Peter King takes is easy on us, and he's right that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we lost to an 11-0 division rival on the raod. I'm not going to kill our guys for that, but it's the hole we're in, and it still sucks losing to the most boring franchise in NFL history. Watching the Colts go 16-1 will be almost as good as the Pats going 18-1.
There would be no miracles or marches this time, as the Colts executed their game plan to perfection on both sides of the ball yesterday... which may be the best indicator of all that it's still the regular season.
For all of the people who made dumb mistakes that cost us that game (Brown, Washington, Fisher, etc.), you certainly can't complain about the job Cortland Finnegan did. He held Reddie Wayne to 4 catches for 44 yards and blanketed one of the league's most polished receivers all day.
Follow us through the jump for more cheapshots as I work through a combination of bile and disdain...
The Colts straight baited Tony Brown just before the half, obviously worrying that they couldn't get into field goal range without tripping over their own dresses on their own merits, but Brown still has to know when to back downand recognize that they're playing him for the retaliation penalty.
Nate Washington KILLED us in the first quarter with that drop: good teams don't let those opportunities slip away during a playoff run. This team is built to play from ahead, and 7 easy points right there keeps it even...
David Climer complains about the FGs, but in all honesty, if we make both FGs the two times we go for it on fourth down, we'd have been in a one possession game during that on-side kick.
Don Banks says we didn't capitalize on our chances (after incorrectly stating that VY had two INTs).
MJD asks a good question: where did the option go? Anyone else feeling like the play calling has been much more generic and predictable over the past few weeks? Does 'Dinger feel like he used up his bullets already? If he still had some left, these last two games were the time to use them...
Bonus Analysis: So for all of those linked articles diagnosing what went wrong, how come none of them point out the terrible D-line play much at all? Tony Brown was the only lineman we had to got penetration all day... when you take away a 100% Jason Jones and Jacob Ford this unit looks real mediocre real quick.