(note: I've rerun the numbers in light of a mistake)

The Colts and Saints are both classic 'turf' teams, which brings to mind Tug McGraw's famous line.  When asked whether he preferred grass or astroturf, he replied, "I don't know. I've never smoked astroturf."

Because the Super Bowl will be played on grass, it makes sense to see how the two teams fared on grass fields.

This year, Indy played six five games on grass:  Miami, Arizona, Tennessee, Baltimore, Houston, and Jacksonville.

New Orleans played four meaningful games on grass:  Miami, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington.  They also played Carolina, but Drew Brees did not play that game, so I'm not counting it.

Here are the results (excluding all meaningless games for either team), the difference column is calibrated so that plus means the team was better on grass, minus means they were worse:

	PF	PA	Rush	Rush A	Pass	Pass A	TO	TO Forced
Colts (grass)	31.8	20	84	122.8	303.8	219.6	1.5	2.0
Colts (turf)	26.1	16.4	87.2	106.7	293.6	228.8	1.4	1.8
Difference	+5.7	-3.6	-3.2	-16.1	+10.2	+7.2	-0.1	+0.2
Saints (grass)	41.8	21.5	127.3	105.8	289.8	237	1.5	3.8
Saints (turf)	30.5	20.5	135.1	123.1	281.3	238.8	1.7	2.2
Difference	+10.3	-1.0	-7.8	+17.3	+8.5	+1.8	+0.2	+1.6

Observations:

• As you can see, the Saints are better on grass in almost every category.  Though it is important to note, their grass games were against Chad Henne, Kevin Kolb, Josh Freeman, and Jason Campbell. 
  
• The Colts rushed better on turf, but passed better on grass, scoring more on grass overall.  The Colts D also played better against the pass on grass
  
• Again, you see the Saints thrive on forcing turnovers.  They forced nearly 4 a game on grass, though note the quarterbacks involved.

Conclusion:

I'm not sure you can make much of a comparison between these teams, because the worst team the Colts played on grass finished 7-9, and three were above .500.  The Indy O regresses in terms of rushing yards, but not points on grass, but the Indy D is virtually the same on both, allowing identical yardage, but about a field goal a game more.  The Saints played four horrid QBs on grass, so their stats are obviously improved. Of the 8 categories, the Colts were better in 3, the Saints in 4, and the teams tied in one.

The bottom line is that unless the field is wet or poorly tended, I don't think the grass/turf factor will hurt either team.

When a reader wrote me today and begged me to rip on Gregg Williams for his comments about Peyton Manning, I initially declined.

Generally speaking, I find trash talk boring and felt that Williams' words must have been taken out of context.  Certainly, no one would be so stupid as to openly admit that he wanted his team to illegally hit the most high profile quarterback in football in the most watched game of the year.  Surely, only an idiot would do something so stupid.  No good strategist would alert the NFL and its officials that he was ordering his team to go after the league's top commodity and most visible player.

No, Gregg Williams couldn't possibly be that stupid.

I was wrong.

The more I read about William's further statements, the more obvious it becomes that he WAS trying to intimidate Manning by talking.  When asked if he was afraid his words might lead to penalties, he said,

"If it happens, it happens."

Whoa.

I'm astounded that this is all the Saints have to resort to.  Empty threats.  Williams has to know that he is tugging on Superman's cape at this point.  Manning has to be salivating over the opportunity to crack open Williams' defense and eat it for dinner next Sunday along with some nice fava beans.  Do teams really think they can intimidate the Colts at this point?  This team? The team that just got trashed talked for a week by the King of Trash and then bashed his team's head in on the way to the Super Bowl?

Williams is only provoking Manning, and nothing good can come of that.  The Colts are quiet assassins, and I don't think the Saints are prepared for what is about to come upon them.

I've felt weirdly confident about this game despite the fact that a lot of the stats point to an even matchup, but after reading everything Williams said, I'm sure now.

Indy is going to win this game.  The Saints are so scared, they think the only way to win is to intentionally injure Manning. Spin it however you want, that's what Williams is saying.  That kind of cowardice is contagious.  Come the first drive on Sunday, when the Saints don't lay a hand on Peyton, they'll know in their hearts that it is over.  He's no 40 year old corpse fighting for one more resurrection.  He's the freaking greatest quarterback ever dead in his prime, and he's going to eviscerate them.  Williams screwed his team over with this kind of talk.  They won't be able to breathe on Manning without a flag now.  Good luck beating him as the officials mark of 15 yards a pop...that's if the Colts O line even lets them touch him at all.

