Teams rise and fall year to year, and just because the Colts might go 10-6 in 2010 does not mean they can't go 13-3 in 2011. However, what the next season holds does not help me. The Colts in 2010 have been worse than a tease. They have turned into a virus that is slowly killing me.

The Colts are one of my teams, and other than the Devils, they have been the most successful. This is probably why what I will write will seem hilariously bitter considering the team is still the favorite to win the AFC South and make the playoffs, again. The Colts had their '12 or more wins each year' streak snapped, at the ludicrous number of 7 (the next highest is four). Peyton Manning is putting up his worst statistical season since 2002, with a QB rating of 91. All that said, the Colts really have been a massive disappointment. Sure, injuries have hurt. Dallas Clark is gone. Joseph Addai has missed longer than anyone hoped. Austin Collie has a lingering concussion. Gary Brackett has missed games. Anthony Gonzalez played six quarters. Bob Sanders has played a three quarters. Still, I expected this team to stay good and stay competitive, and until yesterday, they were.

The Colts kept drawing me in with close explainable, excusable losses. They lost a game where their opponent hit a 59 yarder at the gun to win by three, after the Colts had two fluke turnovers inside the opponents 10 yard line. The Colts lost a game where Michael Vick went all Michael Vick, and they still had a chance to win. The Colts lost a game where they lost the turnover battle by three and still had the ball twenty-five yards away before a tough interception. Those games were close, were defendable. This was not. After the second pick-6 (the one that absolutely should have been called back for an obvious pass interference) the team quit. Reggie Wayne started dropping passes that he usually could catch with his feet. The o-line started sucking ass even more. The run defense wore down, and the pass rush disappeared. For the first time in years, the team quit and were embarrassed, at home. That was the worst home loss in the Manning era, and it felt worse.

Losing a game like the one to New England was tough to deal with, but this loss was different. This is rock bottom (at least what could be considered rock bottom for a team still tied for first place with all winnable games ahead). This is what it is like to be a Lions fan, or a Jaguars fan, or a Browns fan. This was the most depressing loss. I did not need to throw anything, like I did at the end of the Pats game. I did not need to stew on all the fluke plays for hours like I did at the end of the Jaguars game. No, all I needed to do was go into a shell and forget about it.

That game ruined my day, and have really ruined the season. I absolutely do not think the Colts are a team that currently constituted would sniff the conference title game. Not without Addai, or Collie, or Brackett, or Sanders, or Session. However, all those guys may come back, which herein lies the problem. I don't want to be dragged back in, especially when it will probably end with a harrowing loss in Baltimore or Pittsburgh or, God forbid, Foxboro. I want to leave this team, I want to get myself cured of the disease of the 2010 Colts, a team that simply, with the injuries, are not good enough. They might become good enough, they might get those guys back, they might miraculously get Bob Sanders to stay healthy. They might win the Super Bowl, but I don't care anymore. I, just like the Colts, have hit rock bottom.

I will say that the Colts win never make it easy. The years where everything goes right (2005, 2009) always goes the same: some tough event in the end of the year that shakes things up (Tony Dungy's son's suicide in 2005 and the Week-16 pulling of starters at 14-0 in 2009), followed by a loss in the playoffs. The one year that really nothing was going right was 2006. The run defense was absolutely ridiculously bad, giving up 176 yards a game (yes, that is right, 176 yards). Bob Sanders was oft injured. The team had no real third wide receiver and Dwight Freeney was in a two-year malaise. That team ended up beating the first, second and third scoring defenses in the NFL on the way to the Super Bowl. Hey, you never know. That year had the other abhorrently embarrassing performance, a sullen 17-44 loss in Jacksonville, and the team was at rock bottom. No one really thought they were any good heading into the playoffs. It will be the same thing if the Colts enter the playoffs at 10-6 as the AFC 4th seed. The Colts today are at rock bottom. Very often, the eventual Super Bowl Champion hits a rock bottom point during the season, one where everyone around the medias say "This team has No Shot of winning it all". This is that moment, and the Colts might dig themselves out of this. I just might be too sick of them to truly care.

