Tag: Indianapolis Colts (Page 12 of 12)

What A Game

January 21, 2007 / DB

I’ve had to bust out the 22 oz. Fat Tire at 11:00 PM in order to wind down. Obviously, one of the best playoff games in recent memory, if for no other reason than it had something for everyone. The Patriots came out absolutely humming in the first half. Moving the ball easily. Pressuring Manning. A very Partiot-like fumbled recovery for a touchdown when five Colts had a shot at the ball. A big pick for a touchdown to, it seemed, bury the Colts before halftime. Manning looked shaky. The Colts D suddenly both couldn’t stop the run and was giving Pats receivers big holes to operate in. Then, the big second half Colts surge, followed by an epic fourth quarter of parrying, wrapping up with a career-defining drive for Peyton, a heart-attack inducing bobble by Reggie Wayne (I was yelling “Hold on to the ball!” as soon as he turned up field. I see these things, sometimes, especially with my man Reggie.), and finally a forced throw by Mr. January that Marlon Jackson grabbed to seal the game. “Tears in their eyes, I guess….” Oh, and Belichick looked like he came close to punching a few cameramen on his way off the field. Good times.

The sad part about the Colts winning is all the Patriots haters got their wish. I’m tired of the “I’m tired of the Patriots winning all the time” crowd. They’re NOT the Yankees. The Yankees lap the field in terms of salary. The Patriots operate under the same salary constraints each of their competitors must follow. They’ve won consistently by being smarter when it comes to drafting and chasing free agents than everyone else, by having a genius (albeit an asshole genius) for a coach, getting rid of anyone who doesn’t buy into the team concept, and lucking into Drew Bledsoe taking that brutal hit back in 2001, clearing the way for Tom Brady to take the reins. So maybe all the lazy sports columnists out there were tired of them, but they fail to understand how excellent the Pats really are. They may not match-up, in terms of talent, with the Steelers of the 70s, Niners of the 80s, or Cowboys (or even Bills) of the 90s, but what they’ve done may be more impressive given the changes in the game’s financial structure.

One more thing, the Colts’ win removes my jinx on NFL teams. In all the years I lived in Kansas City, the Chiefs were either horrible or choked away high seeds in the playoffs (1993 excepted, and the whole Joe Montana “era” kind of doesn’t count.). The year we lived in the Bay Area was the one year the 80s’ Niners got destroyed in the playoffs. Since moving here, the Colts have been dazzling in the regular season, but always played like patsies when it counted. I thought it was me. It was not.

The AFC game erased the memory of a pretty crappy NFC game. I love Reggie Bush, but dude has to learn about the Woof Gods. He clearly pissed them off by taunting Urlacher on his genius TD catch-and-run, and the Woof Gods responded. Suddenly Rex Grossman looked like Troy Aikman and Drew Brees looked like, well, the Rex Grossman we’ve been kicking around the blogosphere all season. Ugly game.

Seriously, the Colts are going to have to do a monumental gag job to lose to a team QBed by Rex Grossman. He was clearly light years beyond nervous for much of Sunday’s game. Trying to call back-to-back timeouts? Being surprised when the two-minute warning hits? If dude was rattled at home, on a sloppy track, how’s he going to be after two weeks of endless questioning (and thinking), on a fast track, against the Colts? The early line of Colts -7 is just a sign of respect for the Bears’ D. I think the Bears need to score at least twice on defense and special teams to win. Or send Tanya Harding to whack Bob Sanders on his knee the night before the game so he can’t play.

Oh, and if you were, like me, warming up for football with some futbol, you saw another epic game on Fox Soccer Channel. Utter delirium in North London as Arsenal score two late goals, including one in the final minute of stoppage time, to steal a win away from EPL leaders, and practitioners of pure evil, Manchester United. The noise generated by 60,000 fans as Thierry Henry headed in the winner was astounding.

A solid day, no matter what shape of ball you kick around.

