1st Quarter
1.) Colts start with the ball at the 35. Ryan Diem is out as expected. Charlie Johnson is at Right Tackle. Addai is hammered for a short loss on the first play. Third down conversion by Gonzalez. Addai has no room to his right. Al Michaels implies that #29 has slowed down because of injuries. I'd blame the line, but it's something to consider. Baltimore has had two injury timeouts so far. Are we seeing after effects from a short week? Gonzalez drops big gainer, but makes amends with another third down catch. Addai is stuffed again. Touchdown Reggie Wayne. Nice little route run parallel with AG on the right side. Don't blitz #18.
2.) Short kick from AV is covered nicely at the 26. The Colts lately have a strategy that requires AV to pin the kick to one side of the field. It works. Ravens get an illegal contact on Gary Brackett. Prevents a three and out. Next play is FUUUUMBLE. Robert Mathis has looked like his active self early on, forcing a fumble. MJax gets a nice return to the 12.
3.) Nice gain by Utecht to set up first and goal. Touchdown Joseph Addai! The Ravens have come out looking like the Ravens. Deep, I know. Colts lead 14-0.
4.) McClain goes down after a 9 yard reception. Third injury to the Ravens in the first seven minutes. The Zombie just ate McGahee's brain. Boller sneaks for the first. Robert Mathis is down, moments after NBC shows the stat pointing out that the Colts are missing 7 starters from their Super Bowl Defense. Thanks guys. Boller is scrambling like crazy tonight. Brackett cleans his clock. You have to make him pay for those runs. McGahee is starting to roll off big runs, but now he is gimpy coming off. GARY BRACKETT MAKES THE BIG PLAY (again). He double clutches a terrible throw from Boller. He rolls fifty yards to the Ravens' 20 yard line.
5.) Touchdown pass to Joseph Addai. Manning's 300th of his career. Guess what football fans? He's the greatest of all time. Little swing pass out of the backfield. Very nice. Colts lead 21-0.
6.) Three and out for the Ravens highlighted by a nice blow up by Bob Sanders of a short pass to the Running Back. Next play is a BLOCKED PUNT. Ball goes sailing into the end zone for a safety. Awesome! Colts lead 23-0.
2nd Quarter
7.) Colts get good field position off the kick. The O proceeds with a methodical drive featuring short passes and slippery runs by Addai. Their mastery on third down continues on from last week. We could be looking at a whole lot of Jim Sorgi and Kenton Keith if Manning and company can pound this in. Touchdown Joseph Addai. His third of the night. He's the real deal. Are you sweating yet, Pats fans?
8.) Kickoff return for a touchdown by Yamon Figurs, much as I predicted below. Of course, I also predicted a close game, so I can't feel all that good right now. Are you sweating yet, Russ Purnell?
9.) Colts are back on offense leading 30-7. Third and long after a drop by Gonzalez. Punt.
10.) Ravens start at their own 23. Colts need a nice stop to regain the momentum. Third and long after yet another mindless scramble by Boller. Punt.
11.) Big third and 12 conversion by Joseph Addai, following a drop by Clark. The rain is clearly affecting the receivers. Or not. First Career TD for Anthony Gonzalez on a 57 yard bomb. Manning is looking as sharp as we've ever seen him despite very little running game.
12.) More terrible coverage, despite the squib kick. Another pick by Boller. This time its Kelvin Hayden camped underneath Boller's poor effort. The D is on fire tonight, although it is a week too late for my fantasy team. They are clearly responding to the whiny, unwarranted ripping I gave them on our last podcast. Apologies.
13.) It's 4th and 6 late in the second quarter and the Colts face a choice: Try a 47 yard field goal, punt, or go for it up 30 points. It's the second quarter and yet the Colts do the right thing and punt. Smith's ball is downed inside the five after the ball bounces harmlessly off Rushing's face mask. Great effort by Hunter Smith.
14.) Boller scrambles for the first down. For a moment it looked like the Blue might have their second safety of the night. Weird game. Almost another safety as Boller is sacked at the 2. Colts lead 37-7 at halftime.
3rd Quarter
15.) The only people still interested in this game are a few desperate Patriots fans praying Joseph Addai blows out his knee. Boller fumbles on third down. Colts ball. Touchdown Anthony Gonzalez on a 40 yard bomb from Manning. Big night for the rookie. He's making us all feel a lot better about not having the second greatest receiving in NFL history on the field. Dungy is trying his hardest to get Manning out of the game. I think the lead is safe, Tony. On the other hand, if you leave him in he might catch up to Tom Brady before the night is over.
16.) Ravens are driving inside the five yard line after a couple completions by Boller. Quinn Pitcock gets a one-handed sack bringing up third and goal. Jackson sniffs out a shovel pass to bring up fourth down. Pick by Gary Brackett. More hula dancing from #58. Will someone punch his ticket to Honolulu already? Amazing season for the man from Rutgers.
17.) Sorgi time. This should be entertaining and terrifying at the same time. Clifton Dawson is taking carries. Very interesting. Makes you wonder if they are completely satisfied with Keith's season thus far. I'm not sure how you could be.
