The Pats do not "own" Peyton Manning.

[Edge34]

[ QUOTE ]
The Patriots are the reigning champs and the Colts are not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll save my talk till after the game, I just wanted to make sure you know how absolutely pointless LAST year is. If you need assistance, ask teams like St. Louis and Baltimore following their championships.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
I just wanted to make sure you know how absolutely pointless LAST year is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, Colts fans have become very seasoned at reminding everyone of this. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[McGahee]

I agree with your sentiments that the Patriots are better than people think given their brutal schedule in their first 6 games.
However, last week's performance was just inexcusable coming off a bye, with the whole Bruschi emotional stuff and they were lucky to beat a team that probably couldn't beat Boston College on the road.
As for the Colts - it's impossible for their schedule to not get tougher after the crap they've played so far, but still - they get the Steelers & Chargers at home. What's their toughest remaining road game after this week, Jacksonville? They're a lock for homefield barring a Manning injury IMO.

[Steve00007]

[ QUOTE ]
Manning's playoff game last year was not the supreme choke job of the year before but still was decidedly mediocre. Averaging less than six yards a throw is not good. Overall the team may have been more sabotaged by the lack of a running game, but the fact is that Manning never made any big plays that would lead to points (no passes > 20 yards, only a handful > 10). The INT may have been in garbage time but if you are going to disregard that, then also disregard the 60 or so yards he picked up through the air on that garbage time drive. 170 yards passing doesn't look as pretty, no? He also fumbled, if I recall correctly, although I think the Colts recovered.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Pats weren't doing a whole lot of blitzing, and they dominated the Colts offensive line. That's a recipe for disaster no matter who is at qb, unless it's maybe a Michael Vick.

It was also probably difficult for the Colts receivers to use their speed advantage out on the snow. That makes it tougher to spring big plays, especially when the defense is taking away the big play every time. Indy were doing what they should have done: Taking what the defense gave them. Trying to force a big play would be reckless.

[LargeCents]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with your sentiments that the Patriots are better than people think given their brutal schedule in their first 6 games.
However, last week's performance was just inexcusable coming off a bye, with the whole Bruschi emotional stuff and they were lucky to beat a team that probably couldn't beat Boston College on the road.
As for the Colts - it's impossible for their schedule to not get tougher after the crap they've played so far, but still - they get the Steelers & Chargers at home. What's their toughest remaining road game after this week, Jacksonville? They're a lock for homefield barring a Manning injury IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

The games that bug me for the Colts coming up are: @Jax, @Cincy, @Seattle, Pitts, SD. Those are 5 tough games against 5 tough teams. If they can win 4 of those 5, they'll easily get the home field and they will definitely deserve it. But, they could easily go 3-2 or 2-3 with those 5. Suddenly a loss to the Patriots will look pretty big. Granted, the Pats still have to run the table, but KC(4-3) is the only team with a winning record left on the Pats' schedule. If the Colts go 2-3, then the Pats can lose to KC and still pull it out.

This is all very hypothetical, given that the Colts may win on Monday and virtually wrap up a first round bye. But if the Colts lose, Pandora's box is wide open.

[Steve00007]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Pats "own" the Colts. The Colts have lost to the Pats 4 times now due to just about everyone except Peyton Manning. Let's look at the stats.

2004 Divisional Playoffs: 27/42, 238 yards, one garbage time INT.
2004 Week 1: 16/29, 256 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT
2003 Conference Championship: 23/47, 237, 1 TD, 4 INT
2003 Week 13: 29/48, 278, 4 TD, 1 INT

Looks to me like he's played pretty well in 3 games and pretty awful in one. Yet, everyone you talk to will say Peyton Manning chokes against the Pats. Manning doesn't choke; everyone else on the team chokes. For example, let's take a look at why the Colts only scored three points last year in the playoffs.

Edgerrin James had 14 carries for 39 yards. His longest carry was 7 yards. He had 0 first downs. The Colts picked up no first downs on the ground! They also lost two fumbles.

