Week 10 Preview

Patriots (6-2) @ Colts (8-0)

AND HERE…WE…GO…! Biggest game of the NFL season. Battle between two perennial heavy weight power house teams, the two best teams of the decade. This rivalry has been absolutely epic in every way, probably the most intense rivalry of the decade. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are the two best QBs of the decade, leading the two winningest franchises of the decade. Both teams are the only NFL teams that have a .700 win percentage this decade. Brady and Manning have won the last two NFL MVP awards, and they combined for 4 super bowl championships in the decade. The best part about Brady and Manning is the poise, and class these guys present and the respect they have for each other. This rivalry has some crazy history, and this game is on Sunday night. IT DOESN’T GET BETTER THAN THIS. I couldn’t watch ESPN for more than 2 minutes at any point this week without seeing some sort of Pats Colts coverage, Brady/Manning interviews, ect. It is going to be an electric atmosphere in Indianapolis; I wouldn’t miss this game for anything.

The Pats and Colts have met 11 times (including playoffs) since the Tom Brady era began midway through the year in 2001. All 11 of these games were great and intense games. 3 of the 4 times these teams combined to win the super bowl, they had to go through the other team to get there. The Patriots always seemed to have the Colts number, but the Colts have had the edge in the rivalry recently. The first game on this list was Tom Brady’s first game as a full time starter. Here is a list of the meetings since ’01: (Playoff meetings are marked with an asterisk)

New England leads 7-4
Nov 2, 2008	NWE 15, IND 18
Nov 4, 2007	NWE 24, IND 20
Jan 21, 2007	NWE 34, IND 38*
Nov 5, 2006	NWE 20, @IND 27
Nov 7, 2005	NWE 21, @IND 40
Jan 16, 2005	NWE 20, @IND 3*
Sep 9, 2004	NWE 27, @IND 24
Jan 18, 2004	NWE 24, @IND 14*
Nov 30, 2003	NWE 38, IND 34
Oct 21, 2001	NWE 38, IND 17
Sep 30, 2001	NWE 44, @IND 13

Brady and Manning are two of the sharpest, smartest and most talented QBs of all time. However not just the QBs will dictate the outcome of the game. Here are the keys to the game for a Pats victory.

KEYS TO THE GAME

EXPOSE COLTS SECONDARY

The Colts secondary is banged up. Safety Bob Sanders, who is always injured, is injured again and will not play for the rest of the season. They are missing two cornerbacks also. The Colts will have to deal with it, since the Patriots secondary always had more injuries than that and they still got by. The Patriots need to spread the field AND throw some short passes to the Slot Machine, as well as screens. They need to attack that inexperienced secondary. Even though the Colts DB’s are inexperienced though, they are NOT by any means poor defenders. The Patriots are second in the NFL in points allowed per game, but the Colts are ranked first.

STICK ‘EM!

Bring back the old times. We have the defensive personnel to hit people in the mouth again. We have hard hitting safeties, big time linebackers and an aggressive defensive line that want to attack. The old, slow defense of the past for New England is gone. We need to physically beat the Colts to win this game. If we physically beat them, they have NO shot at all to win this. They have Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark who are tremendous threats, but cover them well and smack them and the other guys on every play.

SHUT DOWN THE RUN

The Colts have been terrible running the ball in the past few games. They won the last 2 games by a total of 7 points against average teams (San Francisco, Houston). The Colts have only scored a total of 38 points against those two teams. The 49ers stopped Peyton Manning from throwing a touchdown pass in that game, but unfortunately gave them too much of an edge on the run. The Patriots seemingly had a hard time stopping the run in their losses to the Colts this decade. Shut down the run and take away some options for the Colts offense.

BLOCK THE D-ENDS

Just because the Colts secondary is banged up, don’t think their entire defense is. The Colts still have great defensive ends in Dwight Freeney (BLOOMFIELD!) and Robert Mathis. Both these guys are crazy, speed pass rushers that can not only get to Brady, but force some sacks and fumbles. These guys have to be shut down or else they may be able to land a big play that could change a game like this.

