Last week: 7 (+0)
Record: 5-2
On bye.
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Colts
Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 8 NFL Power Rankings (#7)
Last week: 8 (-1)
Record: 5-2
The Colts have beaten 3 of the top-5 teams on these Power Rankings, a group of teams that has lost a combined 7 games. However, they have also lost to San Diego and Miami and almost lost to Oakland. Furthermore, they also lost their top receiving threat Reggie Wayne for the season with a torn ACL. They’re a very good team, but you have to look at the whole story with them. Not just that they’ve beaten 3 very good teams.
Week 7 Studs
RT Gosder Cherilus
ROLB Robert Mathis
CB Vontae Davis
Week 7 Duds
FB Stanley Havili
CB Darius Butler
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Denver Broncos at Indianapolis Colts: Week 7 NFL Pick
Denver Broncos (6-0) at Indianapolis Colts (4-2)
The Broncos have failed to cover in their last 2 instances, barely winning in Dallas and sleepwalking to a 16 point win over the Jaguars at home. However, the odds makers continue boosting the spread on them as if they are some kind of perfect, invulnerable opponent. I never bought that they could continue this level of play all season and we’ve shown them display some cracks, particularly defensively, in recent weeks. This week, they are 7 point favorites on the road over the Colts and the public is still all over them. I think the Colts are too good of a team to be 7 point home underdogs to anyone.
The Colts are moving the ball at an 81% rate offensively thanks to a breakout season from Andrew Luck, in part because of new offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton’s system and an improved offensive line. Defensively, they are allowing opponents to move the ball at a 74% rate. That’s slightly worse than league average, but they are still improved defensively over last season, thanks to the addition of new players through free agency and the return of defensive mind Chuck Pagano from cancer.
That +7% differential is 5th in the NFL. The Broncos are still 1st at +11%, moving the chains at an 86% rate, as opposed to 75% for their opponents. However, I don’t think they deserve to be favored by this much in Indianapolis. The Colts flopped last week in San Diego, but I don’t put much weight into that. It was an obvious trap game situation between a win as home underdogs over the Seahawks and this huge game. They also were in a bad spot as an Eastern Time Zone team on the West Coast at a 8 PM ET start. They should be able to bounce back and at least keep this within a touchdown, if not hand the Broncos their first loss of the season.
Denver Broncos 34 Indianapolis Colts 31
Pick against spread: Indianapolis +7
Confidence: Medium
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 7 NFL Power Rankings (#8)
Last week: 8 (+0)
Record: 4-2
The Colts’ defense got exposed by a suddenly dynamic San Diego offense, but I’m not holding that loss against them much. It was an obvious trap game between a home win over the Seahawks and an impending reunion with Peyton Manning and the undefeated Broncos in Indianapolis the following week. They are still moving the chains at an 81% rate, as opposed to 74% for their opponents, a differential that is 5th best in the NFL. They can give a suddenly vulnerable Denver team a run for their money at home.
Week 6 Studs
RT Gosder Cherilus
Week 6 Duds
MLB Pat Angerer
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 6 NFL Power Rankings (#8)
Last week: 14 (+6)
Record: 4-1
Either the Colts are a legitimate Super Bowl contender this season or the Seahawks still struggle on the road like last season (when they lost in Miami, St. Louis, Arizona, and Detroit). I think it’s a little bit of both. The Colts are a completely different team from last year. They didn’t deserve to win 11 games last year, but I was dead wrong about their 2013 prospects. They’ve added talent this off-season and the coaching has actually been a lot better. Andrew Luck has been a much better fit for Pep Hamilton’s system than Bruce Arians’ and Chuck Pagano’s return has done great things for this defense.
Week 5 Studs
QB Andrew Luck
WR TY Hilton
LE Lawrence Guy
LE Cory Redding
ROLB Robert Mathis
Week 5 Duds
WR Darrius Heyward-Bey
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Seattle Seahawks at Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 5 NFL Pick
Seattle Seahawks (4-0) at Indianapolis Colts (3-1)
Ordinarily, the Seahawks struggle on the road, in addition to dominating at home. Since 2007, they are 17-37 SU and 22-31 ATS on the road, as opposed to 34-18 SU and 35-16 ATS at home. However, they are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games on the road, including wins in Carolina and Houston this season. Those games were close, but they still covered and they’ve been playing very, very good football dating back to the middle of last season.
