NFL WEEK 11 – COLTS vs. RAVENS
“If you spend your life walking along the edge of a cliff,” said the teacher to the student, “one day you will surely fall over.”
So you have to wonder a bit about the Colts, who have pretty much locked up the AFC South but danced away from defeat for three straight weeks and now find themselves undefeated (9-0) heading into late November.
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Time: Sunday 1:05 ET
Venue: M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore
MoneyLine: Colts +110 (-110) / Ravens -130 (-110)
Opening Spread: PK
Over/Under: 44
Assuming Peyton Manning does not visit a hospital emergency room any time soon, Indy will almost certainly have a first-round bye in the playoffs, and probably home-field advantage all the way to the Super Bowl.
Like the Patriots of 2007, these Colts will soon have to answer the question of how hard they want to push for the perfect season. Is trumping the Pats’ 17-0 season (which ended with the Super Bowl loss to the Giants) worth the physical and mental wear and tear it might take in the final seven games, starting with Sunday at Baltimore? It’s likely that what little suspense remains in the AFC South will be over by Dec. 1, which means the Colts will go over a month before the playoffs start and they have to play another meaningful game.
There are a few doubters. Until the Colts came back and defeated New England, 35-34, Sunday night, Indy had exactly one victory over a team which was over .500 at the time they played. In the last three games – all at home – Indy had outscored its opponents by a grand total of 8 points. And the Colts have had to score late in all three games (NE, Houston and San Francisco) to win. That’s not even counting the Miami game earlier in the season, which the Dolphins dominated everywhere but on the scoreboard.
But 9-0 is 9-0, and now Peyton Manning and the boys have to suck it up on the road against the schizophrenic Ravens, who are dealing with their own issues. Unlike the Colts, until last week the Ravens had been forced to deal with a difficult schedule, and the results weren’t pretty. Losing four of five in a stretch of games against New England, Minnesota, Denver and AFC North leader Cincinnati just about ended any chance of winning the AFC North, and the Ravens enter Sunday’s game one of a half-dozen AFC teams that will spend the rest of the season scratching for a playoff berth.
Unlike New England, which in the last several years has been afraid to bring pressure against Manning, the Ravens have no problem trying to collapse the pocket when they play the Colts. Problem is, though, their best pass rusher is Terrell Suggs, and won’t be suiting up on Sunday, courtesy of a knee sprain suffered by that cheap shot by Cleveland’s Brady Quinn last Monday night.
The Ravens opened as a 1-point favorite before the public bet it down to a pick ‘em, and if they have an on-field advantage, it’s Indy’s puzzling inability to generate any kind of a running game. The Colts are 29th in the league in moving the ball on the ground, an amazing statistic considering that opponents must drop linebackers into coverage on most every play.
Another walk on the edge of the cliff on Sunday, and the Colts might pay a price.
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Lawrence Paul is a regular contributor to the Cappers Picks Blog, and is a free-lance gambling and travel expert from Massachusetts.