Bring it on Gregg Williams.

You are already beaten, and you don't even know it yet.

This is important, so it goes on the front page...

Everyone who thinks we whine about injuries too much, take note. Indy is 2nd in Adjusted Games Lost this season.  AGL measures games lost due to injury as well as the overall effect of nagging injuries that players play through.

Speaking of the Colts, it's pretty clear that the Polian Era consistently results in injury rates higher than the league average, likely owing to the team's strategy of fielding an undersized, quicker defense. Fortunately for Indy fans, the Polian Era also has given them a team that drafts better than virtually anyone else in football, so there's not the dropoff that often comes for other teams with injuries. Since 2000, the only time the Colts have had an AGL figure better than league-average is 2005, when they went 14-2 and had the best point differential of the Polian Era.

Indianapolis topped the defensive injury charts for the second time in three years, with five defensive backs, three linebackers, and both defensive ends missing at least two games.

No team has to consistently deal with the quantity and quality of injuries that the Colts face every year.

Yesterday, we looked at how the Colts and Saints offenses fared against common opponents.  Today we will examine how the defenses played against the Jets, Dolphins, Cardinals, Patriots and Rams.

Jets:

	Points	TDs	Pass	Rush	Turnovers	DPR	D/ST TDs
Colts	17	2	302	86	1	93.3	0
Saints	10	1	112	132	4	27.0	2

Dolphins:

	Points	TDs	Pass	Rush	Turnovers	DPR	D/ST TDs
Colts	23	2	164	239	1	68.1	0
Saints	34	4	197	137	3	46.8	2

Cardinals:

	Points	TDs	Pass	Rush	Turnovers	DPR	D/ST TDs
Colts	10	1	299	124	2	68.4	0
Saints	14	2	258	101	2	76.9	1

Rams:

	Points	TDs	Pass	Rush	Turnovers	DPR	D/ST TDs
Colts	6	0	117	155	2	37.3	1
Saints	23	3	293	141	1	93.5	1

Patriots:

	Points	TDs	Pass	Rush	Turnovers	DPR	D/ST TDs
Colts	34	4	364	113	2	110.7	0
Saints	17	2	244	122	3	55.8	0

Observations:

• The Saints defense THRIVES off of turnovers.  They forced 13 in these five games to the Colts' 8.  They also scored 6 TDs combined between the defense and the special teams.
• The Saints played Henne with the Dolphins; Indy faced Pennington.
• The Colts allowed more rushing yards in three of the five matchups.
• It's hard to judge the overall difference in pass defense.  The Saints fared better in three of five games, but whereas the Saints held down Brady and Sanchez, they struggled against Marc Bulger.
• Indy allowed fewer points in three of five games.

Conclusion:

It's tough to reach too many conclusions here.  The Colts did allow fewer points in several games, but the Saints forced far more turnovers and allowed fewer yards.  Other than Marc Bulger, none of the common quarterbacks had good games against the Saints.  What this really shows is how important it is for the Colts to protect the football in the Super Bowl.  If the Saints don't force turnovers and get non-offensive touchdowns, the Colts should be able to dictate action and win the game.  The Saints offense has to be relishing the chance to go up against the Colts run defense, but then again, that's been tried by other teams with little success.

I'm putting this link up on the front page because I think it is important.

The next time someone takes a pot shot at Tony Dungy or praises Larry Coyer too much, remind them that our D isn't that much better than it was before.

Sometimes the story simply writes itself. The Indianapolis Colts, long an offense-first team with a history of early playoff flame outs, make the Super Bowl after their new head coach jettisons the long-time defensive coordinator to bring in a more diverse and aggressive scheme. The players fill up reporters' notebooks with quotes about how they are finally attacking opposing defenses rather than passively playing their previous coach's antiquated Tampa-2. Thus, the defense must be better. The problem is that, objectively, the Colts defense under first-year coordinator Larry Coyer is no better than it has been in recent seasons

Again, though, this theory fails to survive objective examination. According to Football Outsiders' DVOA, the Colts defense under previous coordinator Ron Meeks had been "above average" in six of the seven playoff games it has played since 2005. The one exception was the loss to San Diego in the 2007 postseason, when Dwight Freeney was injured. This year, the Colts defense dominated the Baltimore Ravens, but it played a very bad first half against a mediocre New York Jets offense, leading to the second worst defensive performance by a Colts' defense in the playoffs since the 2005 season. Even their dominating performance against Baltimore in this year's divisional round does not have a single-game DVOA rating quite as high as the 2006 defense's domination of those same Ravens.

