On my tv anyway. Thought some other people would like to check it out. I tried to make a fanshot, but don't have a link of something to check out because it's just on TV.
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So I tried to watch last week's game between Seattle and Chicago on NFL rewind, but I must admit that I got bored and fell asleep in the middle. I did still make a few observations that may be germane to this week's game.

• Seneca Wallace tends to overthrow his long passes. I predict at least 1 interception because of this.
• Wallace played well early in the more scripted portion of the game, but had more trouble as the game went on. (7/9 for 94 yards and a TD early, also 2 early FG drives, but followed by 19/35 for 149 yards and an INT.
• Seneca Wallace makes poor decisions under pressure and is VERY quick to look for the checkdown pass when under pressure.
• Seattle had a lot of trouble finishing drives and generally seemed content settling for field goals. If Peyton keeps leading TD drives this one could get lopsided quickly.
• Seattle's right tackle had a lot of trouble with pass protection. (Somewhere Robert Mathis makes a mental note to pick up his superman cape from the dry cleaners.)
• Also, in Seattle's attempted come from behind drive in the last two minutes, the Bears were able to get a lot of pressure on Wallace with mostly just a 4 man rush, resulting in numerous ineffectual checkdown passes.
• Felix Jones is really good at making the first guy miss and at breaking arm tackles. The Colts will need to have good technique and team tackling to control their running game.
• The Seattle defense plays with a lot of intensity and pride, though their pass defense is definitely suspect. I would not be at all surprised to see Peyton extend his 300 yard passing streak by another game.

So those were my observations. I'd love to hear from anyone else that has watched this one.

In a random side note, watch for Melvin Bullitt to seek out Red Bryant (Seattle DT) before or after the game (though the cameras probably won't focus on this). They played together on defense at Texas A&M in college.

So this is getting surprisingly contentious. My personal observations from last night's game is that Charlie Johnson just isn't good enough to be the starting LT. However, when I watched Ugoh play, it seemed like his heart just wasn't in it. It seems like there are two possible causes of Ugoh not showing a lot of intensity.

1) He just doesn't have the competitive spirit / intensity to be an effective player in the NFL
2) He's so disappointed by his surprise benching that he just can't get excited about playing against 2nd and 3rd stringers in preseason when he remembers the thrill of playing against marquee players is real high pressure situations.

To put it another way, either Caldwell benched him because he's broken, or he's broken because Caldwell benched him.

So with that intro, here's a poll to get the pulse of the Stampede Blue faithful.

So apparently the NFL gets really cranky when the snow falls. First there was the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called against Wes Welker for making a snow angel after scoring a touchdown. I'm guessing they called the snow a prop? So would that mean it's legal to pretend to make a snow angel if there isn't any snow, but if there is snow then it's a penalty?

Now, they've fined Shaun Ellis for throwing that big chunk of snow into the stands after the fans had been pelting his team with snowballs. Talk about no sense of humor!

Playoffs!?! Yup. I admit that after 3-4 I wasn't seeing it. Oh me of little faith. Anyway, here are some interesting (to me anyway) scenarios to keep in mind as you watch this weekend.

So in case you haven't heard the Colts have clinched the 5 seed. Their first round opponent will probably be Denver with the 4th seed unless:

1. Denver wins their next 2 and none of the AFC East leaders (NE, NYJ, MIA) can win both of their next two games. In that case we would play the 10-6 AFC East winner which would probably have been decided by a tie breaker.

2. Denver loses both of their next 2 and lets a San Diego team that would finish 8-8 steal their lunch money.

So interestingly enough, our potential first round opponents are Denver, New England, Miami, the Brett Favres, and "the most talented overrated team in football" aka San Diego.

Also this weekend, Pittsburgh and Tennessee square off for the number 1 seed in the AFC bracket. If Tennessee wins, they go up 2 games with 1 to play and clinch the 1 seed. If Pittsburgh wins both teams go to 12-3 and Pittsburgh owns the first tie breaker (head to head). Then Pittsburgh just has to beat Cleveland in week 17 to hold on. An interesting side note - Pittsburgh and Tennessee both have the early time slot for week 17, so if Tennessee loses this week Jeff Fisher won't know before the game whether beating the the Colts in week 17 will let him take back the first seed.

Of course, all the 1 vs 2 distinction assures is home field advantage if the 2 teams meet in the championship game. Besides that it totally depends on how the wildcard round works out and who wins the AFC East title. In various scenarios, both the 1 and 2 seeds have the possibility of playing New England, Miami, the Jets, Baltimore, Denver, San Diego (crazy that they still have a prayer at 6-8) and of course our Colts, led by Peyton M* Manning.

*"MVP is my middle name"

Things will probably be a lot more clear after this weekend. I'll try to post an update then.

So I went back to look at the Indy vs Baltimore game from week 6 since I didn't get to watch that one ant I wanted to figure out why we beat them so bad even though I consider the Ravens to be a pretty good team. I think this stat probably had a lot to do with it: the Ravens had 5 turnovers and the Colts had 0.

