Colts have a new weapon: defence

Ron Borges

• Last Updated: November 03. 2009 7:52PM UAE / November 3. 2009 3:52PM GMT

Peyton Manning has been so dominant for so long it is difficult to think of another reason why the Indianapolis Colts are one of two remaining undefeated teams in the NFL and have won 16 consecutive regular season games, the fourth longest regular-season winning streak in NFL history. But this year there is.

Can the Colts play defence too, you ask? Well, as a matter of fact they can. In fact, they are doing it better than any team in the NFL at the moment and that is a large part of the reason they are 7-0 going into Sunday’s AFC South showdown with the upstart Houston Texans.

Certainly one cannot minimise all Manning does. He is one of the most prolific passers in NFL history and is on pace to break Dan Marino’s 25-year old record for passing yardage in a season if he can maintain what is now a 318.1 yards per game average.

That would yield 5,088 passing yards by the end of the campaign, surpassing Marino’s 5,084, but perhaps more important considering how much a part of the Colts’ offence the passing game is, he is also threatening the completion record of 70.6 per cent set by Cincinnati’s Ken Anderson in the strike-shortened nine-game 1982 season.

At the moment Manning has completed 71.1 per cent of his throws for 2,227 yards, 15 touchdowns and only four interceptions. His success over the four games prior to Sunday’s 18-14 win over the San Francisco 49ers led to combined half-time leads of 84-18, which many people said explained the Colts’ success.

But Sunday changed all that because this time the Colts trailed at the half, 14-9, after which the 49ers were shut out by a defence that is now the stingiest in the NFL, allowing only 13 points a game (91 for the season).

“The bottom line is can you keep them out of the end zone?” said the Colts’ rookie head coach Jim Caldwell, who has the hottest start of any first-year coach in NFL history.

That defence is anchored by two of the best pass rushers in the game, the Pro Bowl defensive ends Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. On Sunday they stopped the 49ers cold on back-to-back drives with third down sacks at a time when the outcome was still in doubt. After that, it really wasn’t because it was clear the 49ers’ offence was finished for the day, something you can never say about Manning’s.

“We want to be out there making big plays when it counts’’ said Freeney, who is second in the AFC with eight sacks. The Colts’ defence, which also includes the game-changing Pro Bowl safety Bob Sanders, has produced 20 sacks and 11 turnovers despite using seven different starting line-ups because of injuries. “It’s not one guy,’’ the middle linebacker Gary Brackett said. “It’s been all across the board.’’

While it is true that everything still begins and ends with Manning, the difference this year is that all the responsibility for winning no longer falls on the offence, which is averaging 26.6 points per game while the defence is allowing less than half that. It is a powerful combination, one that has the Colts leading the AFC race for home field advantage in the play-offs, which for an indoor playing dome team like the Colts is crucial because teams that live by the pass tend to die by it in January when the weather turns cold and wet outside. That is where the defence comes in.

“We’ve been overpowering teams the past few weeks so to beat the 49ers the way we did was good,” said the Colts linebacker Clint Session.

The heart of the Colts may still be Peyton Manning, but there is a lot of soul in Indianapolis this year too, and it is playing defence.

sports@thenational.ae