Colts vs Bucs -- Halftime Report

[Andy]

I always post this on my website, so I'll start posting here now:

Colts 10 vs Buccaneers 7 -- Halftime

First off, I just want to say that I hope Eric Foster is alright. He suffered a very painful injury to his ankle/foot area, that reminded me of the Joe Theisman/Lawrence Taylor incident in the 80's. Now let's get to the game:

The Colts played great early, but slowly started dying, especially on defense. Curtis Painter has looked good. The O-line has suffered some injuries to Castonzo and Linkenbach, therefore making the protection bad. The Bucs kept constantly pressuring Painter, but he came through on some throws, especially the Pierre Garcon throw. He made a beautiful read, and made Ronde Barber bit and Garcon got an 87 yard touchdown. Peyton Manning's longest TD was 86 yards, and Painter's was 87. He's done better than Manning in something. The running game started off very good, especially Joseph Addai, but it somewhat died late. The rushing attacked combined for 45 yards on 14 carries (3.2 ypg). Dallas Clark has also made a couple of good catches, but Pierre Garcon has been the story. Drops a catch early, but retaliates with the 87 yard TD.

The defense looked very good early, but the Bucs found the Colts weakness: the 5 yard passes to the middle. They also beat us on the deep bomb, and they nearly got a TD, but it was overturned by a penalty. We've been lucky with the Tampa Bay Bucs' penalties, or this game could have gotten ugly. LaGarrette Blount has made some big runs, but Pat Angerer has stopped him several times. The Pass defense has been horrible. They beat us consistently on the 5 yard passes. They actually got 3 straight passes by doing the exact same thing: pass it to Earnest Graham at about 5 yards and let him get 3 extra yards. They also beat us on big plays to Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn. Something needs to change. The pressure has been okay, Freeney has been okay, and Mathis has one sack. The real story is Drake Nevis, who is playing great, and has provided great pressure throughout the first half.

The special teams has been good. Pat McAfee having another good game, and Adam Vinatieri is 1 for 1 nailing a 45 yard field goal.

The team has played well overall, but they need to step it up in the 2nd half to win. The Bucs have the momentum, so we need to take it back. LET'S GO COLTS!

[DILLIGAFER]

Sounds about right. Hopefully they can make some moves in the second half.