“Did that blow your mind? Because that just happened!”
We have never been happier to have been 0-2 for a football weekend.
With all due respect to the Chicago Bears, their game against the Saints was pretty anti-climactic and boring and so we will focus most of our attention on the storylines from the Patriots/Colts game.
The 21-3 lead.
When Asante Samuel picked Manning off in the second quarter and took it in for six, we thought that was it. We said to ourselves “how is this Patriots team going to possibly blow this lead? Is Indy going to even score a touchdown? (remember they didn’t score one the entire Ravens game) I can’t believe this is happening again!”
We actually thought at that point that this game was going to be a blowout. We thought that even if Indy got their offense going, they were completely incapable of stopping the Pats and therefore had no chance of making up an 18 point lead.
And then even before the half when the Colts drove down deep into New England territory, their drive stalled and they were forced to kick the field goal. We still thought the game was over at halftime because it was still 21-6 and looking pretty bleak for Indy.
And then even after they finally scored a touchdown to open the second half and pull within 21-13, they allowed a huge kickoff return and an immediate touchdown to extend the lead, which brings us to our next point.
Indy special teams were brutal.
Every time the Colts scored a touchdown and regained some momentum, the Pats were able to get a huge kickoff return and start drives with great field position. We said, more than once during the Colts’ comeback, that Indy was going to lose the game and their special teams coverage teams were going to be the reason why. The Pats routinely started drives around their 40 yard line, and were able to score easily several times because of their short fields.
Indy has now beaten the Patriots three times in a row
Including the regular season. Can we now stop talking about how much Belichick “owns” Peyton Manning?
The excuses have already started flying
The refs. The heat in the dome. The flu. The Pats were tired from having flown to and from San Diego.
Lets take these in order. In my opinion there was one bad call and it was the roughing the passer penalty on Indy’s final drive. (they have to do something about that rule) But the way the Pats defense looked at that time, the 15 yards actually helped New England. The Colts were going to put it in the end zone, it was just a matter of time. Putting the ball on the 11 yard line instead of the 22 (it was half the distance to the goal) meant that they would score quicker, giving the Pats the ball back quicker.
As for the heat? Tough shit. When you have home field advantage you can do what you want to control the conditions (like the Celtics did when they turned the heat up in the Boston Garden, or like the Patriots did when they let their grass grow and didn’t cover the field during the ’04 playoffs)
The flu? I don’t know, have some Echinacea in the week leading up to the game.
The cross-country flights? The Pats have no one to blame but themselves for this one. These two teams met during the regular season (in New England) and the Colts won. As a result, when they ended the season with identical records, the Colts were the #3 seed meaning that they would play Baltimore in the second week of the playoffs and the Pats were the #4 meaning that they had to go out to Cali and play the Chargers. If the Pats wanted to avoid that trip, they should have taken care of business in the regular season.
Bill Bellyache is still a classless dick
We have never been happier to have been 0-2 for a football weekend.
With all due respect to the Chicago Bears, their game against the Saints was pretty anti-climactic and boring and so we will focus most of our attention on the storylines from the Patriots/Colts game.
The 21-3 lead.
When Asante Samuel picked Manning off in the second quarter and took it in for six, we thought that was it. We said to ourselves “how is this Patriots team going to possibly blow this lead? Is Indy going to even score a touchdown? (remember they didn’t score one the entire Ravens game) I can’t believe this is happening again!”
We actually thought at that point that this game was going to be a blowout. We thought that even if Indy got their offense going, they were completely incapable of stopping the Pats and therefore had no chance of making up an 18 point lead.
And then even before the half when the Colts drove down deep into New England territory, their drive stalled and they were forced to kick the field goal. We still thought the game was over at halftime because it was still 21-6 and looking pretty bleak for Indy.
And then even after they finally scored a touchdown to open the second half and pull within 21-13, they allowed a huge kickoff return and an immediate touchdown to extend the lead, which brings us to our next point.
Indy special teams were brutal.
Every time the Colts scored a touchdown and regained some momentum, the Pats were able to get a huge kickoff return and start drives with great field position. We said, more than once during the Colts’ comeback, that Indy was going to lose the game and their special teams coverage teams were going to be the reason why. The Pats routinely started drives around their 40 yard line, and were able to score easily several times because of their short fields.
Indy has now beaten the Patriots three times in a row
Including the regular season. Can we now stop talking about how much Belichick “owns” Peyton Manning?
The excuses have already started flying
The refs. The heat in the dome. The flu. The Pats were tired from having flown to and from San Diego.
Lets take these in order. In my opinion there was one bad call and it was the roughing the passer penalty on Indy’s final drive. (they have to do something about that rule) But the way the Pats defense looked at that time, the 15 yards actually helped New England. The Colts were going to put it in the end zone, it was just a matter of time. Putting the ball on the 11 yard line instead of the 22 (it was half the distance to the goal) meant that they would score quicker, giving the Pats the ball back quicker.
As for the heat? Tough shit. When you have home field advantage you can do what you want to control the conditions (like the Celtics did when they turned the heat up in the Boston Garden, or like the Patriots did when they let their grass grow and didn’t cover the field during the ’04 playoffs)
The flu? I don’t know, have some Echinacea in the week leading up to the game.
The cross-country flights? The Pats have no one to blame but themselves for this one. These two teams met during the regular season (in New England) and the Colts won. As a result, when they ended the season with identical records, the Colts were the #3 seed meaning that they would play Baltimore in the second week of the playoffs and the Pats were the #4 meaning that they had to go out to Cali and play the Chargers. If the Pats wanted to avoid that trip, they should have taken care of business in the regular season.
Bill Bellyache is still a classless dick
Way to completely snub Manning when he sought you out to shake hands after the game.
2 comments:
You can't argue with that.
Hi thanks foor posting this
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