Heartbreak

It happened. It happens. It will happen again. I promised myself not to let a Colts loss hurt as much as it used to after they won the Super Bowl just three years earlier. Then, seeing that that was a load of bull, I promised to avoid the NFL (the network, the league, ESPN NFL's stuff) until the draft. I am done talking NFL (except for the Decadium NFL stuff, which will allow me to think back to happier times) until the Summer, when I will do an early power rankings. However, I must write about the game. I must. I hope it will be a cathartic experience.

First, at least it was New Orleans, a team deserving of the label of a Super Bowl Champion, and a city deserving of much, much more. At least the Colts were outplayed in the loss (unlike that bastardization of a loss last year in San Diego in round one). The Saints deserved to win the game, at least more than the Colts. However, when one team outrushes, outpasses the other, where is the loss coming from. The Saints played to win, as shown by that onside kick. While Garrett Hartley was nailing long field goal after long field goal, Matt Stover missed a crucial Field Goal, one that never should have been attempted. The Saints went for it on 4th and Goal. The Colts then conservatively ran the ball when they had all three timeouts and two minutes left in the first half. It was a game that was indeed closer than that 14 point score, yet seemed so far away.

Now, onto the "Clysdale" in the room: the Colts. No one should hammer Manning for this loss. He was probably as good as most Super Bowl winning QBs, and in many ways outplayed his performance in Super Bowl XLI. It was not Manning's fault that Pierre Garcon dropped that 3rd down pass that hit him right in the hands, which would have been a 30 yard gain, inevitably leading to more points to bolster a 10-3 lead in the second quarter. It was not entirely Manning's fault that the interception returned for a TD happened. And before Manning "haters" point to that as another sign of his inability to come up big in a big game, the guy who has come up "bigger" than anybody else in Super Bowl's recently, Kurt Warner, has twiced tossed pick-sixes in Super Bowls, including that game-killer last year.

What Manning has done the last two seasons has been incredible. He may have not had the stats he had from 2003-2006, but he was different. He carried a hurt, wounded team on his back, and willed them to a 28-8 record. Just like the '08 Colts were really a 8-8 or 9-7 team masquerading at 12-4 because of Manning's poise and will, the '09 Colts were really a 10-6 or 11-5 team. They really had no brilliant part of their game, except for Manning. He lost his about-to-explode #2 wideout on the first drive of the season (Anthony Gonzalez, please come back, and come back soon). His running game is now non-existent (yet it did perform well the last two games), and his o-line featured one "starter" pushed in because the real "starter" was terrible (Johnson replacing Ugoh) and 4 other aging guys who cannot run block and whose pass-blocking skills are deteriorating. The Colts defense lost their starting weakside linebacker to IR, and lost one starting corner and Bob Sanders to it as well. They were probably the second most-injured Colts team (after last year's) in this run, and Manning, nearly by himself and the way his confidence effected the rest of the team, led, if not more aptly carried, the Colts to 14 straight wins. They had no business winning some of those games, if not for Manning. Finally, they ran into a team who was amazingly healthy, and just plain as good if not better at every position (Brees is not the player Manning is, but he is easily the second best QB in the NFL).

It will be the longest offseason since 2005. However, I will be able to calm myself during the upcoming seven months before NFL kicks-off again knowing two things:

1.) Gonzo, Marlin, Bob and Tyjuan are all coming back. Honestly, the first three names are all that matter. Gonzo has the best hands on the team (better than Wayne) and would have caught that Garcon drop with his knuckles. Marlin pushes Tim "the 15 yard cushion" onto some other team, and Bob is Bob. The Colts have every ability to be better than they were this year. They are in as good a position as every other NFL team. They will be back.

2.) Instead of asking "Will he ever get it done?" I can ask "Will he get it done again?" a much happier question. This is nowhere near as those lifeless February's from 2004 to 2006, before Manning won a title, where Tom Brady was game managing teams to Super Bowls.