This conclusion is hard to reconcile with certain preconceived notions we have about the relative merit of variety. It seems self-evident that defensive variety is a virtue, leading to increased preparation time by opposing coaches and increasing the likelihood of confusing the opponent's quarterback. For instance, in 2002, after Dungy left the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that defense diversified its scheme a little bit and moved from very good to historically great. The Colts, however, have not improved despite the diversification.

The article goes on to point out that the Colts really haven't altered their core philolsophy radically.  In fact, I'd say what improvement there is stems from having better players than last year.  Though the Colts have struggled with secondary issues this year, Tim Jennings has mostly been relegated to the second or third corner.  Clint Session is a full year better as are the DTs. On top of everything else, McAfee has added touchbacks to the arsenal which greatly help the defense.

Better players not better coaching are what have made the difference this year.

It's hard to compare teams from different conferences, but this season the Colts and Saints both crossed with the AFC East, meaning we have a few data points on which we can compare the two teams.  Of course, the Colts tanked two of those AFC East games, so tighten things up slightly.  Let's look at how both teams fared against common opponents and see what we can learn.  For this exercise, I'm going to disregard the first Jets game and the Bills game for obvious reasons.  That means that both teams played the Jets, Dolphins, Patriots, Rams, and Cardinals.  Both teams won all five games.  Today we'll compare how the Saints and Colts offenses performed against common opponents, tomorrow we'll look at the defenses.

Colts and Saints Offenses

Jets (both at home):

	Points	TD	Turnovers	Pass Yards	Run Yards	Passer Rating
Colts	30	4	1	360	101	123.6
Saints	10	1	1	190	153	78.9

Dolphins (both on road):

	Points	TD	Turnovers	Pass Yards	Run Yards	Passer Rating
Colts	27	3	0	295	61	133.9
Saints	32	4	4	276	138	58.9

Patriots (both at home):

	Points	TD	Turnovers	Pass Yards	Run Yards	Passer Rating
Colts	35	5	2	316	91	97.4
Saints	38	5	1	367	122	158.3

Cardinals (Colts on road, Saints at home):

	Points	TD	Turnovers	Pass Yards	Run Yards	Passer Rating
Colts	31	4	1	379	126	130.5
Saints	38	5	0	247	171	125.4

Rams (both on road):

	Points	TD	Turnovers	Pass Yards	Run Yards	Passer Rating
Colts	35	5	0	235	156	116.7
Saints	21	3	3	217	203	89.1

Observations:

• This is a good sampling of games.  Four of the five teams were at least .500 on the season.  Each team faced one of these teams as a playoff game, and four of the five games were played with identical home/road splits.  This is as meaningful a comparison set as we could hope for from an interconference matchup.
  
• Indy scored 30 in 4 of 5 games.  They only didn't score 30 against the Dolphins, but that might have been the best offensive game of the year by any team.  The Saints hit 38 points twice, but had very poor games against the Jets and Rams.
• Manning out played Brees against four of the five opponents, but the Colts outscored the Saints in just two of the five matchups. Defensive and Special Teams touchdowns have been deducted.
• The Saints run offense is tremendous, out gaining the Colts in all five games by a minimum of 31 yards, usually out rushing the Colts by nearly 50 yards a game.
• I was surprised by Brees's relative lack of production and discovered that he had 15 of his league high 34 TD passes in just three games (6 against Det, 5 against NE, 4 against NYG).  In his other 13 games, he threw 19 TDs.

Conclusion:

The Saints and Colts both feature excellent offenses.  Manning had an edge on Brees more often than not, but the Saints more than made up for it with a potent run game. The X factor is clearly turnovers.  The Saints turned it over 9 times in these five games, and the Colts just 4.  Frankly, I find these numbers encouraging.  It's easy to think of the Saints as an unstoppable offense, but they have been stopped.  The Colts are less flashy, and perhaps less complete, but at least against these opponents, they were just as effective.

