Week Two - Colts At Vikings

Let’s see if I even remember how to do this. I think I wrote about all of one of the Colts games from last year, and that would be the season opener, when they waxed the since-Drew-Brees-arrived-perenially-overhyped New Orleans Saints and the Colts receivers made win-the-ring-and-leave (which is okay because you’re not very good, anyway) safety Jason David look like Pop Warner fodder (think of the moment from Seinfeld when the kids in his karate class gang up on Kramer in the alley).

By contrast, this year’s opener was a tough loss to the vexing Chicago Bears. You could argue - and you would be correct, mostly - that a Colts team with an offensive line that was either healthy or experienced or contained Jeff Saturday or did not contain Ryan “False Start” Diem (one out of four would suffice) would have had enough firepower to run even with the Bears, who knew enough, at least, to run run run on the Colts and their hapless run defense.

Alas, this year’s offensive line is so awash with concern that we’re not even talking about special teams - and that’s saying something. Protecting the largely immobile Peyton Manning is always important, since flushing him from the pocket is as key to neutralizing the high-octane Colts offense as constantly running the ball between the tackles is key to neutralizing what there is of the Colts run defense; and without that protection, Manning, playing with the additional distraction of not having taken a snap during the preseason and coming off of the first significant injury of his career, rushes plays and has a tendency to go down like...well, insert your favorite Lindsay Lohan joke here.

So comes week two, which finds the Colts on the road against their second consecutive NFC opponent (that the NFC Norris is so much improved makes the Colts schedule quite a bit tougher than it has been in past years), one with an even better tailback than the Bears and offensive and defensive lines that are probably, in aggregate, the best set of linemen in the league.

I smell trouble. The Colts gave up 120+ yards last week to Matt Forte (who?) of the Bears, so it was pretty much a given that they would be even more generous to All-World Adrian Peterson - and the final box score bears this out, though you might notice that Peterson, who ran for about 1400 yards(!), did not end any of the runs on which he gained those yards by crossing the plane of the goal line. Indeed, the Vikings, though able to run at will and sack Manning like Kurt Warner bags groceries, scored nary a touchdown.

The Colts even got away, for much of the game, from their Cover 2 comfort zone (pun intended), to stuff the front line with upwards of 8-10 guys, though Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson (himself so vexing that surely he’ll be playing for Chicago next year, right?) often managed to find asleep at the switch the one or two Colts safeties who should have been roaming the backfield in coverage.

Penalties and dropped balls - specifically the one Reggie Wayne would have scored with had he not made the cardinal mistake of turning upfield before actually catching the ball (the ensuing touchdown would have put the Colts up 7-6 and done a nice job of turning the tide of the game in the first half) - helped the Colts limp to a 9-0 halftime defecit.

The third quarter was nearly over before the Colts got the kind of miracle play that almost always happens to the other team. Specifically, Anthony Gonzales, at the end of a 58-yard catch-and-run, pitched the ball back to Reggie Wayne, who leaped into the air to avoid a tackle and got the ball as close as it’s possible to get to the goal line without actually “crossing the plane.” The ruling on the field was a touchdown, and I didn’t think there was enough evidence to overturn it, but who am I? I thought the Joseph Addai touchdown three plays later was just as questionable as the Wayne touchdown that was overturned, but Addai’s score was upheld.

The Vikings would not score again, and the Colts actually managed to make the two-point conversion they needed to tie the game with just under six minutes to play - and with three seconds to go, Adam Vinatieri made up for an early fourth quarter miss by hitting a 47-yard field goal to give the Colts the lead for the first time all day. The Vikings attempted a volley of laterals on the ensuing kickoff, though to no avail; they were brought down, and the Colts escaped with a victory over a Minnesota team that would win their division in a walk if they had any kind of passing game to go with Jesus Peterson’s magic legs.

It was an ugly game, to be sure - but the Colts did manage to squeak out a win despite giving up almost 200 yards on the ground, on the road against one of the better teams in the NFC, with what could be described charitably as a depleted offensive line. There’s a lot of football still to be played, of course, and this fragile, conservatively coached team could fall apart at any time - especially if Manning’s age really begins to show or the offensive line fails to get healthy and coalesce. They’ve had success in the past regardless of how good the run defense is, and while I’d rather not have to think about asterisks, it’s undeniable that their road to the Super Bowl got a whole lot easier when Tom Brady’s knee exploded.

We’ll have a better idea of where the Colts stand three weeks from now, after a bye week and two division games. The schedule is tough, but there aren’t more than four or five teams in the league that are better than Minnesota - and the Colts are one of them, even in their currently injured and incomplete state. If they come out in the next three weeks and grab an early division lead over Jacksonville, this could be an exciting year for the Colts.