They’ve won 12 of their last 14 overall dating back to the middle of last season, as Russell Wilson has completed 221 of 341 (64.8%) for 3011 yards (8.8 YPA), 25 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions. They’ve outscored opponents by an average of 16.5 points per game over last 14 games overall, including 7.4 points per game on the road. They are also 12-2 ATS in those 14 games. They’re a dominant football team with a very strong home field advantage, rather than just an above average football team with a very strong home field advantage that shows its true colors on the road. I thought they were the latter before the season, but I’ve changed my mind, but I don’t feel this line reflects that.
Indianapolis could be a very solid football team, but I’m not 100% sold on them. They had 7 wins by 7 points or fewer against teams that finished with 7 wins or fewer in 2012. For the first two games of the season, it looked like the same old Colts, barely beating a bad Oakland team at home and then being unable to pull a win out of their ass at home for the Dolphins week 2. Things have changed in the past two weeks obviously, as they’ve blown out both the 49ers and the Jaguars, but it’s possible that the 49er game was just a fluke and the Jaguar game was just, well, a Jaguar game. They are pretty much the same personnel wise as they were 2 weeks ago and it’s hard to believe they suddenly just became a significantly better team. I guess you could point to the Trent Richardson trade, but he’s rushed for 95 yards on 33 carries in 2 games, so he’s not making much of an impact.
The Seahawks are also 8-6 ATS on the road as favorites, even dating back to 2007 and, in their 2nd straight road game, being away from home won’t be as big of a deal, even at a 1 PM ET start in the Eastern Time Zone. The Seahawks are 7-5 ATS in their 2nd straight road game, even dating back to 2007, and it’s very likely the Seahawks have spent the week practicing somewhere in the Eastern Time Zone, given that they weren’t far away last week in Houston. That’ll negate some of the Time Zone effect. Besides, teams are 52-33 ATS as road favorites off of a win as road favorites since 2002. I’m not incredibly confident, in case the Colts actually are for real, but the Seahawks should be the right side.
Seattle Seahawks 20 Indianapolis Colts 13
Pick against spread: Seattle -2.5
Confidence: Low
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 5 NFL Power Rankings (#14)
Last week: 18 (+4)
Record: 3-1
The Colts had 7 wins by 7 points or fewer against teams that finished with 7 wins or fewer in 2012. For the first two games of the season, it looked like the same old Colts, barely beating a bad Oakland team at home and then being unable to pull a win out of their ass at home for the Dolphins week 2. However, they’ve blown out the 49ers and the Jaguars over the past 2 weeks. You could point to the Trent Richardson trade, but he’s rushed for 95 yards on 33 carries in 2 games, so he’s not making much of an impact on the field, though maybe it was a morale boost. It’s possible that their win in San Francisco was a fluke and that blowing out the Jaguars isn’t impressive, but, at the very least, they seem much improved offensively over last season. Andrew Luck, helped by an offensive system that fits his skill set better and an improved offensive line, is leading this offense to an 83% rate of moving the chains, 2nd best in the NFL. They could continue being an offensive powerhouse going forward, even if they don’t continue playing this kind of defense (70% opponent’s rate of moving the chains).
Week 4 Studs
QB Andrew Luck
WR Reggie Wayne
LT Anthony Castonzo
LE Cory Redding
CB Vontae Davis
CB Darius Butler
MLB Kavell Conner
Week 4 Duds
RG Mike McGlynn
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 4 NFL Pick
Indianapolis Colts (2-1) at Jacksonville Jaguars (0-3)
I was shocked that not only did the Colts beat the 49ers, but they beat them handily in San Francisco. Previously in the Andrew Luck era, they were sweating out close wins against bad teams and getting blown out by good teams, especially on the road. Last year, they played 7 games against teams who finished .500 or better. They went 3-4 in those games, which isn’t awful, but those wins came by 3, 3, and 12, while the losses came by 20, 35, 12, and 15. They went as good as their 11-5 record would have suggested last season, because of all of those blowout losses (plus a 35-9 loss to the freaking Jets!) and because they had 7 wins by 7 points or less against teams that won 7 or fewer games.
They were especially bad on the road last season, going 4-5 on the road with a point differential of -76 and an opponent’s overall record of 64-80. They didn’t really looked any better this season before last week, barely beating the Raiders at home and then losing to the Dolphins at home. However, unless the 49ers are significantly worse than we expect them to be, the Colts just blew out a good team on the road.