How is that Peyton's fault? The Colts were not able to get anything going on the ground at all. Considering how good his opponent was, he played pretty damned well. The only problem is, he was the only one that did.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this takes everything into account.

First of all, those are pretty crappy numbers for Peyton Manning. You are talking about a guy with a career YPA of 7.6 being held to 6.08 against the Pats.

Second - if they shut down the Colts' rushing, that adds to the impressiveness of containing Peyton. That would show the Pats were not "keying" in on the pass. Maybe their game plan was something along the lines of "Peyton's going to get his yards, but we're not going to let them establish the run." If the Pats held Peyton to these numbers while keying on the run then I would say without a doubt that Peyton has been majorly owned by NE.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Pats were keying in on the pass. They just managed to shut down the running game anyway. The Colts offensive line did a horrible job at run blocking.

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
You're just looking at overall stats which are telling a lie. In just about every game against the Pats it's come down to a few big plays and on these big game deciding plays the Pats have "owned" Manning.

Monday night should be very interesting. It looks like there is no way the Pats should win this game. But if somehow they do find a way to win, Indy and Manning will have to go away thinking that they just can't beat NE. This is a very big game for Manning/Indy.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, actually *you're* looking at overall stats. *I'm* looking at play-by-play stats. However, it's a bit unweildy to show it to you.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Indy were doing what they should have done: Taking what the defense gave them. Trying to force a big play would be reckless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will take my chances if it gives me a shot at scoring more than 3 points. Taking what the defense gives you may be appropriate at times, but if the defense is only giving you small plays and you are a passing team, then you are getting schooled and you cannot just accept that. It is very hard to string together 6 or 7 first downs in a row against a good defense if you are throwing mainly dinky passes < 10 yards. You need big plays to score points if you are a passing offense.

I agree that the Colts got beat in the trenches, especially on running plays, but the Pats only had one sack. It wasn't like they were killing the guy back there. Peyton had a mediocre game, and that contributed to the loss.

[Steve00007]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Indy were doing what they should have done: Taking what the defense gave them. Trying to force a big play would be reckless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will take my chances if it gives me a shot at scoring more than 3 points. Taking what the defense gives you may be appropriate at times, but if the defense is only giving you small plays and you are a passing team, then you are getting schooled and you cannot just accept that. It is very hard to string together 6 or 7 first downs in a row against a good defense if you are throwing mainly dinky passes < 10 yards. You need big plays to score points if you are a passing offense.

I agree that the Colts got beat in the trenches, especially on running plays, but the Pats only had one sack. It wasn't like they were killing the guy back there. Peyton had a mediocre game, and that contributed to the loss.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since the game had low scoring, every first down was important.

Trying to throw deep would play right into the hands of the defense, and would most likely result in a wasted down. A sack or an interception were other possibilities. In other words, if I put a lot of effort into stopping the deep pass, then I want the offense to try and throw deep on me.

The Colts best chance was to successfully attack the weaknesses of the defense with short passes and the running game. If that works, you can school the defense without deep passes. You can also force the defense to focus less on the deep pass if you're successful. The problem for the Colts is they just weren't physical enough, and they didn't execute that well. I saw too much wincing when the Patriots players hit the Indy receivers.

They had only one sack because the Colts weren't trying to go deep. If they tried that, I think Manning would have been sacked more often. Also, you don't need to sack the quarterback in order to disrupt the Colts offense with pressure.

[lastchance]

The Patriots are 4-3 and hurting pretty badly. To get homefield, they have to beat out a 6-2 Denver team that's very good, Pittsburgh at 6-2, Cincinatti at 7-2.

There's no way the Patriots are getting home-field against those teams unless they play much better over the second half of the season. They pretty much have to win every game here on out, and this team hasn't looked like a team that's capable of doing that.

Oh, and I think Colts win big at Foxboro on Monday Night, too. The 2005 Patriots are a far cry from the awesome team we saw last year.