Well it seems a few people have beaten me tot he punch with their own little "5 things" segment, but no matter, here are my five useless observations of the day that was.

1.) I think the Colts defense has played magnificent throughout this season. It is because of them that the Colts were able to stave off the Texans and the Niners. The added aggression by Coyer and the play of the young players has helped tremendously with the number of injuries in the secondary. Despite that, however, the Colts need Hayden back because, at times, there were a few lapses in coverage, which is expected when you are playing with two rookies.

2.) I think I know where the problems on offense lye. The offensive line is the problem and while it has been better than last years unit, its still slowing this offense down. Pass protection isn't much of a problem, but it is a bit of a concern with the lapses they have had the last two weeks. Run blocking is the big one as the Colts still arent trying to pound the rock frequently. Manning threw 50 passes today and thats not winning football. The colts must find a way to create balance and that starts up front

3.) I think worrying about the Colts coverage units on special teams is a thing of the past. Before, Jacoby Jones might have returned several of the punts he got today with the former special teams units of the Colts. Now its one of the last things on my mind and I dont have to hold my breath every time they kickoff or punt.

4.) I think next weeks game between the Pats and Colts is going to be big. Well this is kind of obvious, but both teams are on a streak right now and Brady looks back to form. Hopefully, the Colts can get some bodies back this week because they are going to need all the help they can get.

5.) I think Caldwell had his worst day of coaching today. I never saw how he coached when he was at wake forest, perhaps Caldwell had worse, but today certainly was up there with any coaching blunders he may have had in the past. That WR pass was just awful as we were moving the ball well with Manning having the ball in his hands. Icing the kicker only helped Houston get points on the board. Not going for it on 4th and 1 from almost midfield was a mistake as well.

I know that emiller17 just posted his 5 bigs things, but I was working on this earlier. There were many good points that I can take from the game and along with that some bad points. Here is what I take from this perfect 8-0 Texan win.

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1)  Dallas Clark is the best TE in the NFL.

2) Larry Coyer is the biggest addition for the Colts this season.

3) Kyle DeVan was a upgrade over Pollack, but the O-line is still struggling and I don't know why.

4) Pat McAfee is the biggest reason our special teams is better this season.

5) I hate the roof being open for 1pm games in The Luke.

My explanation after the jump.

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Well my heart was racing.  The game was way closer in score than it should have been.  We seen another week where we had trouble getting touchdowns inside the red zone.  This game is bittersweet especially with all the trash the Texan fans were talking.  They have a good team, I will admit, but it is always the great teams that find ways to win.

One more thing....

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SINCE 1960

•  only 13 QB's have more than 1 season of 4,000 yards passing-----Peyton has 9 the next closest is marino with 6

• Manning is know 3rd on the list of  seasons with 20+ TD passes with 11---- 1st is farve with 14 and 2nd is marino with 13

•   Manning is 3rd in seasons with 300+ completions at 11 behind-------farve at 17 and marino at 13

• and another 3rd....he is third all time in TD at 348------behind only farve-480 and marino-420 (he should pass marino in 2011)

• He is 4th all time in completions at 4,026 and should pass elway for 3rd this year. elway has 4,123---- then in 1st is again farve with 5,894 and in 2nd marino with 4,967

• manning is 5th on the all time list in passing yards with 47,855 and will pass warren moon at 49,325 later this season----the people ahead of him are farve-67,052, marino- 61,361 and elway at 51,475

• and last for today Manning is 5th all time in wins 1 win away from tying Tarkenton for 4th- then we got farve at 175, elway at 148 and marino at 147. bye the numbers he likely will take over second at the end of the 2011 season.

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for me and a few others it isn't that late at all and seeing as that is the case i still got plenty in me. so if anyone is up and just wants to chat about the game tomorrow the games that were played today and how bad they were or anything else go ahead.

also i will ask if anyone has the Maddon 10 i thought it would be fun to just do a simulated game for each of our games as we come to them as a weekly thing such as some other blogs do. obviously i couldn't do it as i dont have the recent game. if you want to get a general idea of what i am thinking of go look at the 49ers blog about it. we wont have to go and do as much and i can let you know what im thinking but your free to do as much work as you want on it. this will be done as only a fanpost unless (like the college thread i guess) BBS likes it and wants it to be more.

The other day I made a fanpost titled "What to Watch For:Colts vs Texans week 9." I based it solely off my opinions and things I had read over at Battle Red Blog. Well after I had finished up my my morning "fix" of Stampede Blue I headed over to NFL.com to check out the headlines. While I was there I looked at the Game Center for the upcoming game on Sunday. Well the analysis of the game and my post were similar. I went back and forth on whether to delete my post or not to avoid any kind of fuss, but I elected not to cause after all it was my work and I really didn't think it was close enough to make a big deal. Well furrycolt made note that were similar and so I have decided to take my post down to avoid any fuss. Most of the comments were coming from the Texans fans anyway. Thanks for taking time to read this and I apologize furycolt for not taking it down after reading how close the two posts were.
 

I just now notice that Denver had waived Jack Williams and signed Ty Law. Since our corner depth is thinning every day right now, do you think that we should sign him? He's a very good Cover 2 corner, and a solid tackler and special teamer. I remember when he was in the draft I really wanted us to nab him, as I thought he would work out great here. I also seem to remember that the Colts were scouting him a ton. Thoughts?

well everyone another week of college football is before us. im sure there are some big story lines for us to see this week but i really dont know many. i do know that now after Oregon beat my (Trojans) they got to keep winning if they want to go to BCS which is highly unlikly or at least they will go to the rose bowl. then we also have  Iowa trying to go to 10-0. will they finally be able to have control of a game before the second half. wait and see.....