Holiday Weekend Kickoff

December 20, 2004 / DB

I would imagine some of my regular readers will begin disappearing in the next few days for shopping and traveling in preparation for the holidays. Other more occasional visitors may stop in more often thanks to the free time the holidays provide. Happy holidays to all.

The big news in Indy today is the new stadium/convention plan which was officially announced this morning. If approved, a retractable roofed stadium will be built just south of the RCA Dome in time for the 2008 NFL season. The deal will satisfy the NCAA and keep the Final Four coming back every five years, will allegedly get at least one Super Bowl visit (I say one only, if any, as cold weather cities aren’t loved by the NFL), and keep the Colts in town for 30 years. I watched part of the mayor’s news conference today and was most impressed by the fact the agreement with the team has no outs in break the lease. Any sports fan knows teams can easily break leases anytime they want, but it does provide some measure of comfort and security to a city that is tenuously holding onto its franchise. In recent years I’ve become more and more wary of stadium deals that are primarily funded by the public. Several cities have built new stadiums entirely with private dollars, so I get frustrated when people automatically say it can’t be done. It most certainly can be done. The Irsay family is kicking in $100 million of the $500 M estimated cost, but also get back $48M for naming rights and lease elements at the RCA Dome they’ll be giving up. If they keep resigning players to ridiculous contracts, I suppose it will even out. Keeping the Colts here is a good thing, I think, and with the first generation of life-long Colts fans coming into adulthood with the ability to buy season tickets, hopefully a fancy new stadium with 20-25K more seats will be full on a more consistent basis than the current stadium has been in some years.

What’s this I hear about Johnson County making noises about building a new football stadium and luring the Chiefs across the state line? I think that’s delicious, just because it would set off a whole new round of cross-border nonsense. People ask me why Indianapolis has been able to do so many things in the last 15-20 years to improve downtown where KC has failed. The answer is simple: no state line dividing the population (and to a lesser extent, no river diving a municipality’s tax base either).

Like most fans of the mighty University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball team, I’ve begun my annual vigil for Wayne Simien’s health. He needs to be healthy in March, so I’ll gladly exchange a few games now to ensure he heals if that means he’s not dinged up in two months.

I discovered Saturday that M. really can’t relax when she’s trying to sleep on me during a game. Apparently I get pretty tense, which she senses. Shocking, I know. That was a downright pathetic performance by KU though, so I think it was understandable that I would be worked up. Did they all go out drinking before the game or something?

South Carolina in many ways is a poor man’s Oklahoma State, which caused me much worry. Thankfully the Pokes don’t come to Lawrence for awhile so there’s time to improve.

It is still difficult in some ways getting over the Roy Williams era and coming to terms with the Bill Self era at KU. Under Roy, if we fell behind by ten points, you always knew exactly what the team would do to try to respond, and see quickly whether they were going to be successful in coming back. Since Self does different things each game, I never have any idea if we’re going to be able to right the ship before it’s too late. It’s an unnerving feeling after 15 years of comfort. At the same time, I trust Bill a lot more to examine what’s going on in the course of a game and react with ways of attacking the other team rather than just running the same 12 plays over and over.

Speaking of horrible games, the first 25-30 minutes of the Indiana-Missouri game yesterday should be erased from all tapes and never viewed again. I’m not sure how many top 50 recruits were on the court, but I think the argument can be made that never has so much talent played so poorly. My Mizzou friends will appreciate the fact I kept my wife from calling any of you when IU got a 17 point lead. Her occasional interest in sporting events gets the best of her when her alma mater actually plays well. I reminded her of IU’s 18 point lead against MU a year ago and how that game ended up. Good old IU didn’t disappoint, did they? I was disappointed that Mike Davis showed some restraint and didn’t charge after the officials following the no-call on Bracey Wright’s last drive to the hoop. He did give the refs the Mike Davis Face, though.

Was Spencer Laurie in the game just to injure someone? That was a nasty elbow he threw at Bracey’s nose.

