So, the Colts are back to being the Colts.... or, as our columnist put it yesterday, we are the Atlanta Braves of the NFL: wonderfully consistent, except when it really matters, when we pretty much do the opposite of what we've done the rest of the year...
That being said, give credit to SD for playing a great and gutty game, and now Mr. Red Face (aka Norv Turner) gets to go get his arse handed to him by the Pats.
As a Colts fan, I'm actually glad the Chargers beat them this week and saved us the embarassment of going to NE where we would have fallen apart (again). With the [lack of] pass rush we generated on Sunday, Brady probably would have gone 36 of 39 for 523 yards against us on Sunday. We totally forgot how to run the ball, and if Vincent Jackson could just jump over the top of our defenders like that all day long, what would Randy Moss have done?
I was on record saying that I didn't think the Colts would collapse against NE this year, and that I thought they were a more rounded, better prepared and just plain better team this year than they ever had been.... and yet here we sit again with another playoff flameout, and on the verge of the end of the Dungy era.
I'm going to miss Coach Dungy as a coach and as an influence in the city, but I really think his heart is just not in it anymore, and given his track record of underperformance in the playoffs (last year's aberration notwithstanding), I'm not sure his leaving is the worst thing for the team anyway.
It is strange, though, how that one SB win seems to ease the pain of this loss.... I don't feel anything like I did after the loss to Pittsburgh a couple years ago - I just watched the IU basketball game and went on with life after it was over....