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So, are you awake yet today? If you are at least somewhat awake (and I've been awake for about 30 hours now), you know that someone must have really pissed off the football gods yesterday, because they are now raining injuries on the Colts. So, my purpose in making this FanPost right now is two-fold. First, I want to get all of the injuries in one place for easy access. Also, I want to examine the positions afflicted with the injury curse (not an injury bug; I've upgraded it to a curse) and see who is left starting and what quality of depth is available for these positions. Because injuries have affected seemingly every part of this team, I'm going to do this unit-by-unit. By the way, those in a fragile emotional state might not want to read the rest of this FanPost. Don't wanna get sued for something that might happen to you ;-)

The analysis format is this:

Unit: Starters if the game was played today (Any healthy depth if the game was played today), List of injured players with injury description, Any other analysis of this position (like depth issues)

Let's start off on a good note with the offense, shall we?

Running Back: Joseph Addai (Donald Brown, Mike Hart, Chad Simpson), Since Brown practiced fully on Wednesday and Thursday, I have to assume he's 100% healthy and ready to go Sunday, This is one of our best positions, injury-wise, right now. Brown was previously hurt but seems fine now, and Addai-Brown makes an efficient 1-2 combo.

Quarterback: Peyton Manning (Jim Sorgi, Curtis Painter), Some speculated that Peyton was sick last Friday, but the team said it was a planned resting period and will become a regular thing. I'll trust that they're not stupid enough to lie to us, Once again, we're completely fine here. No injuries to date.

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends: Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie (Gijon Robinson, Hank Baskett, Jacob Tamme, Justin Snow), Anthony Gonzalez- arthroscopic knee surgery on 11/05/09 to clean out loose stuff remaining in the knee, supposed to be back in 2-3 weeks, Wayne, Clark, and Collie are awesome, and are consistently making Peyton (and us) happy, that's for sure. However, Gonzo is a great and consistent receiver who should have a bright future ahead of him if he can stay healthy. Right now, Gonzo's injury rates as a pretty big loss mostly because Garcon has seemed to forget how to catch the ball again. We saw his drops in preseason, and they're back. It's also important to remember that we literally haven't had Gonzo all season, so we should see a solid bump in the offense upon his return, unlike our offense getting worse until he gets back, if that makes sense. Unless Garcon can become the receiver he was against Miami and Arizona again, this offense will continue to struggle a little bit by its standards until Gonzo makes his triumphant return.

Offensive Line: Charlie Johnson, Ryan Lilja, Jeff Saturday, Mike Pollak/Kyle DeVan, Ryan Diem (Dan Federkeil, Jamey Richard, Tony Ugoh), No injuries to date. The only one the whole year has been to Charlie Johnson to my knowledge, and he's completely fine now, The lack of depth here is concerning. There's only 4 players readily available to sub for an injury, and the Colts usually scratch 2 of them. Other than that, we're fine with what we have on the O-line.

Now let's move on to the defense:

Defensive Line: Dwight Freeney, Dan Muir, Antonio Johnson, Robert Mathis (Keyunta Dawson, Raheem Brock, Eric Foster, Fili Moala, Josh Thomas), Aside from Ed Johnson getting axed for fatness and Dwight Freeney having a somewhat tender knee, nothing to report here, This is also one of our best spots. The injury curse tried to infect Dwight Freeney, but Dwight Freeney instead ______________ (insert comically appropriate action here).

Linebackers: Philip Wheeler, Gary Brackett, Clint Session (Freddy Keiaho, Ramon Humber, Cody Glenn), Tyjuan Hagler- ruptured biceps (ouch), out of the year, Our starters are still great. Brackett and Session are beasts, and Wheeler should do fine as long as he's not a reincarnation of Gilbert Gardner. Our depth here is basically gone. Keiaho can fill in for Brackett, and did OK when he filled in earlier this year, but I have absolutely no confidence in the other 2 backups. We absolutely cannot take any more injuries here or we are in serious trouble.

Defensive Backs: Jerraud Powers, Jacob Lacey, Melvin Bullitt, Antoine Bethea (Tim Jennings, T.J. Rushing, Aaron Fransisco, Jamie Silva), Bob Sanders- torn biceps (ouch again), out for the year. Marlin Jackson- torn ACL, out for the year. Kelvin Hayden, knee injury, out for around 4 weeks, It speaks to our early depth that we can lose 3 starting caliber DB's and still have an excellent starting backfield, which we have with Powers, Lacey, Bullitt, and Bethea. Powers, Bullitt, and Bethea have earned my complete trust with their play (Bethea is having a Pro-Bowl year right now), but I'm still a little apprehensive about Lacey. I want to see a couple more games from him to establish some consistency. But now, say good-bye to our secondary depth as it is 100% gone (3:45 mark). We have Jennings and Rushing as semi-adequate backup. If we get one more injury back there, our pass D could be toast. For now though, we once again have good starters, and they need to hold on until Hayden comes back in a month. Until then, nail a horseshoe above your door and grab a rabbit's foot stuffed with 4-leaf clovers. The Colts need all the luck we can get.

Overall injury analysis: For now, we should be fine. Only a couple of our actual starters are down for the count, and they have been replaced by great depth hand-selected by Polian. Also, two of our most important players in Gonzalez and Hayden will most likely be back within a month. However, our depth in wide receiver and any defensive position not on the defensive line is completely shot. We pretty much literally have no one left to "step up" if someone else gets injured. So, now is not the time to panic as we should not see much change in our offense's or defense's performance in the coming weeks. However, you are allowed to panic if we do suffer another injury in the hard-hit places. I'll be panicking along with you. For now, grab the nearest leprechaun and hope that the Colts are not put in this scenario.