Colts, That Was Crazy

Warning: this might be the most disjointed, tangential post I've written since the NBA Draft live-blog.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, let's get started. I just got finished watching the Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots in one of the best regular season games I've ever seen. Sure, the Bill Belichick decision will cause great debate in the coming weeks (it was one of the worst decisions I can remember seeing, for the record), but just the drama of the game was superb. I love the Colts wholeheartedly, but for about 3.5 quarters, the Patriots were giving them the business. They went up and down the field at will, with Tom Brady exploiting the banged-up Colts secondary to the tune of 375 yards and 3 TDs. Randy Moss showed everyone why he's still one of the best receivers in the league, carving up the Colts for 179 and 2. It was just a great show of football for the Pats.

But, somehow, the Colts won.

After a few turnovers and fortunate turns in momentum, Indy was able to make play after play in the 4th quarter on both sides of the ball to squeak out the victory. I'd have to go back and look at specific plays, but I remember holding New England to a field goal to make a 31-21 game a 34-21 game, keeping things within two possessions. Then, after the offense went down the field in less than two minutes to make it 34-28, the Colts defense did not allow New England to get a first down (though, the Pats got about 9.87591 yards). Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and 2 from their own 28 in this sequence is about as bad as it gets. From there, Peyton Manning his Reggie Wayne for a few yards, let Joseph Addai run to the goal line, and then hit Wayne again with an absolute strike for the tying points with less than 15 seconds to go. Matt Stover's extra point put the Colts ahead 35-34, completing a 17-point comeback with 21 points in the 4th quarter.

Sitting here, nearly an hour later, I can't really describe my feelings during the game. I was pissed for a large portion of it since we refused to cover Moss with any help for our young corners (yes, I realize I'm waffling between "they" and "we" when discussing the Colts, but that's what happens when I get worked up), we couldn't tackle, and we looked out of synch on offense. It was just maddening, to be honest. I was watching the game with my neighbor and he was essentially laughing at me because the Colts were playing so poorly. When it got to be 31-14 early in the 4th, he kept telling me it was over, but I refused to believe it. Partially because I'm stubborn, but partially because we'd shown enough pluck that if we could just manage a play or two on the ensuing drives, we'd be right back in it.

It turns out, I was justified in my faith. The Colts, as I mentioned before, made several huge plays on both sides of the ball and pulled out the come-from-behind victory. My frustration from earlier had transitioned to joy/relief/disbelief/excitement/amazement/silence/loudness at what had just transpired. I really didn't know what to do. It's one of those situations where you say to yourself, "ok, if we can just get a stop here and make it a 10-point game, we're in good shape," and "hey, we just made another play, we might actually pull this off," and then the next thing you know, it actually happened. It seems that whenever I actually give myself a laundry list of things that need to happen in order for the game to be ours, my teams don't normally pull it out. It's just hard to get that many things to fall into place. But when they actually do, man is it sweet.

Tomorrow, I'll be a little frustrated still. Despite the victory, we were outplayed by New England and looked like the inferior team for 3.5 quarters. It's not the best scenario to be down 31-14 in the 4th and depend on a legendary comeback for the win. Yes, we did it (on a grander scale, actually) to win the AFC Title game in 2006 against these same Patriots, but it's not a habit I want to get into. However, that being said, I think it shows a lot of resilience on the part of the Colts to get the win. Just a crazy game, a crazy ending, and so many subplots throughout.

Ok, I'm gonna go try to sleep now, but the chances are good that I'll be up for another two hours trying to figure out what just happened. Sheesh.

~~ Lank