I want to follow up on this morning's post by noting how the Saints defense has performed against the best quarterbacks they've played.

The Saints faced off against five top flight QBs this season.  That is defined as passers with ratings above 90 for the season.  On the whole, 12 different QBs accomplished that feat.  Six of them faced the Saints, although McNabb did not play in the game.

	Comp	Att	Yards	TD	INT
E. Manning	14	30	178	1	1
Brady	21	36	237	0	2
Romo	22	34	312	1	0
Warner	17	26	205	0	1
Favre	28	46	310	1	2
	102	172	1242	3	6

It is easy to see that the Saints D has been great against the best quarterbacks in the league.  The combined rating of these 5 was just 72.9 against the Saints.  That's only slightly higher than their overall defensive passer rating against number of 68.6.

We can say a lot of things about the Saints, but they certainly had no trouble with the top quarterbacks in the game.

If you want to compare the Colts' performance against similar QBs here are the numbers:

	Comp	Att	Yards	TD	INT
Warner	30	52	332	1	2
Schaub	31	42	284	2	2
Schaub	32	43	311	1	2
Brady	29	42	375	3	1
	122	179	1302	7	7

That's good for a rating of 85.6 compared with their overall defensive passer rating of 80.6.

Observations:

• Both teams saw their DPR increase slightly.  The Saints were 4.3 points worse against elite passers; the Colts were 5 points worse.  Both are comparable.
• It's interesting that the Colts and Saints faced the same number of pass attempts from elite passers, despite the Saints playing five such games to the Colts' four.
• Surprisingly, the Colts picked off more passes and allowed more touchdowns.  I wouldn't have guessed either of those.
• The Colts played three games against QBs that just missed the cut for inclusion.  Ultimately, however, Joe Flacco and Kyle Orton don't deserve to be called elite QBs anyway, so I think the list settled in nicely.  All the QBs on this list clearly deserve to be there.

(Note: tip to Garrison for the post idea, and my apologies to Paul Kuharksy who mentioned last night that he's going to do a post with a similar theme later this week.  I swear I didn't steal the idea from you!)

Some reporters noted with awe that Peyton Manning watched three year old game film to prepare for last week's matchup against Rex Ryan.

That's nothing.  I'm betting he goes back ten years this time.

New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams has bounced around quite a bit over the past decade, but his first run in with Peyton Manning occurred in the 1999 playoffs.  Overall, he hasn't had a lot of success against Peyton Manning, but his first game against the Colts' quarterback falls high on list of Most Painful Losses.  Here's the full chart of the game where Manning took Gregg Williams on, either as a head coach or defensive coordinator.

	Year	Points	C	A	yards	TD	INT	W/L
Titans DC	1999	16 points	19	42	227	0	0	L
Bills HC	2001	42 points	23	29	421	4	2	W
Bills HC	2001	30 points	17	27	199	1	0	W
Bills HC	2003	17 points	26	42	229	0	0	W
Redskins DC	2006	36 points	25	35	342	4	0	W
Jags DC	2008	21 points	15	29	216	1	2	L
Jags DC	2008	24 points	29	34	364	3	0	W
Totals			154	238	1998	13	4	5-2

As you can see, Manning has played well against Williams designed defenses, posting a passer rating of 102.2.  Williams hasn't always had the most talented defenses, I suppose, but he's offered little resistance to Manning.  Peyton will be sure to watch tape of every game he's ever played against Williams, despite the fact that I'm not sure he wants to see Jerome Pathon and E.G. Green ever again.  I seriously doubt Williams will be able to do anything to surprise Manning.  The Saints are going to have to work on out executing the Colts offense.

Good luck with that.

The Saints defense is a middle of the pack kind of defense this season, ranking 14th overall in the FO rankings.  They are better against the pass (9th) than the run (29th).  Their ranking in conventional NFL stats is crazy low, but what matters is that they are 3rd in interceptions, 3rd in defensive passer rating, and have allowed the 5th fewest passing touchdowns.  The Saints have one dominant rusher (DE Will Smith who has 13 sacks). No other Saint has more than 5.5, but 12 different players have at least half a sack.  The Saints are clearly a team that relies on blitz pressure in order to get to the quarter back.  They also have 11 different players with at least one interception, though the key is Safety Darren Sharper who had 9 picks on the season.

