Peyton Manning reminded everyone on Sunday that he is the best QB in football, period. Photo: Yahoo Sports

Hi. Remember us? We're the fans of the team you thought was dead and gone. Turns out our beloved team ain't so dead and gone. Turns out that, just like several other teams in this league, injuries and dumb luck had them stumble out of the gate. Now things are getting corrected, and the Indianapolis Colts were know and love have finally shown up for the 2008 season.

Now, I personally don't put much stock in "statement games." When you win, you make a strong enough statement. The W is all that matters. However, this win had a little more POW! to it than any other normal, non-division game simply because far too many people had dismissed this Colts team and were ready to brush them aside in favor of "new" teams like the Redskins, Titans, and Broncos. Hell, several supposed experts, like our good friend Bill Simmons of ESPN, picked the Colts to lose this past Sunday. In fact, he thought that they would not only lose, but that the lose would end their season (essentially) and hopefully make them go away from the public eye. AKA, ESPN would pay even less attention to them than they already do. He said, and of course I have to quote ole Billy Boy:

The '08 Colts are like Amy Winehouse -- they look awful and it should have ended by now.

A 31-3 route of the Ravens followed by a 30-10 embarrassment for his beloved Patriots at the hands of the hated Chargers, and I once again ask Why does ESPN pay this schmuck to write about a sport he clearly does not know nor understand? I guess I'll never get an answer to that question. I suppose I'll just have to console myself with the fact that Bill Simmons was wrong (again) and that the Colts will continue to be players in this AFC conference as long as the best QB in football (Peyton Manning) is under center for them.

Let us now brush aside Bill and his nasally vocals and put this game into perspective. The Baltimore Ravens came into The Lube with the #1 ranked defense against both the run and pass. They have three very physical downhill runners and a star in the making at QB, Joe Flacco. The Ravens should have defeated the Titans last week, but bad officiating bailed the Titans out of a lose. The officiating this season has been especially bad, and the NFL needs to take a good, hard look at these lawyers they employ to ref their games.But anyway, the Ravens are a tough, physical, BIG team. Many felt they would come into the LUBE, where the Colts were winless in four games (two fake, two real), and push Indy around.

Um, sorry. Not how it happened.

The Colts dominated the Ravens from start to finish. The #1 pass defense was shredded early by Marvin Harrison. I once again ask why ESPN insists on employing morons to talk about football on their network. Remember Merrill Hoge saying Marvin Harrison is no longer Marvin Harrison? Looks like the tape Merrill was watching was not the same tape our own shake n bake has been breaking down. Maybe ESPN should dump Hoggie in favor of shake. At least shake actually knows the game of football.

Harrison, who has routinely torched DBs all season but hasn't gotten the ball thrown to him, finally had a healthy Peyton Manning delivering the football. Marvin burned CB Chris McAllister early and often. Marvin does that a lot with Chris, who many think is a very good CB. The Ravens played the same kind of defense the Bears, Vikes, Jags, and everyone else has played against this Colts team this year. They crowded the line of scrimmage, blitzed, and had their DBs in Cover 1, which is essentially man-to-man coverage. Fans like me have been tearing our hair out the last few weeks because teams had not done this against Indy since Peyton's rookie year. Why? Because when you blitz Peyton and leave one-on-one coverage with Marvin and Reggie, that is an automatic 6 points for the Colts.

The first four games, Peyton was not healthy and neither was the o-line. The WRs were open, but he wasn't getting them the ball consistently. Now, he is healthy and making teams pay for blitzing. From here on out, we will likely see fewer blitz, Cover 1 defenses. If we do, expect the Colts offense to drop 31 on them.

Marvin Harrison: Still good despite what the "experts" say.
Photo: Colts.com

The second part of the domination was the Colts run defense. They held Baltimore to 51 yards rushing on 19 caries (2.7 a carry). They generated five turnovers on defense, with two coming from now-starting CB Tim Jennings. Indy also sacked Joe Flacco four times, with three coming from Robert Mathis. The team started with Josh Thomas, Raheem Brock, Keyunta Dawson, and Robert Mathis on the d-line. Their stunts and physical play pushed around Baltimore's offensive line. They shed blocks, rallied to the ball, and played fast Colts football. I'll remind everyone that on that starting d-line, there is not a 300-pounder in the bunch. In fact, Josh Thomas (the DE) might be the biggest guy on defense that they started.  Yet, they dominated a big, physical Ravens offensive line.

