Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles (Post 79640)

o


Like Racehorse and Spike, I also alluded to the common opponent comparison in the game thread from last night.

Even though this is an obvious ultra-small sample size in regard to the Bengals 2 games against the Colts and the Ravens so far this season, I do believe that an Andrew Luck-quarterbacked team always has a "puncher's chance" to win any given game against any opponent ........ even if the rest of the team is average, or even below average.

It is similar to when the Colts had Peyton Manning between 1999 and 2010, and Bert Jones between 1975 and 1980.

The Colts won a bare minimum of 10 games for 11 out of 12 seasons between 1999 and 2010, and set the all-time record for the most consecutive 12-win seasons (7) between 2003 and 2009 with Manning behind center ........ and a good number of those teams were either average, slightly below average, or slightly above average outside of Manning.

With Bert Jones, the 1978 and 1979 Colts looked lost when he was sitting on the sidelines with an injured right shoulder, save for a historic upset of the Patriots on Monday Night Football in September of '78. When Bert was healthy again for a full season in 1980, he engineered the team to a 7-6 start after 13 games with a team that was considerably lesser that the 1975, 1976, and 1977 AFC East divisional champion teams. And Jones then proceeded to engineer a monumental 4th quarter comeback against the Bengals (from being down 31-6 to leading by a score of 33-31) in Week 14 before the referees robbed them of a win and an 8-6 record with an atrocious pass-interference call in the final seconds of said game.


Tom Brady is unquestionably an all-time great quarterback, but he never had the task of putting average teams on his back and taking them into title contention year in and year out, like Luck, Manning, and Jones did ........ it is somewhat reminiscent of the way that Wilt Chamberlain often did that in the early part of his career with the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors teams that he played for. Bill Russell won many more championships than did Chamberlain did (11 to 2), but he ALWAYS had a vastly superior team surrounding him, save for the 1966-67 and 1967-68 seasons when Wilt played for the Philadelphia 76ers.


o

Originally Posted by Puck (Post 79652)

Holy shit you actually posted a real post!!!! If you had left out the bullshit from the Baltimore Browns, I would have thanked it.

fuck Baltimore!!!!! They are not Colts!

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles (Post 79658)

o



The Baltimore Colts have nothing to do with the Browns. The current Ravens franchise are the relocated Browns, not the Colts (past or present.)


The Colts are officially one franchise spanning two cities, whether you like it or not.


Incidentally, Jim Irsay's favorite Colts team ever was the 1975 team, of which he held a reunion for in 2009. 39 of the 53 surviving members of that 1975 Colts team showed up at Lucas Oil Stadium for that reunion, including Bert Jones, Lydell Mitchell, Mike Curtis, John Dutton, and Fred Cook.


Any Colts fan can read all about it in the book below the reunion photograph.





Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell at the Lucas Oil Stadium Reunion, 2009.



http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j6...pszhecrtrj.jpg




The book which contains the article about the 2009 reunion of the 1975 team, in Indianapolis.



https://books.google.com/books/conte...fife=w200-h300


o

Originally Posted by njcoltfan (Post 79661)

What about the Raiders ???

Originally Posted by DrSpaceman (Post 79521)

I am surprised that there are no comments on this game.

I know that it's a dreaded Thursday nighter in which one really watches, but the Bengals looked great against the Ravens (especially in the first half.) They walked away with a 34-23 win after building a big halftime lead. AJ Green had three first-half (almost 3 first quarter) TD catches. The Ravens have a perennially good defense.

Does this change the perception at all of the Colts loss or performance 4 days before?

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles (Post 84726)

o


The Bengals won again today.

They stand atop the AFC North division with a record of 4-1 in this still young season.


o

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles (Post 84726)

o


The Bengals won again today.

They stand atop the AFC North division with a record of 4-1 in this still young season.


o

Originally Posted by Chromeburn (Post 84862)

Long way to go. Some of these teams will fall by the wayside. Although I don’t think the Bengals will be one of them.

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles (Post 84902)

o


Agreed, and that's why I pointed out that the season is still young.


I believe that the Colts are not out of the hunt for a playoff berth, even with their 1-4 record. In fact, one of the reasons why I would have preferred that they punt the ball from their own 43-yard-line with only 27 seconds left to play in overtime against the Texans was because I would much rather be 1-2-1 than 1-3 heading forward after that game. On numerous occasions since the advent of the 16-game schedule in 1978, a tie has been the difference between a playoff berth and sitting home, or the difference in getting a higher playoff seeding ....... and I expect that to happen more often in the foreseen future now that the regular-season overtime period has been cut from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.


The Colts could wind up going 9-7 or 10-6, or they could wind up going 6-10 or 5-11 ......... but at this point, I don't think that there is any way of knowing that, particularly with the defense having played as surprisingly well as they have in the first 5 games of the season.


o