So, why am I still depressed? Something felt wrong about that game. Something in me made me feel like that was the best shot they would get at another ring. My brain tells me they will be back, but my heart is telling my that we are living in a Roethlisberger, Rodgers and Rivers world, and the Brees Brady Manning days are done. I hope to God I am wrong, but all I know is that I will not enjoy my football hiatus.

The Calm Before the Storm

The Super Bowl awaits. The Big Game, the Big One, the Monster in Miami, or whatever else the media has to call it becuase the tyrants of the NFL trademarked the term "The Super Bowl"; that will all go down on Sunday. My team is in it (well, one of my teams, but at this point I want to just disown the Raiders, like they are some drug-addled black sheep prostitute), and my team is the favorite. My team has the single greatest player in the NFL today (undebatable), and possibly the best player in teh history of the NFL (debatable). My team has the better matchups, and my team is the one that has not lost a game all year when they tried to win. However, I am nervous, if not downright depressed. Why? You ask. Why, when everything is set on a silver platter, everything is set for the Colts to stake their claim as a dynasty, for Manning to be able to shove his two rings into the two lobes of people's brains that still say Brady is better, for Jim Caldwell and Bill Polian to be redeemed like nothing else? Why am I upset? Here is why:

It all started with one innocuous play. It started with a rush, when Dwight Freeney came un, pushed (bulled his way, really) through a block and had Mark Sanchez owned. Sanchez threw an incompletion, before falling to the ground, and put his leg right where Freeney was coming down. Now, it was all a fluke, all one man's leg in the wrong place, and one man's ankle in the wrong area. Now, it was a play that could have happened to anyone at anytime, and yet, it was wrong, it was unfair. Freeney is the second most important Colt. Now, there might be a sizable gap between him and Brady, but he is still that good and that important. He is more important than Sanders (remember him), Wayne, Clark or even Jim Caldwell (kidding. Jim, I love you). Freeney is that important. The best way to play the Saints is to play cover-2. The Colts can play cover-2 better than any team in the NFL. Freeney is the key. If he and Mathis get consistent pressure, just ship to Lombardi to the Luke, and cancel the game. It is over. The one strategic advantage the Colts had over the Saints defensively was Freeney. That is gone.

However, the real reason I am sad is this. The season is 60 minutes away from becoming a decrepid thing of the past. Nothing matters after this upcoming game. Win or lose, the 2010 season is all I will be thinking about after it. Win or lose, I still expect the 2010 Colts to be great, and I will be counting down the days to September 9th, 2010. I wait all season for this day, especially since my prediction of the Colts making the Super Bowl has come true. This is the judgement day. The day where all the hours, all the days I have spent on stampedeblue.com or 18to88.com imbibing Colts knowledge, datum and talk, is going to be for nothing come Sunday at 10:30-ish. It will be done. Slam the lid on the casket of the 2009 Season. It was a glorious one, where we saw two teams run at perfection. We saw an offense play as well as any offense ever, and a QB play as well as any QB ever, and I got to see the destruction of the post-dynasty Pats. That was all fun, that made the season worth it. But really, is anything worth it? is anything worth it when it all comes crashing down quickly on Sunday night.

There is nothing better in sports than the NFL Season (with the exception of the World-Cup). It is a perfect amalgam of scheduling, swagger and style. It lasts the perfect length (again, Roger, take the hint), has the perfect intensity for each and every week. The NFL Season is most-like a good TV show. Once a week it comes, with anticipation preceding it and reaction succeeding it. Each week builds up into one big culminating story, one hour long (or in this case 20-hour long when you count pre-game shows, the show and the post-game triad of CBS, ESPN and NFL Network). When the season finale ends, there is no celebrating of the season past (that is for when the DVD comes out: Road to Super Bowl XLIV, I am there), there is no season-end swoon period. There is sadness that the weekly joy has left my life for 8 months, that I have to wait 8 months to see if Stella says yes, to see why Susan was kissing some random man, to see if Peyton can do it again.

