Sunday, September 23, 2007

Trading Places

The weirdest subplot of this NFL season has to be the complete inversion of personality by the Pats and Colts. The Patriots, long known to play ball control and win tough road games over good teams have decided to air it out and blow out bad teams. The Colts, meanwhile, are grinding it out and doing just enough to win while showing flashes that they can still blow teams out. In the end, they take the W and march along. I half expect Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage to show up at the Dome in November. I've never seen two teams totally interchange identities like this while both maintain dominance in the win loss column. This is shaping up to be a really fun season.

Demond Sanders: It's like everything has gone Vice-Versa. New England has really played Big this season. You might say that they've taken a cue from the Colts, you know Like Father, Like Son. Okay I took it too far. Sorry. But you make a great point. This is exactly why Colts fans should look out east and shrug.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Colts are exactly like they always have been -- taking what the defense gives them. Peyton has never been Favre (forcing the ball). Teams are adjusting their defenses over the years. More and more, they are playing cover 2 with deep safeties.

Colts played the same way in 04, 05, and 06 when they faced this defense. They just see it more often now.

Jonathan said...

Something else of note - the AFC South could be the top-to-bottom toughest division in football. If the Titans win tonight, the South will be undefeated against every team from outside the division.

Deshawn Zombie said...

I agree that the Colts are fundamentally the same philosophically, but you are right, they face this 'slow it down' D all the time now. In 04, the NFC North still blitzed him all the time, and that led to the huge games that were really flashy. The overall point of the post is that results and perception wise things have reversed, more than that the Colts actual style has changed. Maybe that should have been more clear.

Radish said...

If Coach Dungy shows up Sunday in a ratty cut-off sweatshirt, THEN it's time to worry.