We can blame officials all we want. We can curse the name 'Ron Winter' and continue to throw our hands up and wonder why this guy still has his part-time job as a zebra in the NFL. But none of that changes the fact that, today, the Colts defense (in particular their secondary) was terrible. For the third time in four games, the Colts secondary (and the defensive unit overall) has allowed a quarterback to torch them.
But all that should not take away from the utter greatness that is Peyton Manning. Despite his defense playing terrible all game long, Peyton Manning (as he is well-known for doing) simply refused to lose. No matter how utterly desperate the situation seems, no matter how awful the rest of the team looks, #18 takes the impossible and makes it seemingly look easy.
With little more than two minutes left in regulation, after witnessing his defense play dumb football on the previous series and surrender a touchdown to Maurice Jones-Drew, Manning drove his team 65 yards in 8 plays for the game-tying touchdown to Austin Collie. Vintage Manning, through and through.
However, the effort by Manning was for naught as the Colts defense did what it was prone to do all game long: Allow scrub quarterback David Garrard to beat them with his arm and his leg.
Prior to this game, Garrard had thrown just one TD and 5 INTs. The Jaguar offense overall was ranked 30th in the league, and against the Colts and their now-putrid secondary, they hung 31 on them. Garrard accounted for 3 TDs and no turnovers. He wasn't even sacked.
On the final drive in regulation, prior to robo-kicker Josh Scobee hitting a 59-yard field goal to win the game, Garrard completed a key 22 yard pass to Tiquan Underwood. Covering on the play was Kelvin Hayden, who has played miserable this season.
It's all so very frustrating, but the same issues that have, year in and year out, continue to plague this team and cost them games they should win. The run defense was putrid. The pass defense was awful. And the Colts (despite a strong effort by Joseph Addai) continue to struggle running the ball. Indy is now 0-2 in the AFC South, and in both games they were manhandled. Unlike Week One, today they were manhandled by a pretty clearly inferior team. Hats off to the Jags for playing tough, but part of the reason David Garrard looked so good was because Indy played THAT poorly.
Feel free to use this story to rant and rave. Trolls will be banned outright. So, keep it nice between each other, please.