The Beatification

Jay Feely split the uprights, 17-6 Jets. Down 11, to the NFL's best defense, and I was not the least bit nervous, and the sole reason is the man pulling the trigger for the league's version of an AK-47. Manning. That was all I needed to know and to see to make me feel like this normally large lead was just the Colts spotting a team points. I've seen Manning come back from 35-14, 27-10, 31-14, 17-0, 15-0 and 31-10. I've seen him come back from 21-3 in that same round of the playoffs, against a team with a better offense and a defense led by a more master-mindery mastermind. I've seen him lead the largest comeback in Championship Game history. This was nothing. I was not surprised that within 10 game minutes, the Colts were up, sweeping the leg of any Karate-Kid like upset that the Jets were planning. It was over. Manning had come, the game was done.

Pierre Garcon was great and so was Austin Collie, but in the end it is all about Manning. The Jets did a great job of taking out Manning's top-2 targets, contracts and injuries "took out" two other top Manning targets by week 2 (Marvin and Anthony Gonzalez (remember him, you will next year)). Manning just passed to a second-year player with three catches coming into this year, and a 24-year old rookie. I now laugh at the heated debate that media people were able to have about two years ago. Brady vs Manning defined a decade, but that decade ended a bit too soon. That debate has been put to rest. I don't think anyone rationally can say that Brady is the better player. Essentially, Manning had his Welker (Gonzo) out for the year, and lost his Gaffney (Harrison 2008 version), and was left throwing to his Moss (Wayne) and Sam Aiken and Julian Edelmen for a whole year. All Manning did was win a fourth MVP and win every game he played in. He came back from down 17 twice, including doing it in one quarter. He won a game where his offense had the ball for 15 minutes. He led four straught fourth quarter comebacks and seven overall. He hasn't been beaten. He is now beatified, a Saint of football. The last step is almost here.

Rex Ryan was football's hottest defensive mind. He had schemes and blitzes that could put nightmares in any QB's head. He was cocky and cool, confidence spewing from that gregarious gut. He was helpless. Rex Ryan could have tried whatever he wanted, Manning was not going to be stopped. Manning's throw to Austin Collie was as beautiful a throw of any I have ever seen. I have really watched the NFL for 10 years now, and each Sunday I watch Manning play is one more day that I am spoiled. Manning will not play forever, and when he eventually retires, I will have to watch the Jim Harbuagh's and Jeff George's of the world QB the Colts. However, when those dark days come, I can always pop up this game (I will go to any length to get it on DVD), and watch QB as it is meant to be played.

What Has Happened??

Here I am, eagerly awaiting the AFC Championship Game, where the Colts can finish off step 2 out of 3, finish off the AFC in nice tidy fashion and enter into the Super Bowl where they can be hailed as a dynasty in the making. Winning the Title makes the Patriots irrelevant, as with a Super Bowl Title the Steelers and Colts will have BOTH won two titles since the Pats last hoisted the glittering Lombardi trophy, smearing it with the fingerprints of cheaters. I expected this notion to be met with the excitement of the nation. A non-Patriots juggernaut. The NFL embraces its juggernauts, unless they cheat or run up the score or are cocky assholes or spew arrogance and convicts like the Longest Yard. The Colts do none of these things. They are tight-lipped never the ones providing the bulletin board material (post-Vanderjagt), they are the ones absorbing it. They are the perfect team, one built with a mix of top-flight players (Wayne, Clark, Freeney, Saturday, Brackett, Mathis) and NFL cast-offs and undrafteds (Brackett, Saturday, Garcon, Johnson (who? exactly)). Yet, three days away from the AFC Championship Game, the first for the Colts that does not pit them against the Redcoat Patriots, I am hearing none of these setiments. America, in fact, is not rooting for the Colts, for the great story of a possible new dynasty, but for the Jets, a loudmouth, smashmouth team from the most lovable and hateable cities in America. Is this really happening? Are the Jets the team that America wants? Really, the Jets?

