NFL Week 9 – Giants Hope to Outscore Colts, Luck

Indianapolis Colts (-3.5, 51 o/u) at New York Giants

Prior to last weekend, the Indianapolis Colts (5-3, 2-2 away) appeared to be making a statement in the AFC. Then the Andrew Luck-led squad floundered in Pittsburgh, allowing more than 500 passing yards.

Said Colts head coach Chuck Pagano, “It’s bad football. It’s not intentional, but it’s bad football and you’re not going to win games playing like that.”

The play that epitomized the dismal afternoon for the Colts came when Luck tripped and fell down, only to attempt a pass from the ground. He was called for intentional grounding in the end zone, resulting in a safety.

Luck said, “Take it as a learning situation. What can you do differently? Try to inch forward and take a sack on the half-yard line or spin around, try and get up and get the ball in the vicinity of a receiver to throw it away. But yeah, bonehead play by me.”

Boneheaded plays are nothing new to the Colts’ Monday night opponent, the New York Giants (3-4, 2-1 home), who are coming off a bye week. While teams don’t want to look ahead, it’s hard for the Giants given their schedule, which, in the next three weeks, features a trip to Seattle and then home games versus San Francisco and Dallas.

While that is unquestionably a tough stretch, the Tom Coughlin-led Giants have often seen a poor first half of the season become the launch pad for their playoff push.

Coughlin said, “We’ve got nine games to play as well as we can possibly play. I think anybody in that locker room can do that. They just have to realize the amount of the season and the schedule that’s gone by and yet we have nine opportunities. Let’s go. One at a time.”

Before the Steelers game, the defense was being praised as the unsung hero in Indy (if, indeed, it is possible to be praised as an “unsung” hero). While they aren’t as bad as they showed in Pittsburgh, they were likely being over-valued before that game, especially on the road.  (The Colts have given up at least 17 points in every road game, and at least 28 to everyone except Jacksonville.) Add in the fact that the Giants defense is, well, the Giants defense, and you have a recipe for hitting the over (51 points).

(Photo credit: Mark Susina (Mark 2400) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mss2400/7967230578/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)