I think the announcer on the IU network had someone from MU/the Laurie family sitting next to him peeling off $50 bills each time he mentioned “beautiful new Mizzou Arena”. He literally called it beautiful each time he mentioned where it was being played. I don’t doubt it’s a good looking facility, but did he have to say that every time? Get a thesaurus and throw some other adjectives at us!

I worked on a number of posts over the weekend. If I survive the mall later today, I’ll try to get some more posted.

Tuesday Randoms

November 9, 2004 / DB

One thing I’ve learned in the year plus that I’ve lived in Indianapolis is the local hang-up seems to be outsiders confusing our fair burg with a similarly named ville in the northern Midwest. People here can get quite testy when Indy and Minneapolis are confused. So I imagine hackles were up around the city when ABC used Jesse Ventura to do the opening for last night’s Colts-Vikings game. Sure, Minnesota was involved, but the game was here. Couldn’t they have used Babyface, a Letterman look-alike, or another of the nearly dozen national celebrities who are from here?
Great game, by the way. Is it just me or isn’t there a something kind of cool about the sport turning into the game many of us played growing up? You play for two hours, have no idea what the score is, and after trying to count up TDs someone finally says, “OK, next score wins.” That’s really what the NFL has become. To sum up, I hate parity, but I like games that go to the last possession. Go figure.
I’ve scheduled my GRE. December 8 is the big day.
I’m no fan of Wal-Mart, as I’ve subtly mentioned from time-to-time. I’ve not read any of the thick tomes on why the company is evil, but have read some shorter works on the subject. Is it just me, or are more and more Wal-Mart commercials focused on what a great company they are, how they give to the less fortunate, etc. rather than price-slashing ads? Perhaps all the negative publicity is gaining momentum, not to mention competition from Target and Costco.
Long-time readers of the blog will recall my visit to Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA just about a year ago. In the last week, I’ve received two pieces of mail detailing ticket packages available for UCLA games this year. OK, I know being a college team in LA ain’t easy, between 1,000,000 things you can do other than go to a game and the notoriously front-running LA fans jumping off the bandwagon of a program that’s down a little. But do they really need to try to get people in Indiana who attended one exhibition game to buy tickets?
The Mighty University of Kansas Jayhawks are ranked #1 in the AP’s preseason college hoops poll. KU has not been ranked #1 to start the season since Wilt Chamberlain was strolling to classes in Strong Hall. How many women do you think Wilt had slept with by 1957, and how many do you think he slept with that year? Keep in mind, his rough estimate was 20,000 women by 1991.
Last three songs iTunes has spat out at me:
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” Elton John and Kiki Dee
“It’s Funky Enough” The D.O.C.
“She’s a Jar” Wilco