To me, there hasn't been a more loved underdog since the Giants in Super Bowl XLII against the Galactic Empire that was the Patriots. That was completely understandable (moreso since I was a member of those Patriots-hating folk that cheered till my larynx dislodged from its larynx-holder that night). The Patriots were evil. They mercilessly ran up the score. They had a classless dick of a coach, and a Golden-Boy QB (we hate the Golden Boy QBs. If Favre actually shaved well, America would have exiled him to Elba with the retirement roullette that he is playing). They were a hateable team. The Giants were a team that you could rally behind. They were counted out, they were a team whose coach and QB were so far from Belichick and Brady it seemed that they were the epitome of an opening act to the headline. That made sense, this doesn't.

What have the Colts done to take the place that the Patriots held? They never ran up scores, in fact, they are notorious for doing the opposite, sitting on leads and making games closer than they really are (like when leading Seattle 34-3, they called off the dogs and won 34-17). Their coach is the exact opposite of Belichick. He is no evil mastermind, he is no hoodied football satire of Emperor Palpatine. Coach Jim Caldwell inherited the hardest job in the NFL since George Seifert took over for Bill Walsh and his 1988 Super Bowl Champions. Under intense pressure, and with a team that many media "experts" were sure were going to take a step back, he, like Seifert, piloted a juggernaut to a 14-2 record. Seifert capped it off with a Super Bowl win, mercilessly pounding Denver senseless with a 55-10 win in Super Bowl XXIV. If Caldwell tried that type of win over the Jets (like the Jets, the Broncos had the best defense in 1989) he would be labelled as a tyrant. Caldwell piloted the team beautifully, yet he might as well be a hologram, as little mention of his brilliant performance is even mentioned. The only reason I can see for the Colts now being thought of as some evil team that deserves to be ridiculed and rooted against passionately is a reason that is not exactly rational. Media members hated what they did against these same Jets in Week 16 giving up on a perfect season. Media members went batshit, labelling this as the stupidest move since NBC gave Leno the 10:00 PM slot. The Colts might have well just mooned Gandhi's grave for all the criticism the media pounded on that team. Let alone it worked, as the Colts decisevely won their opening playoff game and are healthier than ever before this season. Yet, it was over for the Colts, they were the new Patriots. The team that denied to chase perfection (something that has NEVER ended successfully) were now somehow a team that didn't deserve to win.

Now for the Jets. Why are they suddenly David, why are they 1980 USA Hockey. They have created some perceived slight from that Week 16 game, let alone the fact that if not for the Colts giving up on perfection they would not have made the playoffs. They are a team that was a slightly-above average team all season. They were a team that crushed the dregs of the league (Raiders, Chiefs, Bucs, Delhomme), and lost to any team competent (Falcons, Jaguars, Miami (twice)). They were a team with a loud defense, and a louder mouth. The real mystery is Rex Ryan. First, he was loved for calling out Belichick and then beating him. He was brash, but his team was 3-0, leader's of some new era. When that all went to hell, and they blew back-to-back games to the Dolphins and Jaguars, and fell to 4-6, there was no more cheering. He was now Jabba the Hut. Yet, after two lay-down wins, and two playoff wins, he is not only understandably hailed in New York as the new-Lombardi, but also looked at nationally as some lovable fat tellytubby with a slightly dirtier mouth. He said that the Jets were the favorite in the whole competition, and then had their parade down the canyon of heroes scheduled. These are brash moves usually met with ridicule and scorn, especially as the team prepares to play a unit that has yet to lose a game that it tried to win. However, Ryan's morbid-obese body and even more boisterous nature allowed such callous cock-ery to be laughed off. How does this happen?

Then there is the rest of the team. Kerry Rhodes hilariously compares himself to Ed Reed when saying how he can bait Manning into interceptions (I don't know who should be more ticked off: Manning or Reed). Sanchez has a statistical year that is worse in every way than JaMarcus Russell's 2008 campaign, and he is put on the Namath podium. Bart Scott talks and talks and talks and has yet to make any discernable impact. What is so lovable about this team? Fine, New York loves them, as they should. New York also loves the Yankees, Mets and Knicks, teams that are hated across the country, the Yankees at a level of hatred usually reserved for pedophiles and dog-killers. Yet, the Jets transcend these bounds. Does Rex Ryan's girth and Sanchez's looks really break the shackles holding brash teams from New York in. Should the Yankees hire Don Zimmer, so they get the Jets treatment. And don't say its becuase the Jets are underdogs. That's not it. In the Lakers-Magic NBA Finals, no one wanted the Magic to win because they were underdogs, no it's because they didn't want to see the childish needs of a alleged-rapist be fullfilled (Kobe, for those of you who have forgotten the Kobe rape story in a cloud of Kobe-huggery and smiles). What is it about this Jets team that has allowed Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Cris Carter to all overwhelmingly pick them? What is it?

