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Ten Reasons Why the Colts Will Win. One Reason Why They’ll Lose
By Kyle | February 5, 2010
10. 30 points against the best defense in the NFL, the Jets. The Saints are not the best defense in the NFL, to put it mildly.
9. Pat McAfee. Colts kickoff man figures to get a lot of work and consistently buries the ball deep in the endzone for a touchback or a short return. The difference between McAfee’s kickoffs and those of Adam Vinatieri and Mike Vanderjagt, the guys who handled this duty in past years, is massive for special teams play.
8. Daniel Muir. Genial no. 90, in his first starting year at defensive tackle, has done wonders with Colts’ ability to stuff runs up the middle, previously their single biggest weakness (especially in 2007, when they won the Super Bowl anyway). Muir delivered an astounding 8 tackles in the Ravens playoff game. That’s essentially eight plays ruined.
7. Antoine Bethea. The Saints will throw the ball deep, but will they go down the seams or down the sidelines? My guess is they’ll complete a bunch of long passes. But with Bethea playing deep, he has time to get over to the ball to help cover a seemingly open receiver while the ball is in the air and make a play or two that could make a big difference.
6. Fumbling. The NFC Championship game saw the Saints essentially sitting on the sidelines while the Vikings decided whether to win or lose the game. The Colts hardly ever fumble and average about one interception a game. It’s possible but not probable the Colts will lose team discipline.
5. Kyle DeVan. Colts running game improved markedly when they replaced a second round, highly heralded draft pick, Mike Pollak, with undrafted former arena footballer DeVan at right guard. Colts can run the ball up the middle fairly well now, something they weren’t able to do at all last year or the first half of this year.
4. Gary Brackett. No. 58, the middle linebacker from Rutgers, was basically a stopgap solution when he first began starting but is now a tested, canny veteran with a great sense of where the ball is going to be.
3. Clint Session. A big-play, run-stopping linebacker who scored one of the Colts’ two defensive touchdowns this year with a key pick against Houston that turned the game into a laugher.
2. Jim Caldwell. I bow to no man in my respect for Tony Dungy, but Colts’ former coach almost never blitzed, with the result that quarterbacks could get too comfortable in the pocket. Caldwell’s occasional blitzes are always a surprise and often lead to sacks and/or fumbles.
1. The Revolutionary. No. 18 is the George Washington and Thomas Jefferson of football, the intellectual field general who has rewritten our understanding of how the game is played. He is not merely the best quarterback in the league; he is the best quarterback ever to play the game.
And one reason why the Colts will lose:
1. Because just about any NFL team can beat just about any other NFL team once in a while. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Saints this year. The Washington Redskins would have beaten the Saints if they could have made a chip-shot field goal at what should have been the end of the game. The Colts nearly lost to the winless Lions two years ago. Stuff happens.
Topics: Sports |
February 5th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
http://www.sportspickle.com/article:608/peyton-manning-lets-jim-caldwell-address-the-colts
February 5th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
that article is bizarre.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Ok, I apologize, it’s a former writer for The Onion who writes sports satire columns now.
It’s just amusing to me that the man has been the head coach of a 16-2 (should be 18-0) team and I’ve never heard him speak in my life.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:24 am
10 - Jets didn’t have the best defense, they were the most consistent, the saints defense can play as good as the jets ever did if they’re having a good day/good gameplan, plus for most of the season they were missing their best nose tackle and linebacker.
9 - kickoffs? really?
8 - he’s not as good anymore
7 - bethea get’s beat regularly and doesn’t have good db instincts (doesn’t play the ball) but he never makes big mistakes, tackles well, and is rarely in a bad spot.
6 - …all these reason’s mean nothing whichever team has the better day and gets a few more breaks will win the game, both teams are too good to be confident picking a winner.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:59 am
The press is enamored with the Saints because Manning is a boring story and there’s 2 weeks to fill. But there really isn’t any way the Colts lose unless Manning gets hurt. The Jets played a perfect game for 28 minutes, and yet from the 2-minute drive prior to half out Manning figured them out. He has 2 weeks to prepare, and the Saints defense is not close to the Jets. Darrelle Revis is not taking away Reggie Wayne tommorrow. Manning has watched every defensive down the Saints ran all season, probably a few times. May be the Saints hang in there through the 3rd quarter, but Manning wants that trophy and no one on the Saints sideline is going to stop him;in fact their defense is pretty awful(take a look at their debacles against the Bucs and Deadskins in December). Manning could be the best QB to ever play. Tomorrow he gets some more affirmation.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Forgotten in the mix is the fact that the Saints seem quite expert at taking the ball away–to wit, Mr. Sharper and his 9 picks, 3 for TDs. If they can force the Colts to cough it up 2-3 times tomorrow, they have a good shot. Their O is nothing to sneeze at, unlike the Colts they are fully healthy (on top of Freeney, Reggie Wayne left practice early yesterday with a knee problem) and they’ve got a rip tide of emotion they’re bringing with them, between Katrina and the history of the franchise and their long-suffering fans, which the team seems to have taken to heart. The fact that the pundits have all written them off also helps David get psyched up to take on Goliath. Whether any or all of this will be enough is an open question begging for tomorrow to come.
PS I was going to comment on your “Marry Him!” entries, but wasn’t sure I wanted to lose my “Dude Card”, so posted on something I know a little bit more about instead. Still, the original article and Liesl’s “review” of the book (I use quotes because it struck me as more of a defense against the main idea of the book rather than a review of the book itself) was quite the convo topic in my house this week. Gents, word to the wise(r than me)–not sure if you want to bring this one up on your own…..
February 6th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I finally became a Peyton Manning believer last week. Sometime in the second quarter, I saw him trot off the field, blitzed, sacked, confused, demoralized. Then, after glancing at a few snapshots, he apparently entered a zen-like trance in which he coached himself up, and returned to the field a new man, picking apart the best D in the league with a bunch of no-name receivers. He’ll do the same to the game, but doomed Saint.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:32 am
The rather socialist nature of the NFL means anything can happen - but no other team has Manning.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
“9 - kickoffs? really?”
I take back what I said, sean payton has diamond balls.