Much like the matchup with Rex Ryan, Williams is going to have to work hard to disguise his blitzes and coverages in order to show Manning something he has never seen before.  Considering that this isn't Williams first trip to the Super Bowl, I seriously doubt he's going to be able to invent something completely new just for Manning. He's coached in too many big games and key spots in order to whip something out of his bag of tricks that he's been saving for this moment.  Whatever he had, he would have used last week against the Vikings or perhaps back in the 1999 Super Bowl against the Rams.

He's faced him plenty of times.  There is lots of tape to watch.

Gregg Williams is a known commodity to Peyton Manning.

Mad God have mercy on his soul.

I have to tell you, I'm glad last week is over.  I did not enjoy myself.

After dealing with an influx of crazy Jet fans who showed up just to make work for me (what?  You don't rank teams by yards?  Why not?), it's nice that I haven't been swarmed under by a load of Cajuns.  It's not that I don't want the traffic, I just hate the weird trash talking.

In fact, I doubt there will be very much of that at all between these two franchises. There's too much in common and too many deep ties.

To begin with, both teams are dome teams known for their offense.  So right off the bat, we can dispense with the stupid "my style is better than your style" crap.  The Colts and Saints are similar, but no one is going to do any mud slinging about how the other team's QB piles up stats.  Both cities are relatively small markets, that takes away the whole "you live in a corn field...yeah, well you live in a swamp" argument.

Most importantly, however, there are just too many deep ties between the players and the opposing cities.

The Saints QB is Drew Brees, who is something of an Indiana legend. He's the only player who ever made me root for Purdue.  Purdue fans revere Brees.  They also have a weird habit of rooting for ex-Purdue guys over the Colts.  It's just anecdotal, but Polian said on Sunday that:

This person said to me, "Well, there's a great affinity for the Dolphins going all that way back to Bob Griese (an Evansville native and Purdue All-American who led Miami to the 1972 and 1973 Super Bowl titles).

Demond swears he heard a West Lafayette guy saying that Purdue fans were torn on Sunday because of Keller (Jets TE who played at Purdue).  Our uncle passionately cheers for Curtis Painter to enter EVERY GAME.  Seriously, Purdue fans are weirdly loyal to ex-players.  The Brees thing goes deeper than just that for me, however.

First, Brees was the anti-Vick.  The Chargers took him with the first pick of the second round the year they traded the rights to Vick.  I always loved that move.  Now, Brees has become a referendum on Chargers GM A.J. Smith.  First, Smith wanted a new QB when Brees was with the team, basically because he didn't draft him.  So he tried to use the first pick on Eli Manning.  Papa Manning rightly figured that the Chargers already had a top flight QB they weren't developing, so he told the team to screw off.  Then Smith took Manning anyway, eventually trading him to the Giants for the rights to Phil Rivers.  Rivers held out, and Brees took the starting job away from him his rookie year and proceeded to become the elite QB he was always on his way to being.  Smith then let Brees go (he did have a gimpy shoulder which was obviously not serious in retrospect).  Now, Eli has already won a Super Bowl with the Giants, and Brees has taken the Saints to their first championship game, becoming the symbol of the city in the process.  Meanwhile in San Diego...cue the Phil Rivers face.  I always root for Brees as a way of expressing my disdain for Smith.

There are other Saints with Hoosier ties as well. Courtney Roby is an Indy native and ex-Hoosier who played one game for the Colts before getting cut (d'oh! we'd love to have him back).  Tracey Porter is a Hoosier as well.  There aren't that many Hoosiers in the NFL (what 9 or 10 total?), so for one team to have two is pretty sweet.

I think the love cuts both ways.  Louisiana has always been strongly behind the Colts since the arrival of Manning.  There's no need to retrace the importance of New Orleans to Peyton or the stature of his family there.  It's not just Peyton, though.  Reggie Wayne is from New Orleans as well.  Joe Addai went to LSU.  Heck, even Matt Stover went to Louisiana Tech.  The point is that some of the biggest names on the Colts have ties to New Orleans.  You get the feeling like fans of these two franchises have almost adopted the other team as their "other conference" team.  Because they rarely play, there is no natural animosity.  Each franchise affords fans of the other the chance to keep rooting for hometown guys guilt free.