The NFL Is Stupid And Other Things

November 1, 2004 / DB

The NFL is stupid. I’m doubly glad I’m not a gambler, because I would have no idea how to bet on games this season. Jacksonville beats the Chiefs and Colts, then looks awful against Houston. The Falcons look like a bad high school team against the Chiefs, then destroy Denver. Minnesota looked like a Super Bowl team, then decide to get rolled by the Giants, who got rolled by the Lions last week. Those same Lions go lose to a Dallas team that appeared to be coming apart at the seems. Parity, parity, parity. Does anyone outside Philly have that much faith in the Eagles? I didn’t think so. It’s stupid. Something needs to be done to get us back to the days when there were more 12-4 and 2-14 teams than 8-8 teams. It’s just not that exciting.
While we’re on the topic of stupidity and the NFL, did the Colts run a bunch of I-AA guys out on defense yesterday? I think Priest Holmes got at least ten yards on every carry before he was touched, and Chiefs receivers could run textbook patterns all day because they were never covered. I thought the Chiefs’ defense was atrocious against Carolina earlier this year. What the Colts did yesterday was almost criminal. That said, if Peyton doesn’t overthrow Harrison when it was tied 7-7 and Marvin had two steps on the Chiefs’ d-backs, it’s a different game. I bet Bill Simmons was pleased that Manning threw another late INT that cost his team a chance to tie or win the game with a successful on-side kick.
I’m a little late to the party, but we watched Desperate Housewives over the weekend. Consider me hooked. Eva Longoria would once have been called “D material”. Maybe she still is, I don’t know. I don’t keep up with these things anymore. Compliments to whoever brought Terri Hatcher back from the dead, too. We’ll see if I continue watching and get around one of my TV pet-peeves. I hate it when networks put good shows on Sunday nights. I’ve never been able to consistently watch something on Sundays. I remember four years ago seeing ads for this new show called Ed. I thought, “That looks great,” but the fact it was on Sundays meant I would probably never see it. Sure enough, I saw my first episode only after NBC moved it to Wednesdays. Now that I’ve got a kid and spend pretty much every night on the couch may change my ways, though.
With the election coming up tomorrow, expect some political discussion over the next 48 hours here. I’ll be sharing my election predictions tomorrow. I have put together a mix of political music that’s dominating my iTunes. I’ll share that playlist later today. And I will be taking copious notes tomorrow night and posting those Wednesday. It’s the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, so I think the extra coverage is warranted. If you’re sick of it all, or just not interested, check back on Thursday.

The Basement Is Open

September 10, 2004 / DB

Yes, I pried open the door to the long neglected basement last night and fired up the big screen to watch the Colts-Patriots game. Things have changed a little since my last lengthy stay in our subterranean room for the UConn-Georgia Tech game. Back then, I could just disappear for the night without saying anything. Last night, I had to make sure I had my cell phone with me in case S. needed me quickly (and couldn’t run to the door and yell down at me, I guess). In case she couldn’t remember my cell phone number, I called the home phone from it before I headed downstairs to make sure the number was in the caller ID queue. Ain’t modern life grand?!?!

It was fine news to hear that the NFL is going to standardize Opening Night. From now on, it will occur the Thursday after Labor Day (Bravo!) and be played at the home stadium of the defending Super Bowl Champion. It makes so much sense that you know baseball would never do something like this. Nice work Mr. Tagliabue.

As for the game itself, everything was just so predictable. You knew the Colts would play inspired ball for about 55 of the 60 minutes. They’d bend, but not break, on defense. Peyton, Edgerrin, and Marvin would make enough plays to keep the Colts in the game late, but also make enough mistakes along the way to keep them from taking control of the game. Tom Brady would be steady all night, getting better as time wore down. And finally, the Colts would blow a chance late to win. Make that two chances to win and one chance to tie. How very Indianapolis Colts! All in all, an entertaining start to the season.

Can someone explain this Max Stats thing to me? I only saw it used once, and there was no real explanation of it. When Manning rifled a touchdown pass to Brandon Stokley, ABC showed the speed of the ball as 55 MPH. OK, makes perfect sense, I was with them so far. They also listed the “baseball equivalent” as 83 MPH. Huh? I mean, isn’t something either moving 55 miles per hour or it’s not? I never took physics, but perhaps the point was that the force it takes to hurl an object with the mass and shape of a football X MPH would propel the smaller, more aerodynamic baseball at Y MPH. Is distance factored in, too? How about wind speed, temperature, or relative humidity? If you’re going to compare, let’s be honest about it. Neither Al Michaels nor John Madden explained their methodology, or at least that I ever heard.

How about those Royals? They score 26 runs in the first game of a double header; get shut out in the nightcap. Sounds about right. Juntos podemos!

During commercials and halftime, I caught two other interesting things around the cable lineup. On the World Series of Poker, they had a feature on side bets these gambling freaks make. Everything from $10,000 for a vegetarian to eat a cheeseburger, to a man who bet a friend he couldn’t spend 30 days in Des Moines. The worst, by far, though was a man who was bet $100,000 he wouldn’t get breast implants. Naturally, he now has a pretty impressive rack. Whackos.
Over on VH1, I caught the second half of one of the new episodes of Bands Reunited, this edition focusing on The English Beat. A very entertaining look at one of the classic groups of 80s British music. “Save It For Later” anyone? “Mirror in the Bathroom” perhaps? 80s Trivia List members may recall that the Beat broke up and formed two other fine groups, General Public (“Tenderness”) and Fine Young Cannibals. Good stuff.