It’s very possible that was just an aberration. Yes, they did add Trent Richardson, but his impact (13/35/1) was minimal on that specific game. The reason they won last week is because they dominated the 49ers with their offensive line and secondary, which is something they had never really done before. I certainly see them as a better team as I did a week ago, but I’m not totally sold on them. What if they once again struggle to blow out an inferior opponent here in Jacksonville? The Jaguars beat the Colts by 3 and lost by 17 last season, meaning the Colts only outscored the Jaguars, on average, by 7 points per game last season. The Colts also only beat the 2-14 Chiefs by 7 in Kansas City last year. It shouldn’t surprise you if the same thing happens here.
The Colts are also in a bad spot coming off of a huge upset last week. Teams are 45-66 ATS since 1989 coming off of a win as double digit underdogs. I’m not that confident in Jacksonville for three reasons though. The first one is the possibility that the Colts are a legitimately improved team over last season and the first 2 weeks of this season. The second is the possibility that Trent Richardson has a huge game against a poor Jacksonville run defense and this time around becomes the reason why the Colts blow out an opponent. The third is just the possibility that the Jaguars are so terrible that the Colts won’t have to be an improved team to blow them out. I do feel Jacksonville is the right side though, with the Colts’ lack of a consistent history of blowing out inferior opponents, particularly on the road.
Indianapolis Colts 23 Jacksonville Jaguars 17
Pick against spread: Jacksonville +9
Confidence: None
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts: 2013 Week 4 NFL Power Rankings (#18)
Last week: 25 (+7)
I was shocked that not only did the Colts beat the 49ers, but they beat them handily in San Francisco. Previously in the Andrew Luck era, they were sweating out close wins against bad teams and getting blown out by good teams, especially on the road. Unless the 49ers are significantly worse than we expect them to be, the Colts just blew out a good team on the road. It’s very possible that was just an aberration. Yes, they did add Trent Richardson, but his impact (13/35/1) was minimal on that specific game. However, Andrew Luck is clearly improved in his 2nd season in the league and if Trent Richardson can have an impact on the running game once he gets integrated, with Ahmad Bradshaw also seeing carries, they’ll be a much better team, in terms of level of play, than last season. That just might not be reflected in their final record.
Week 3 Studs
MLB Jerrell Freeman
Week 3 Duds
RG Jeff Linkenbach
LOLB Erik Walden
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Indianapolis Colts at San Francisco 49ers: 2013 Week 3 NFL Pick
Indianapolis Colts (1-1) at San Francisco 49ers (1-1)
The 49ers lost in Seattle last week 29-3, but there’s no shame at all losing to the Seahawks in Seattle. Dating back to the start of last season, the Seahawks have won all 9 home games by an average score of 30-11. They should be able to bounce back this week, as they have every time after a loss since Jim Harbaugh took over before the 2011 season. The 49ers are 5-2 ATS off a loss in that time span, 7-2 ATS if you include week 1 games (games after a season ending playoff loss).
If you look closer, that’s even more impressive as those two non-covers included a 14 point win as 16.5 point favorites and a 7 point win as 7.5 point favorites, a game they would have covered against the Seahawks if Jim Harbaugh hadn’t declined a safety, in favor of just running the clock out. They’ve won those 7 games by an average margin of about 17 points per game, 23-6. They should be as motivated as they can be this week coming off of a loss and they might also be a little overlooked and undervalued after what happened this week.
The Colts, meanwhile, have had a lot of trouble against playoff caliber opponents over the past 2 seasons. Last year, they played 7 games against teams who finished .500 or better. They went 3-4 in those games, which isn’t awful, but those wins came by 3, 3, and 12, while the losses came by 20, 35, 12, and 15. They went as good as their 11-5 record would have suggested last season, because of all of those blowout losses (plus a 35-9 loss to the freaking Jets!) and because they had 7 wins by 7 points or less against teams that won 7 or fewer games. They were especially bad on the road last season, going 4-5 on the road with a point differential of -76 and an opponent’s overall record of 64-80.
They haven’t really looked any better this season, barely beating the Raiders at home and then losing to the Dolphins at home, a game in which they lost one of their only good offensive linemen, Donald Thomas, for the season. They will get Trent Richardson in this week through trade, but he’s unlikely to have much of an impact less than a week after joining this team. He might not even play on passing downs as he learns the blocking schemes, especially with Ahmad Bradshaw, one of the league’s premier passing down backs, behind him on the depth chart. Richardson will have an impact going forward, but the Colts should still get blown out this week by the 49ers.
San Francisco 49ers 27 Indianapolis Colts 9
Pick against spread: San Francisco -9.5
Confidence: Medium
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
[switch_ad_hub]
Football Fan Spot 