Colts over Pats hump; can they retain perfection?

At long last. The nightmare is over. The Colts, who hadn’t won in Foxboro since Jim Harbaugh was their quarterback, finally got a monkey off their back. Make that a gorilla. Peyton Manning’s precision finally came full circle against the Patriots, and the Colts reborn defense made it stand up as the Colts walloped the Pats, 40-21, in front of a national television audience. For now, the media will ease up on Peyton and Co. The Colts have finally won in New England and have clearly established themselves as the class of the AFC this year. But now the press can put their sole focus on the Colts into their perfect 8-0 start, and whether it will reach 16-0. As of now, the ‘72 Dolphins aren’t sweating. But considering Indianapolis has five of its final eight games at home, maybe they should start loosening their collars.
The Colts face the AFC’s worst team, the Houston Texans, next week, at the RCA Dome. The Texans are 1-7 but they were actually tied with the Colts at halftime in their week 7 meeting before Indy eventually won, 38-20. But the Texans are extremely overmatched and do not figure to give the Colts a legitimate challenge.
The real challenge for the Colts will come in the two following games, when they take on the top two teams in the AFC North, the Cincinnati Bengals (7-2) and Pittsburgh Steelers (6-2). After the Houston game, the Colts travel to Cincinnati to take on a Bengals team in perhaps a familiar stop. Two years ago the Chiefs came to Paul Brown Stadium 9-0 only to have their perfect season ruined, 24-19. The Bengals, who will be coming off a bye, will try and make history repeat itself. Then the Colts return home and return to Monday Night Football, where they will face the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger figures to be healthy by then and if he defeats Baltimore, will enter the game with his perfect career road record intact.
If the Colts get past the Steelers game unscathed, the ‘72 Dolphins will need to start wiping down with a beach towel. The lowly and rebuilding Titans visit in Week 13, followed by a trip to Jacksonville, who did give the Colts a scare in week 2 but fell by a touchdown. The Jaguars and Colts have split their past four games, with the last four meetings being within a touchdown. After the Jaguars, the San Diego Chargers come to town. Last season, the Chargers came to Indianapolis riding an eight-game winning streak. They took a 31-16 lead before the Colts came back to win in overtime, 34-31. The Chargers figure to be the Colts defense’s toughest remaining challenge, although Cincinnati is no patsy.
Indianapolis finishes with two games against the NFC West, first a trip to Seattle and then a visit from Arizona. The Seahawks and Colts do not have much history against each other, and not many teams have been able to go up to the Pacific Northwest and win recently. But if somehow, someway, Manning can lead Indy to 15-0, they should have no problem sealing the deal against the Cardinals in the season finale.
So, can they do it? History (save for Miami) says no. Conventional wisdom says no. But the Colts seem to have what it would take to complete this unthinkable task: a dynamic-yet-consistent offense, a stingy defense, and the game’s best quarterback. They have a tremendous home-field advantage at the RCA Dome, where they have lost just once in their past 13 games (including playoffs). Yet the prediction here is still no. The Colts could very well go 15-1, but the mounting media pressure and the undoubted target on their backs will become a burden, and the Colts ultimately will fall. If I had to pick a game for them to do it, it would be against the Bengals.