With that, I bid you a happy weekend.

Dome

August 18, 2003 / DB

As I mentioned Friday, I’ve never been in a domed stadium. Nor have I ever been to an NFL preseason game. In fact, I haven’t been to an NFL game period in nine years. Courtesy of a friend who fell into some free tickets, I was able to attend the Colts-Seahawks game at the RCA Dome Friday night. Since I was paying exactly $0 of the $55 face value of the tickets, I was more than happy to tag along.

First, a couple notes from the place we ate dinner near the dome. A little hole in the wall called the Hard Times Café. It was next to Houlihan’s, S. Murray’s favorite barbecue place, so I figured it had to be good. It was decent, if unspectacular. What was spectacular was the guy standing between our table and the bar. He was doing the stand on one leg, place the other foot up on a barstool lean thing. White polo shirt, navy blue Dockers, white socks, white boat shoes. I couldn’t take my eyes off this guy’s socks, they were driving me crazy. These were plain tube socks, not some fancy, wanna-be stylish Ralph Lauren white socks. This guy was about 55, clearly old enough, in my opinion, to know how to dress himself. I imagine if it had been about 20 degrees cooler, the Member’s Only jacket would have come out for the night too. The only thing that could distract me was the flag above his head. Yep, I’ve finally seen a Texas Tech – IU flag. You’ve seen those flags that are half KU, half K-State, or whatever two local rivals so that married couples that attended both schools can be cute and put them up. I’ve marveled at the number of Texas Tech shirts and hats available at Galyan’s here, but now I can say I’ve seen it all. As I told the guys I was eating with, you’ll never see me with a KU-UNC flag. They readily agreed it was idiotic, but they’re both Purdue alums so what else would they say?

On to the dome. I pretty much got knocked on my ass as soon as I walked in. They had the pregame music cranked to about 21, forget about 11. It was so loud that you couldn’t hear the person right next to you talking. Ridiculous. I was seated in the upper deck, five rows up, around the ten yard line. Not bad seats, but I’ll be damned if they we worth $55. That probably explains why they dome was maybe 1/3 full. It was a tiny, tiny crowd. I will give the people who showed up this, though: they were loud when they had a chance. Seattle had a third and short on their first possession, and people we as frenzied as if it was a playoff game. The 18,000 or so who were there made it loud enough to again make conversations difficult. I can only imagine how loud it gets in there when the place is full. In fact, I’m not sure I’m interested in finding out.

All night I wondered where I would have sat if I had come to the 1991 Final Four. I tried to imagine sitting in these same seats and trying to watch basketball instead of football. I decided it was wise of me to stay in Lawrence that weekend. The Colts defense looked decent, forcing some turnovers, the offense took advantage, and it was 14-0 Indy at halftime. We were then treated to a show by those wacky Frisbee chasing dogs. Always interesting to watch. I also got to watch Seneca Wallace get chased around the field. I was a little disappointed the Indy corners didn’t have better hands, otherwise Seneca might have tossed three picks before we left.

Since it was a preseason game, we did get in for free, and I had a 6:30 tee time the next morning, we ducked out at halftime. It was impressive to see Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison in action. I enjoyed being in a dome for a while. I also enjoyed the one Mellencamp song per quarter quota there appeared to be. There’s apparently no distancing from local idols here. All in all it was a nice way to spend the night, certainly better than over at Victory Field as the Indians played a double header that lasted until 3:00 AM (Is there no curfew in minor league ball?). But, unless I’m offered free tickets again, I believe I’ll be saving my money for when the Celtics, Magic, Bulls, or Sonics come to Conseco next winter.