This is going to be a hell of a game. The Patriots are arguably playing better football now, but they have been playing against weaker competition. The Colts have not played a team anywhere near as talented as New England this season. I always used to hate Peyton Manning, but after a decade of rivalry and non-stop winning from both franchises, I am enjoying my first year of folding over and respecting him for being and unbelievable QB. If the Patriots can stay focused and play the way they are capable of, I really believe they are the best team in the NFL this year. Go into Indy and get the job done. I am saying 34-27 Pats over Colts. LETS GO!

NFL Lines For Week 10

11/15 - 11/16, 2009
PICKS IN BOLD

Date & Time	Favorite	Line	Underdog
11/15 1:00 ET	At NY Jets	-7	Jacksonville
11/15 1:00 ET	Denver	-3.5	At Washington
11/15 1:00 ET	At Pittsburgh	-7	Cincinnati
11/15 1:00 ET	At Tennessee	-7	Buffalo
11/15 1:00 ET	At Minnesota	-17	Detroit
11/15 1:00 ET	New Orleans	-14	At St. Louis
11/15 1:00 ET	Atlanta	-1.5	At Carolina
11/15 1:00 ET	At Miami	-10	Tampa Bay
11/15 4:05 ET	At Oakland	-2	Kansas City
11/15 4:15 ET	At Arizona	-8.5	Seattle
11/15 4:15 ET	At San Diego	-1	Philadelphia
11/15 4:15 ET	Dallas	-3	At Green Bay
11/15 8:20 ET	At Indianapolis	-3	New England

Monday Night Football Line

11/16 8:35 ET

Baltimore

-11

At Cleveland

Bye Weeks: Houston, NY Giants
Last Week: 6-7

Brady, Moss outlast Dolphins in Gillette

Dolphins, 17 @ Patriots, 27

Good game today by both teams. The Dolphins took a little longer than I had expected to get going on the Wildcat but it was effective on that first drive, and after that the Pats did a pretty good job containing it. Moss erupted with a huge game, and Brady looked very poised and probably the most comfortable I have seen him all season. He finished 25/37 for 332, 1 TD and 1 int. He passed Drew Bledsoe for most 300 yard games in New England franchise history.

Moss finished with 6 catches for 147 yards and that awesome 71 yard TD catch where he stiff armed Vontae Davis and took it the rest of the way. This was following the ridiculous highlight 1 handed catch on the fade down the sidelines, setting up Maroney for the 1 yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Maroney also ran hard, breaking some big runs, which is an excellent sign for the Pats. I also noticed that the defense looked very good again. The corners, Butler, Springs, and Bodden looked really good in coverage. The safeties Meriweather, and rookie Pat Chung delivered some awesome hits all game. Chung took down Henne for a big sack in one of the best blitzes I have seen all season, and he also lit up Henne again real bad, but got flagged and will probably see a fine for leading with his helmet.

Keys to the game:

STOP THE WILDCAT

Other than those two long touchdown drives Miami had they weren’t able to get much going. The front 7 did a nice job stopping the run. Pat White was actually more effective than I thought he would be because he is really quick and tough to tackle. It is a good thing for opponents that he sucks at passing. Miami finished with just 201 yards passing, a lot of which game on that meaningless last drive. Goes to show you the Pats secondary has improved a lot. Also goes to show you that the Dolphins don’t have many good receivers to work with in addition to their running game.

SHUT UP PORTER

Porter should keep his mouth shut from now on. First of all, don’t give the Patriots any bulletin board material, and secondly, if you can’t even make a tackle, you might want to keep your mouth shut. As I said before, Porter can only rush the passer. Vollmer and the rest of the oline kept him away from Brady all game. The only stat Porter put up was 1 QB hit. 0 tackles, 0 sacks, 0 forced fumbles, 0 pass deflections.

PLAY EVERY PLAY

I thought New England did a great job today on special teams kicking it away from Ginn. Actually Gostkowski was awesome booting the ball out of the ball of the end zone on most of the kickoffs. The offense was very efficient, not allowing a punt return for the Dolphins. Ginn is much more of a weapon on special teams and they executed well taking him out of the game.