18.) Boller is still in. I'm not sure why Billick wouldn't give Troy Smith a few snaps. Al Michaels is raving about The Greatest Game Ever Played. How inappropriate.
19.) The Ravens are pounding the ball on the ground just for kicks. We'll head into the fourth quarter with the score Colts 44 - Ravens 7.
4th Quarter
20.) Fourth down and 1. The Ravens take 7 minutes 20 seconds to go 63 yards. Boller abuses Tim Jennings of all people. Not surprisingly, he throws an interception on the 2 point conversion attempt.
21.) Three and out for Sorgi and company. Figurs gets rocked fielding the ensuing punt. Boller and McGahee are still in the game. They get a deep pass interference call. This is a joke. Another fourth down conversion for Boller. The scary thing is the Colts backups look very competitive against the Ravens' starters. Boller gets COLD-COCKED by Darrell Reid. Turnover on downs. Keep in mind this unit is largely made up of the Colts' Special Teamers. And we know how good those guys are. Good night.
DZ Comments: That was the lamest 20 point effort from a team in the history of football. Guess what? This win by the Colts counts basically the same as the Patsies struggles against the Ravens. That is to say, it's worth exactly one win. Style points don't count...but they sure are fun. This was an encouraging win, but it's really hard to know what it means. Let's face it, despite Sanders, Brackett and Manning being perfect tonight, this game is just as much about how Ravens just flat didn't show up.
One final thought, it's always a good sign if I'm eating chicken in the second quarter. I usually don't eat within 5 hours of game time. Tonight, I was having dinner by the 10 minute mark. It's also great to see the bye all but ours.
I love nights like this.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
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17 comments:
Dammit, I jinxed 'em.
Well, if they're going to beat us, they only need to do that about four more times. Sadly, that's not out of the realm of possibility.
Why haven't we fired Russ Purnell? How does someone turn a top 3 special teams into a bottom 3 and not get fired?
Boller 5/8 17 yards
Does anyone besides Keith Olbermann think he's funny at halftime?
No. No one does. I heard his mom even changes the channel
Boller gets intercepted in the end zone by Keiaho going for the two point conversion. This is just entertainment at this point.
i never noticed this when it was up, but thought i'd put it here, q/a with bill polian
Q: How long does the contract of Bob Sanders run?
A: His contract expires at the end of this season, at the beginning of the new league year in February. He’ll be here next season. Don’t worry about that.
Yeah, it's weird, I thought I mentioned that quote. I showed it to Demond, because it reminded me of the way the club talked about Freeney. It certanly is encouraging.
to my knowledge, its the way they gave 88, 87 and (as mentioned) 93. and 18, but thats a bit obvious.
and, it should be said, never said about edge.
I still adore Edge. Don't get me wrong, I think having Addai in there last year as a rookie allowed the team to do stuff they could not have pulled off with Edge, as great and complete a player as he was. (Could you imagine Edge splitting carries to stay fresh for the playoffs? Not me.)
And I love Addai's burst and moves. Doesn't mean I can't love Edge too. And they DID make the right business decision regarding him. Unlike Seattle and Shaun Alexander. That's a pile of money they flushed down the toilet. They'd have been better off keeping their stellar LG and signing somebody like Chester Taylor. Of course now that LG is opening holes in Minn that Chester Taylor can drive a pickup through. But I digress....
I do want Edge to pickup at least 3,000 more rushing yards and 500 receiving yards and re-sign with the Colts for a day to retire a Colt, so his Canton bust has a horseshoe.
Has anyone ever seen a team so efficient on offense with an offensive guard who gets driven straight back 5 yards on a running play?
Over all the years I've watched I have to say it is really, really rare to see an NFL offensive lineman driven straight back five yards. You see guys whiff or get overpowered at the line, but getting hammered straight back is really hard to do.
Yet, over the last few seasons, there have been a remarkable number of times it has happened to the Colts.
Stan
Guess What, Manning is the greatest of all time??? WHAT! I think the Chicken you ate had some mind altering drugs,,,,,. I'm pretty sure anyone living outside the Colts zip code now agrees that one Tom Brady is the best QB to ever play the game.
A few weeks ago I read an interesting comment by a Pats fan who ran one of the Boston blogs. He had a friend from flyover country come visit him in Boston. He quoted her as saying something like "While all of you in Boston are worshiping Brady, you do know that everywhere else in the country the consensus is that Manning is the best QB in the league." Anyway that was the gist.
And it's true. NE fans are obsessed with tearing down Manning in an effort to "prove" that Brady is better (see e.g. Bill Simmons). Most fans around the country wonder what the fuss is about.
I thought Boston was the home of racist pricks. Or was that elitist commies? I can't ever keep track of the crappy things that Boston is home of... Wait, I remember...Boston, home of the whiniest, most self important sports fans ever! I knew it would come to me eventually...
I thought Boston was home of people who use abuse commas...
Man, I can't even write a complete sentence about other people using punctuation badly! Yikes! I get the Moron of the Day award, thank you.
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