Anyway, check out this video from the game. At the 1:30 mark there's a sweet 4 man rush that resulted in a Mathis sack. On the play Mathis and Freeney trade sides after the snap so that they cross paths in front of the center and then go after the QB from the opposite side of the line from where they started. The guy who should block Mathis gets confused and ends up double teaming Freeney. Even with the long path Mathis still got to the QB in about 3 seconds.

Note: Pay special attention to how Mathis gets up after crushing Flacco.

If these two had both been healthy and able to play in the playoffs the way they're playing now the Colts might have been unstoppable. You can be sure Billy Volek would still be in therapy for nightmares after getting demolished in our game against SD.

Remember in 2006 in the first round against KC when the Colts had a slim lead and these two just took over? The camera caught Herm Edwards mouthing on the sidelines, "We can't stop 'em." This 2008 version of the Colts is starting to feel like 2006 to me.

Ok. It's been almost an hour since the game ended and my heart has almost stopped racing. I had a feeling the Chargers would play the Colts tough this week, and they did. I just want to give out some props to some guys who made this win possible:

• Adam Vinatieri - Accounted for 11 of 23 points, including the long clutch game winner
• Peyton Mannin - If he keeps willing his team to victories how do you not give him the MVP?
• Melvin Bullitt - Played a great game in Bob Sander's absence. He was huge on several run stops and played pretty good in pass coverage too.
  
• Freddy Kiaho - 10 solo tackles including multiple tackles for loss of LT
• Anthony Gonzalez - 6 catches for 95 yards and a touchdown. He even had the good sense to drop a ball he would otherwise have fumbled ; )
• Chad Simpson - Averaged 24 yards per kick return and gave Peyton the ball in comfortable spots on the field.
• Hunter Smith - 3 punts, all downed inside the 20. Five successful holds for Vinatieri kicks.
• Robert Mathis - consistent pressure on Rivers, credited with 1.5 sacks. His forced fumble probably saved a TD and caused a HUGE momentum swing to start the second half.
• Tony Dungy and Tom Moore - They were all over the strategy in that 4th and 1" situation at the end. I question the run up the middle, but who am I to quibble with genius.
• Marvin Harrison - Speaking of 4th and 1", that was an incredible clutch catch by Marvin to convert that one and put the Colts in Vinatieri's range.
  
• Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes - Both had very solid games. Rhodes made that LB look silly on his TD catch.
• The O line - Opened up nice holes for the running game (Colts averaged a satisfactory 4 yards per carry). Withstood a furious Chargers pass rush.
  
• Jamey Richard - Took over for All Pro, Future Hall of Famer Jeff Saturday in a tight game with his QB at max intensity and didn't totally suck. It was obvious that they weren't as good without Saturday, but there were only a few plays where you really noticed him. In terms of good OL play, that's exactly what you want.

So farris6659's fanpost and associated discussion about the Colt's WR's got me interested in looking up a few statistics.

Through 10 games, here are the comparative stats for Harrison and Gonzalez:

Gonzo: 38 recs | 438 yds | 11.5 ypr | 2 td | 0 fum
Marvin: 30 recs | 357 yds | 11.1 ypr | 3 td | 1 fum

I couldn't find a downs played statistic (I've always wished I could find one, so if anyone knows where that can be found I'd really appreciate it), but I'll guess Gonzo is playing about 1/3 as many downs as Marvin.

A Marvin defender could argue that Gonzo is in mostly on the 3WR sets where they're more likely to pass while Marvin is also on the field for more running plays in the 2TE sets, so we'll adjust and say that Marvin is only playing 2x as many passing downs as Gonzo.

What's he doing with all those extra downs? Nothing. They're statistically even. From this perspective it appears that Marvin at this point in his career is half the receiver that Gonzo is.

For more stats, I checked out Football Outsiders info on WR's.
One I found particularly interesting was the catch%, or the percent of passes directed at the player that were actually caught by the player:
Gonzo: 72% of 53 passes -> 15 downs wasted on incompletions this year
Marvin: 47% of 64 passes -> 34 downs wasted on incompletions this year

So am I a Marvin Hater? Not exactly. He's made too many amazing plays for too long for that. I just think he's bringing down my favorite team and I wish it would stop. The obvious solution seems to be to give Gonzo a lot more playing time at Marvin's expense, salaries and seniority and hurt feelings be damned!

Also, after looking at the FO stats, I feel much more justified in my man crush on Gonzo.

By the way, if Gonzo has a girl over, do you think they still sleep in the high altitude tent? Does it have room for 2? If I ever meet him in person I think that's what I'll ask.

So this Sunday Joseph Addai and Mike Hart went down in a pretty short span, leaving the Colts with just Dominic Rhodes available at RB. I said to myself, "no problem for this game as long as Rhodes doesn't get hurt."

Today I got to thinking, "what if Indy still had Kenton Keith instead of Rhodes?" I would not have felt so good about my team's situation.

Then I had a scary thought: "what if the Colts had kept Dom last season?" I think they would have beaten San Diego. After that? SB repeat? Scary thought!