This was as satisfying a win this team has had in the regular season in some time. They beat the snot out of a team that many think will be players in their division. The Ravens have some good young players on offense, and their defense is still a tough bunch. This was not some chump team that strolled into The Lube. The Ravens are good, and the Colts crushed them. Be sure to check out Rexx at Baltimore Beatdown for his analysis as well.

Bottom line, if you thought the Colts were simply going to "go away," you know nothing about football. Sorry, but teams like the Colts simply do not "go away." Injuries may hamper them for a while, but if you have actually watched this team (which few experts have done) you'd know they have no quit in them. That was made obvious during the Vikings, Jaguars, and Texans games. As this team gets healthy, they will again start to assert themselves, and this wacky season will start to shack itself out. And when the dust settles, our Colts will be there. This is still the best team in the AFC, folks. This was a big win in an effort to reinforce that sentiment.

Go Colts!

via www.nflgridirongab.com

Everyone is going to hear about how historic the 17 point comeback on Sunday was, and they should; It was masterful, and has only been done by this same team before.  I've looked into a couple other things for you to munch on this week:

• The Colts have started 2-2 in a rather unique way:  They've won both games on the road, and lost both games at home.  Since 2001, this has happened 4 times.  Here is a list of teams which started the same way the Colts have this year:
  
  

  Year	Team	Record	Playoff Seed
  2001	Jets	10-6	6
  2003	Buccaneers	7-9	N/A
  2006	Jets	10-6	5
  2007	Panthers	7-9	N/A

  
  
• Losing twice in September was a relatively new feeling for these Colts.  They hadn't lost in September since Opening Night of the 2004 season in New England.  With the win on Sunday against the Texans, the Colts have now won 12 straight October games.  The last loss in October was on October 31, 2004 against the Chiefs, in a 45-35 defensive struggle.  Let's keep this going into 2009.
• Since 2001, the Colts have faced a rookie starting Quarterback 9 times, and are 7-2 in those games.  That is good news, as the Colts face rookie Joe Flacco this week.  Here is a list of games, with the Quarterback:
  
  

  Year	Team	Quarterback	Score
  2002	Texans	D. Carr	W 23-3
  2002	Cowboys	C. Hutchinson	W 20-3
  2002	Texans	D. Carr	W 19-3
  2002	Jaguars	D. Garrard	W 20-13
  2003	Jaguars	B. Leftwich	L 23-28
  2004	Bears	C. Krenzel	W 41-10
  2005	49ers	A. Smith	W 28-3
  2006	Titans	V. Young	W 14-13
  2006	Titans	V. Young	L 17-20

  
  
• In Peyton Manning's career, he has faced the Ravens 7 times, 5 of them in Baltimore (I'm glad we are playing them at home this year).  Here are his career numbers, which are pretty good against a very good defense:
  
  

  	Comp	Att	Yards	TD	INT	Yds/Att	Comp%	Rating
  Total	153	246	1873	13	5	7.6	62.2	102.9
  Average	21.9	35.1	267.6	1.9	0.7

  
  

Earlier this week, Matt Ryan signed a 6 year, $72 Million deal, with $34.7 Million guaranteed.  This, in my opinion, is utterly absurd.  I could go on and on about how ridiculous this is, but I'll point you in the direction of The Daily Norseman, SBNation's Vikings blog.  Gonzo has a great article expressing my exact feelings about the entire situation much better than I ever could have.  Here's the main idea:

There is NO reason for NFL teams to pay the amounts they're paying now to guys that haven't even attended an NFL Training Camp yet, never mind played in an NFL game.  The NBA does it, and it's one of the few things that they actually do better than the NFL.  The NBA doesn't have contract holdouts, they don't have to give potentially franchise-killing contracts to rookies. . .heck, even LeBron James had to earn his big payday. . .and teams know what they're getting into before they make their selections.

Make sure to check out the rest of his article. He makes some other great points.

Here's an exercise for you:  I've put together the college stats for 6 quarterbacks drafted in the first round the past 3 seasons, minus Joe Flacco, as his stats are skewed by playing in Div 1-AA.  The QBs are:

• Jay Cutler
• Matt Leinart
• Vince Young
• Brady Quinn
• JaMarcus Russell
• Matt Ryan

I've also included a 7th mystery quarterback, who was drafted some years ago.  I've used the NFL's version of QB Rating, rather than the college Rating system.

Tomorrow or Saturday, I'll post who each quarterback is, along with Stampede Blue's consensus choice of franchise quarterback.

Also, Tony Dungy will be joining Mike and Mike live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 7:45 tomorrow (Friday) morning.  You can hear it on ESPN Radio, and watch it on ESPN2.