Rightward Coffee Buzz: playoffs

This AFC championship game was historic...on many levels..

Colts head coach Tony Dungy reacts with the fans after the win. - Sam Riche /The Star

The Colts pulled off the biggest comeback in NFL playoff history.

Not just the first Black head coach in the super bowl...but the first TWO!!.

The Colts played in Super Bowl Five, in 1971, when they were the Baltimore Colts.

The shocking, dismal performance of the Colts in the first quarter turned into a breath-taking heart-stopping gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride for the next forty five minutes of regulation! At score 14-3, (after about five minutes into the second quarter) I started thinking "rout." When Asante intercepted and returned for a touchdown, 21-3, (one minute later) I seriously wondered if I didn't have something else to do. Peyton responded with a good drive, but it ended with a three point Vinatieri kick. 21 - 6 and no sign that the defense was going to show up...Thank goodness my daughter, the Patriots fan, called to offer condolences, or taunts? I reminded her (and me) that the third quarter is always the Colts best 15 minutes of the game. Having re-committed to the game, I hung in for the assumed relentless Brady bunch slaughter of the hapless playoff Colts. when the score was 28 - 28, I finally was able to ask Lady Espresso if it was okay to start hoping again...
Finally, I'm breathing normally again, and my heart beat is skipping no longer. The funny thing is...my daughter is not answering her phone at this time. I'm sure she's just studying!!!

It took a special second-half comeback and a two-minute drive, but Peyton Manning and the Colts are going to the Super Bowl.
Stepping over recent history, a hated nemesis and an inept first half, Manning and the Colts dispatched the New England Patriots 38-34 in the first AFC Championship Game to be held in Indianapolis. It will be the Colts’ first Super Bowl trip since the team moved here in 1984.

This AP account from WISH_TV describes the scene, but not the nail-biting, white-knuckled panic...

It was anything but by-the-book, and that started becoming obvious when New England left guard Logan Mankins opened the scoring by pouncing on a fumbled handoff between Brady and Laurence Maroney that squirted into the Indy end zone midway through the first quarter.
It got worse from there for Manning, who telegraphed a throw to the sideline that Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel snatched and took 39 yards into the end zone for a 21-3 lead.
From there, the gameplan changed because it had to, and the game morphed from another Manning meltdown into something much more than that.

And this from Channel 13
shows one of the many reasons Indy loves Coach Dungy...

"I think the Lord just set this up. He's been testing us all year. We've had to hang in there and hang together and stay and keep the faith and this was the biggest test today but we did it."

The Houston Chronicle says
...

The Colts are the early favorites to beat the NFC champion Bears in the Super Bowl, by a touchdown.
Sunday's game was a show for the ages, and Manning was the star. He threw for 349 yards and one touchdown and brought his team back from a 21-3 deficit, the biggest comeback in conference title-game history.

It was a great and momentous (that word is appropriate in Indianapolis!) football game. My hardiest congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts!!

Lady Espresso accompanied me the night before the AFC Championship game on a chilly tour around Indianapolis. The news has been showing images of downtown buildings dressing up the town for our Colts. We thought we'd like to share them with visitors to our sites. Between the photos, I've inserted a bunch of news articles and some TV news video spots. There are two photos on this page that are not mine, should be easy enough to figure that out. Any correlation between photos and text is purely coincidental! Enjoy!!

The best news channel video I can find describing Indy's experience is here , from WTHR-13.

This is us making nice to east-coasters...and them making nice to mid-westerners...

Hundreds of Patriots fans are already in town to make a weekend of the game.

...Our local retailers and restaurant/ catering/take out businesses are happy to see them...

So welcome Patriots but go Colts all the way to the Miami. Even our east coast visitors wish us luck.
"We hope to win, but if we don't win, I'll be cheering for the Colts and Adam Vinatieri at the Superbowl," said a Patriots fan.

There is so much drama and emotion riding on this game. It's in the air around here. I can only speak for myself, but I don't think I'm alone when I say I tried, I really tried to stay out of Colts football this year. You can only allow your heart to be broken so many times by the same perpetrators, right?? It's always been this way with the Colts though. It was easier in the 80's when they were three and thirteen, for Pete's sake.
But we're HERE now...we're right THERE now...There's just a sense that it's now or...darn it, OR IT'S NOT. OK. The Colts will suck me in around game four or seven or whenever next year, just as they have been since they've been in Indy.
Ya know what? I'm damn glad to have Peyton and Tony and Marvin, Anthony, Bob, and Dallas everybody else on this team in Indianapolis!! They are a bunch of great individuals - as well as a great NFL team. For a gazillion different reasons, we want them to beat their nemesis, the Patriots.
Anthony "Booger" McFarland (Tampa, Indy thanks you!) lays outhis reminder for the press and the fans, in the second frame of this slideshow.

"If I have 11 (players) and I play your 11, that's the only storyline that really matters. That's the only storyline that's ultimately going to be the cake that we bake," McFarland said Thursday. "You guys can come up with all the different icing you want to, put all the different cherries you want to, and spin it and flavor it however you want to, but the bottom line is, it's going to be whatever team plays the best."

Sports Network Predicted Outcome: Patriots 24, Colts 20

The Colts' defensive performance of the last two weeks has led some to believe that their run-stopping woes are a thing of the past, though that analysis glosses over some important facts. Indy has undoubtedly been better in that area since Bob Sanders' return to the secondary, but has also benefited from playing against Larry Johnson and Jamal Lewis, a pair of one-cut, between-the- tackles rushers. The Patriots' running backs (especially Maroney) offer a different set of problems for the Colts, who had their biggest struggles against multi-back attacks like those of the Jaguars and Titans. For that reason, look for New England to have terrific success on the ground, in turn keeping the ball out of Manning's hands for long stretches. When the Indianapolis offense is on the field, Manning will be able to do some damage against a New England secondary that misses Rodney Harrison. But Belichick will throw enough wrinkles at the Colts attack to force Manning into making a major mistake with the game on the line.

I guess we'll just see about that!!

Colts fans star in this IndyChannel 6 Slideshow . I love the mustaches!

Channel 8 (WISH-TV) video link ... Colts Fans Show Their Pride All Over The City

Concerning security

Hey, these tickets ain't cheap...and we're all as capitalist as any NFL team owner!

Some say there is another game on Sunday? Does it matter?

Peyton's in his ninth season and says it's time...now...

"Certainly you feel the clock ticking with free agency and with injuries, especially when you see it firsthand,'' Manning said. "When you see an Edgerrin James get injured or when you see an Edgerrin James go to another team. When you lose good players like David Thornton and Ken Dilger and Marcus Pollard, guys that were not only great teammates, but great friends as well."

Will we have the first black coach in the Super Bowl this year?

Dungy's Indianapolis Colts entertain New England at 6:30 p.m. in the RCA Dome in the AFC Championship Game, but first Smith's Chicago Bears host New Orleans at Soldier Field in the NFC final. The Bears-Saints game kicks off at 3, giving Smith the first opportunity to take the historic step.

The Patriots Plan...

Harassing him. Hounding him. Hitting him. Flushing him from the pocket and making him throw on the run. Sacking him when possible. Absolutely disrupting the nerve center of the Colts' offense and turning him one more time into an emotional basket case in January.