I will never understand the Jets firestorm in the Winter of 2010. The stupidest angle is this whole "The Colts regret the monster they have created by letting the Jets into the playoffs" storyline. There is not one single Colt who truthfully would rather have beaten the Jets and gotten the Chargers in this game. Sure, I want the Chargers for revenge purposes, but I sleep easier knowing that there is a worse team coming into the Luke in three days. That storyline is complete garbage. The Colts did not create a monster, instead they reached out an olive branch, and cleared the Red Sea that was the Broncos, Steelers and Texans, allowing the .500 Jets into the playoffs (Marvin Lewis and the Bengals played the part of Moses beautifully as well). The Jets, nicely, repaid them by taking out the Chargers. Now, as these two teams are about to come to ahead, meeting in that rectangle of a field in front of the Colt faithful, millions of people around the nation will be cheering for a cocky, brash, loudmouth team, and disparaging a class, quiet, workmanlike team. How does this make sense? All I know is that I never expected the Colts to be the hated team, and I never expected a New York team to be the one that got the media's love.

Colts Week 4 Review

Colts 34 Seahawks 17

First off, it was Colts 34-3 when the Colts started to mail in the remaining ten minutes or so. If this game, and really this whole first quarter of the season, taught us anything about the Colts it is that the are looking like a juggernaut. They have the best offense in the NFL, and their defense, despite missing two of its stars, is getting better and better every week. Since this is the first one, I will make this kinda like a quarter-season review.

Offense

What Was Good:

• Peyton Manning. There is really no point of me stating this. That man is simply on a level that no one can match in the NFL. This is honestly, the best I have ever seen a QB play four games. The running game is not giving him tons of help (more on that in a minute), and he is still shredding teams. Honestly, I nearly tear-up watching that man play quarterback. He is throwing to Wayne and Clark sure, but also, after the loss of the Number 2 receiver, to a rookie fourth-rounder and a seventh-round pick out of Division Three. The man is sick, just sick. The pass blocking has been really, really good. They are giving him a pocket, and pushing the quick ends by, letting Manning step up, drive through and deliver strikes. The route combinations are not that difficult, but when Manning gets time, he is unstoppable.
• Pass Blocking: I covered it a little bit before, but it is a strength. The big issue of the preseason was when Caldwell benched top draft pick Tony Ugoh for Charlie Johnson. Johnson has been a really pleasant surprise. He has handled good ends, ridden them by, kept Manning clean and allowed this offense to gel. Health is a big factor. Having Saturday, Lilja and Diem healthy from day one, as they were not last year, has allowed the pass blocking of 2004-2007 to return. Also, Joe Addai may not be many things, but that man can pass block unlike any other back. He picks out the right man (with the exception of the Taylor sack in the Miami Game), and blocks him effectively.
• Young Wideouts: Every game, Garcon and Collie are getting better and better. Garcon, becuase of his penchant of making big plays, owning Domonique Rodgers-Cromartie and having a funny French name, gets more publicity, but Collie has been as impressive. People say he is in the Stokley mode, but Stokley made big plays. He reminds me of a young Dallas Clark, where every catch was in that 5-8 yard mode, he makes one man miss and picks up first downs. In this game, he made the huge TD, with a bueatiful Gonzalez-like route, but every catch was a first-down.