So that being said, I say, "Welcome, People of New Orleans! I like your team.  I've pulled for you all along.  I have deep respect for your coach and QB.  I think you are a deserving foe, and take no offense when I say that I hope we blow you guys out of the building on Sunday."

Anything is better than another week of Jets fans.

The undercurrent has been brewing for a couple of years that Marvin Harrison was the problem with the Colts' offense in the postseason.

Yesterday, Reggie Wayne showed just how ridiculous that notion is.

When asked about Garcon and Collie, Manning was quick to praise his veteran #1 Reggie Wayne.  Wayne, only had 3 catches for 55 yards, yet garnered a lot of kudos from Manning.  In the first game, Wayne caught 8 passes, but for only 63 yards.  The reason Manning cited Wayne is that he knows that a WR can't be measured just by his catches.  In the postseason, #1 WRs often get taken away.  Check all of Randy Moss's great games in the playoffs.  There aren't any.  A wideout, unlike other players, is dependent on several different players just to get a catch attempt.  He can't make anything happen on his own until the QB has time to throw to him and makes that choice.  A wideout can beat his man every play and never see the ball.  Hence, Manning heaped praise on Wayne for helping to make 100 yard games by Collie and Garcon possible.

When discussing Marvin Harrison, it's important to realize that there were four phases to his postseason career, and each was very different.

1996:  Indy plays in Pittsburgh.  Harrison is just a rookie, but is already the Colts' top receiver.  He catches 3 passes for 71 yards in a 41-14 loss.  It's hard to complain about that production

1999, 2000, 2002:  This is the Harrison IS the offense era.  How bad were the Colts other receivers?  Terrance Wilkens was the #2 in 1999.  Teams knew that if they clamped down on Marv, that Manning had nowhere else to go with the ball.  Harrison had 5 catches for 65, 5 for 63 and 4 for 47.  Those numbers are dead on similar to the kinds of game Reggie Wayne had yesterday. The problem was that there was no Pierre Garcon to catch 11 passes or Austin Collie to toss in a spare 100 yards.  Harrison was the leading receiver for the Colts in 3 of his first 4 playoff games. Jerome "I dropped a key TD pass" Pathon out-gained him 6 yards in the Miami game.  It's hard to fault Harrison when he was still the most productive Colt WR on the field.

2003-2006:  Now we've moved into the phase where the Colts had two legit wideouts (three actually for three years).  Harrison's numbers were pedestrian, but the Colts actually went 7-3 in the playoffs in this stretch and won a Super bowl.  Marvin continued to absorb the double coverage even as Reggie Wayne broke out for big games.  During this stretch Marv averaged 4 catches for 59 yards a game.  Again, sound familiar? Go back and watch the tape of the Super Bowl.  Harrison didn't have a huge game, but he did make several key first down catches.  Manning tried to force a pick into him early in the game, but the safety had him doubled.  That was how teams played the Colts.  It didn't matter overall, because Indy had enough weapons to over come it.  Harrison basically had the same game win or lose. Harrison took the double coverage so Wayne could have huge games.

2007-2008:  These games were ugly.  Marv should not have played in the 2007 game, and his fumble legitimately cost Indy the win.  By the fourth quarter of the 2008 game, Harrison was effectively done as an NFL wideout.  Manning threw him one comeback pass in the fourth quarter that comes to mind.  Harrison failed to attack it, sitting passively while the DB cut in front and swatted it down.  I won't argue with anyone who claims Harrison weighed things down in these two games.  Even so, the Colts offense was not the problem in the first loss to San Diego, so it's hard to kill Harrison too much.

Saying that Marvin Harrison was hurting the Colts in the playoffs is about like saying that Reggie Wayne has hurt them this year and that Pierre Garcon has clearly passed him as the Colts best wide out.  Such statements ignore the way football is played and place the blame on wideouts for things they have no control over.  Manning doesn't throw to double covered men, instead favoring single coverage when possible.  Harrison spent his entire career with Manning getting the double coverage.  Now that he's gone, Wayne is getting it.  Harrison's struggles early had more to do with the Colts being an incomplete team.  His struggles late were due to his health.  While he was healthy and the Colts had other options, his stats were low, but the team won lots of playoff games.

As long as Manning has somewhere else to go with the ball, the Colts will keep winning in January and February.