The Boss asked me to keep my article short and sweet due to space limitations. Well, I can do short but this won’t be completely sweet. Anyone who happened to view the Colts game Sunday night will note that while the Colts own a 6 and 4 record which is good enough to lead the NFL’s American Conference South Division, they are at best a mediocre football team. First the sweet. The Horseshoe have three principle assets and the first one is Andrew Luck. Without Number #12 the team most likely be 3 and 7 or worse. The second is Adam Vinatieri the place kicker. Number #4 has kicked 22 field goals on 22 attempts for a 100 percent average, and his longest kick was 53 yards. At age 41 he is the NFL’s oldest active player. Playing for 19 seasons he came into the league with the Patriots in 1996 and played 10 years for them. He came to the Colts in 2006 and is in his 9th season with the Horseshoe. He joined the 2100 career points club this season and shows no signs of slowing down. The third asset is Pat McAfee, the team’s punter and kickoff specialist. Number #1 has a 47.7 yards per punt with 18 landing inside the opponent’s 20 yard line. Twenty-six of his kickoffs have been touch backs which places the ball on the opponent’s 20. That leads the league right now. So Pat has placed opposing teams at a long field disadvantage 44 times this season. He has also converted three onside kick attempts this season — that’s amazing. To top it off, McAfee holds and places the ball for Adam Vinatieri’s place kicking attempts. Vinatieri has credited McAfee’s steady hand with his success this season. Anyone who tells you that kicking doesn’t win games knows absolutely nothing about football.
Now for the sour. The four losses the team has suffered have come to division-leading teams. The Broncos, the Eagles. the Steelers, and the Patriots. In two of these games the Horseshoe were not just beaten, they were humiliated. Against the Steelers, the defense gave Ben Roethlisberger a career night, getting ripped for 522 yards and 6 touchdown passes. Last Sunday night, a reserve running back named Jonas Gray came off the bench and rushed for 199 yards and 4 touchdowns against the hapless Colt defense. Gray, in 3 pro seasons, has rushed for 330 total yards and 4 touchdowns. What is alarming is the fact that these devastating losses have come in two of the last three games the Colts have played. The defense can’t rush the passer or stop the run. That’s a double disaster.
Offensively, the Horseshoe have a solid receiving core led by T.Y. Hilton and Reggie Wayne. Our tight ends Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen have combined for 55 receptions and 11 touchdowns, Allen is a favorite endzone target of Luck and leads the team with 7 touchdown catches. He, unfortunately, has an injured ankle and is questionable for the next several games. Rushing the ball has been a real problem. Ahmed Bradshaw is the team’s leading rusher with 425 yards and a 4.7 average and is also a real threat as a receiver coming out of the backfield. He broke his foot Sunday night and is done for the season. That leaves the Colts with Trent Richardson toting the rock. So we have no rushing game. The biggest single problem on offense is the line. The front five is not opening holes for the running backs and doesn’t handle blitzes well. There are two first year men starting at left guard and center. A second year man starts at right guard. Their inexperience definitely shows. Andrew Luck’s strength and ability to move in the pocket has helped him get the ball to the receivers but he gets hit after throwing the ball an average of 12 times per game which leads the league. That is way too many times and it leads to him getting worn down in the 4th quarter. As to the running game, it’s considered a real victory if Number #34 can get back to the line of scrimmage before being taken down. Trent could be running for negative yardage before the regular season is done.
Last week I would have said the the Colts will make the playoffs with an 11-5 record but now I’m not so sure. Sunday the Houston Texans started recently acquired quarterback Ryan Mallett for the first time. Mallett had back up Tom Brady in New England for the previous three years. Finding an effective quarterback has been a problem for the Texans the last two years. Mallett responded with a 211 yard 2 touchdown day, leading Houston to a 23 to 7 win over the Cleveland Browns and bringing their season record to 5-5 — a game behind the Colts. Nobody is saying that Ryan Mallett is the next great quarterback but he certainly could be good enough to help the Texans challenge for the AFC South Championship. The Colts host the Texans at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 14. At one time I marked this as a sure win for the Big Blue. We beat the Texans at NRG Stadium in Houston 33-28 on October 9. But now I’m having nightmares of J. J. Watt having the Colts offense for breakfast and Ryan Mallett having a career day against the Colt secondary. To quote former Colt Head coach Jim Mora: “Ah- Playoffs? Don’t talk about-playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win another game.”
SDN