What Was Bad

• Run-Blocking: Notice I am leaving the running backs out of it. Brown and Addai has shown the ability to gain consistent yards when the line give them holds. This is about the pass blocking. Now, it has been better the last three weeks, but it is still a problem, and this problem goes to the right-side, even when they have the extra TE (Gijon, Tamme). Mike Pollak has to go. In the Arizona game, when they took Pollak out and put DeVan in they started to explode. This game they played rotating guard, and it showed again. What is noticable is that when Pollak was in, they kept the extra blocker TE on that side, and it still did not work. Running games are more changeable at guard, since the importance of the Tackle on the pass game outweighs the detriments in the run game, so I will leave the RT out of this. However, that right side of the line is lacking, and it is just that they cannot push ends and tackles off the line. They are athletic, but do not have the power that the left side does. It needs to improve, or this high I am on will not last.

Defense

What Was Good

• Pass Rush: Holy Damn, is it good. This has alot to do with the improvement of the tackles. I mean, Freeney and Mathis have been playing at this level for years, but it is at an all-time high (10 sacks in 4 games) becuase they cannot all just double team Freeney and Mathis like usual. The DT's need to be blocked effectively, so teams cannot just leave them and double the ends. Coyer has not been blitz-happy like I was afraid he would do in Denver, but each week his blitz calls (which still are much more frequent than in last year) become more and more effective. I can only count one time where Seattle got a huge gain (10 or more yards) when the Colts blitzed, and it came after we were up 28-3. Also, Mathis as perfected the strip sack, with two last week.
• Coverage: I'll note that this does not include Tim Jennings. This is more about Jerraud Powers and the unknown Lacey, and the continued ascent of Bullitt. Lacey is getting more play as Hayden heals and Jennings time is shortened (thank God). Lacey and Powers are perfect corners for this system. They are physical deep, and do not allow easy completions down the field (which also has to do with Bethea playing great FS), and tackle really well, which is a must in a Cover-2. Melvin Bullitt is the star here. This is why this team is not missing Bob Sanders yet. He is Bob Sanders against the run (maybe a little less), and Bethea against the Pass. He plays his medium zones really well, and has even begun to recognize deep zones and playing them better.

What Was Bad

• The Usual. 1 and 10, 2 and 7, 3 and 2, 1 and 10 repeat. That is the sequence we are all to accustumed to. It did not happen as much the past two weeks, as we shut down the run, but that sequence can happen a different way, through the pass. Short Passes kill this team, especially if the line can contain Freeney and Mathis for a little bit. The Run Defense has really improved, but not in the way that will help the sequece above. As in, they have become alot better against big runs, and are better in getting North/South penetration from the DTs. However, if teams run slants with Wham Blocking, and go a bit East/West there are openings. Nothing really can help this.

Everything Else

• Jim Caldwell is great. I have often compared him to George Seifert, who took over from Bill Walsh and went 98-30 in eight years with San Fran. Caldwell has added his stamp, like benching Tony Ugoh, making practice more physical, etc. However, he has kept the Dungy way of accountability and the "next-man-up" mentality.
• The Secial Teams coverage units have been exceptional. Pat McAfee was a great draft pick, as he is booming punts, and more importantly kicking tons and tons of touchbacks, which helps becuase the kick coverage units are not that great. This is an improvement from last year and I will take it. We still can't ever return a kick past the 25, but hell, I'll take half an improvement.
• Injuries. Why do the Colts and Patriots, who are probably the best run organizations of this decade (along with the Steelers), always have tons and tons of injured players? However, the Colts "next man up" mentality is been running to perfection. Hayden out, and rookies Powers and Lacey fill in admirably. Brackett out, Kieaho steps in admirably. This is getting ridculous. Sanders is out (what a surprise!!), and Bullitt is playing as well. Just imagine what will happen when this team gets Hayden and Brackett back. I would list Sanders, but at this point, who the hell cares? Whatever we get from Demond Sanders is gravy.

Overview

Great, great win last week. Essentially, with the starters in and caring, this team has won its past two games 65-13. They are clicking on nearly all cylinders, but there is room for improvement. Their running game, again which is more on the line than the backs, can get better. Their defense can get healthy. They can start putting drives away, as there have been some skittish drives ending in Field Goals. Either way, this is what great teams do, when they play mediocre teams, they go out and crush them. This game was much, much less closer than that score indicates.