Originally posted by: brian_riendeau
2- true, but the Colts have just as much reason to roll over for Denver as the Steelers do for the Bills
I believe both Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning both declared on Sporting News Radio that they do NOT want to go into the post season on a losing streak. Also, if the Colts lose to the Broncos, they have to turn around and play the Bronco AGAIN on wild card weekend. Losing to a team and then playing that same team again right away after getting beat down is not a good plan. The Broncos would be riding a huge wave and be in good position to beat Indy two weeks in a row. Smacking the Broncos right out of the play offs and then taking on the Bills at home would be better imo, and I believe Peyton and Dundy will do this. Also, it does not take much to beat the Broncos sometimes, just let Jake the Snake toss the ball into coverage a few times and get the INTs.
Also:
http://www.colts.com/sub.cfm?p...icle7&news_id=2612
Do you not remember last year? 2nd last game of the season the Broncos handily beat the Colts, then the Colts 2 weeks later crush the Broncos?
Second, losing to the Broncos does not mean they'll play them again, if the Jets lose and Broncos win, Broncos are #5 seed no matter what, whereas the Jets would be out of hte playoffs if the Bills win.
"We are preparing this week as we always have to go up there and win this football game."
Pittsburgh an outdoor cold weather team on the road in a cold-weather situation as opposed to the Colts, a dome team on the road in a cold-weather situation.
Then there is the situation where Pittsburgh is actually going to try and play starters instead of sitting them. Why? Because these starters have been out due to injurry for quite sometime, including Chad Scott, Kendrell Bell, and Duce Staley. They are looking to get them some real PT before throwing them into a playoff game cold turkey. Bettis may not play and Burress may not play the whole game, but if Staley is in, which it sounds like he will be, Hayne makes for a good 2nd back, even the rookie Parker has shown some potential and could see some PT. And the way the Bengals ran over Buffalo while stopping Buffalos run game...and the Bengals certainly don't have the run defense that the Steelers do.
There is no sure thing, the Bills may get into the playoffs, but even if they do I seriously doubt they'll go very far. People gawk over how they've won 9 of their last 11, of which the two losses came to blowouts of 20-6 loss to the Ravens and a 29-6 loss to the Patriots. Again the Bills have beaten only two teams with a winning record, the Jets and the SeaHawks (who could end up 8-8 depending upon if the Falcons decide to show up for that game). Even if they make it into the playoffs I don't think they can score enough points against teams with a good defense, of which only the Colts would have a suspect defense from the AFC playoff teams, but when they average 34 points a game (about 5 TDs a game), you don't need the best defense.
Playoffs maybe, "Years down the road, you can be like, "I remember when the Bill recovered from a 1 and 4 start to win the Superbowl"", not by a long shot, should they get in and past the first round they'd have to play either Pitt for real, or the Pats who already beat them twice, convincingly both times. Or even both...Bledsoe simply hasn't been consistent enough and McGahee hasn't proven to be effective against good run defenses (even the
Bengals held him at 11 attempts for only 25 yards, and that's with a 14 yard long...otherwise he averaged 1.1 yards a carry)
I guess we'll have to wait and see, it'd be one heck of a comeback story, but so far it just sounds like analysts trying to stir something up just so they can claim they knew it all along. I almost always cheer for the underdog, and the Bills certainly qualify, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. If they were in the NFC they could make it to the superbowl (make it, not win), but in their stead could be Carolina, an equally if not more impressive comeback story, although I'm certainly not counting on either team to do anything significant in this seasons playoffs.
