Are the Colts the Atlanta Braves of the NFL?

We would like to thank the Indianapolis Colts, defending Super Bowl champions (who have now officially ended that defense), for participating in the 2007 NFL season.

It's great to see the Colts of old -- the poor defensive gameplan, the red zone turnovers, the missed tackles, the inability to deal with a 3-4 defense and abandoning the run completely, come back after last year's anomaly.

Here's the top 5 reasons they lost (see if you can catch the theme) in descending order:

5. Donde esta Senor Addai? - #29 only ended up with 43 yards rushing on 13 attempts (he had 67 yards in the air). The Colts pretty much abandoned using him to run out the clock or when entering the red zone, instead choosing to rely on Peyton's arm. Three turnovers later and the Colts are going fishing.

4. Donde esta Senor Sanders? - Everyone's defensive POY sure did a whole lotta nothing in this game. 3 tackles. Way to show up and be the difference maker. I did notice the Chargers usually went to the other side, exposing Bethea as a major weak spot in the leagues alleged #1 defense.

3. Donde esta Senor Freeney? - Okay, we knew where he was -- on the sidelines like he has been the last half of the year, and boy was he missed. Rivers/Volek had all day to throw and even without Gates and Tomlinson, everyone had plenty of time to get open. Robert Mathis was an absolute non-factor.

2. Donde esta Senor Glenn? - Tarik Glenn (FROM the University of California at Berkeley) protected Peytie Pie's blind side for his entire career. And while he went relatively unscathed, the pocket did collapse throughout the game throwing off the precious timing of the Colts' aerial attack (that still went for over 400 yards BTW). Of course, when they needed protection the most, Ugoh whiffed on Merriman who forced a key incompletion on the Colts' best chance to win the game.

1. Donde esta Senor Dungy's cabeza? - I don't think enough was made about the Dungy situation, pulling his kids out of school right before this game, openly talking about his indecision over returning -- these had to be distractions. The team's gameplan was obviously not on target, especially when it came to the defense which is Dungy's specialty. If I was a Colts fan, I would be concerned.

Looking Ahead to 2008

There's a lot of uncertainty around the Colts for 2008 and it starts with Dungy, who was obviously not focused on the Chargers because they didn't have any sort of a gameplan on either side of the ball in a game they clearly should have won on paper.

The questions... What's happening with Dungy? How much is Dallas Clark going to cost? How much does Marvin Harrison have left? Can Addai last an entire season? Will Bill Polian try to get the league to rescind the 5 yard contact rules he bitched to put in place now that the Pats have the high powered passing attack?

And for Peyton Manning, this year had to really hurt. Coming off a Super Bowl he was on top of the world. Then Tom Brady gets Randy Moss and Welker and breaks his touchdown record, he gets beaten by Brady at home, sees Brady go 16-0, and then loses in the playoffs to a combination of Philip Rivers and Billy Volek bringing his career playoff record back to .500 at 7-7. Even though he's avoided A-Rod's fate, the Colts very still much have that Atlanta Braves reputation to deal with and will until they can pick up another title.

At least he can watch Eli play another week.

http://andretippettsuperhero.blogspot.com/2008/01/aloha-means-goodbye-colts.html