AFC Divisional Playoff: Colts 20, Ravens 3

PREGAME
We know about Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne and the Colt offense; today we find out if their defense is for real, which it will have to be for the Colts to win and make good on the promise of their 14-0 start. If they get pushed around and gashed on the ground like the Patriots did last week, the Ravens' victory formula will have worked again. Indy has to force Joe Flacco to make some plays. I think they will because I think they're a very underrated defense. And I don't think Flacco will make those plays.

And I doubt there's a force in this league other than Colts HC Jim Crawford capable of stopping Peyton Manning. I think the Ravens can blitz all they want. Without a force in their secondary to keep Reggie Wayne in check, I doubt it matters. Plus the Colts running backs are the best in the league at picking the blitz up. The Jets are capable of beating the Colts because they have Darrelle Revis to take Wayne away. I don't believe the Ravens have that guy. So even though the Ravens laid waste to my playoff bracket last year, and resumed that trend last week, I'm taking the Colts here.

FIRST QUARTER
Gumbel and Dierdorf providing the call for CBS. Colts win the toss and Chad Simpson takes a knee in the end zone.

Ravens don't bring much heat to start the game and Peyton Manning hits Austin Collie at the 40. Ravens are all over Joseph Addai the next play, though. Colts continue to take care of Baltimore's 4-man rush (technically, that's a blitz since they're a 3-4) as Manning hits Dallas Clark a yard short of the first down, which Mike Hart converts. They fake a DB blitz and bring the LBs up the middle, but the Colts pick it up expertly and Manning hits Pierre Garcon for 8, then another first down. Addai sweeps right for 7. The ball finally hits the ground as Ray Lewis breaks up a pass to Dallas Clark with a solid hit. They empty the backfield on 3rd-and-3, Donald Brown runs a bad pattern and creates a traffic jam 5 yards downfield with Garcon. That plus Justin (Race) Bannan beating the RG clean force Manning to throw into a crowd incomplete. Matt Stover hits a FG against his old team.

Colts 3, Ravens 0.

Jalen Parmalee brings the kickoff across midfield but Carl Cheffers (really? Carl Cheffers?) takes it back for a block in the back. That's a significant momentum swing all by itself. They start from their own 7 instead of Indy's 40. The Colts shut down Ray Rice on first down but leave Derrick Mason all alone on the far sideline for 17. Huh, end-around to Mark Clayton gets 8. LeRon McClain bulls across the 35 for the 1st down. Flacco hits Mason for 13 more and looks pretty composed so far. Hell, he's almost matched his yardage from last week already! Gary Brackett stuffs a screen to Rice in the open flat for no gain. Robert Mathis' jump on 3rd-and-7 from midfield was a little too good. 3rd-and-2 now. Wow, he didn't look offside in slow motion. Flacco GOES UP TOP on third-and-2 and drops a BEAUTIFUL pass into Mason's breadbasket at the Colt 18. Mind-bendingly, the Colts are stopping the run but have no clue how to stop Flacco. A Rice cutback gets them 3rd-and-short just inside the 10. Flacco gets the first down on a keeper. The Rams haven't run a QB sneak on 3rd-and-that long the whole time they've been in St. Louis. McClain drops a 2nd-and-goal pass in the flat though I'm not sure he would have gotten much out of it. Ravens go trips right and Flacco throws that direction, but Antoine Bethea jumps Clayton's route and blows what would have been a pick-six at the goal line. Ravens happily settle for the FG Bethea granted them.

Ravens 3, Colts 3.

The Ravens swamp Simpson at the Colt 13. This first quarter may barely take half an hour to play. Manning hits Clark at the 32 with an amazing pinpoint pass up the seam. After a handoff, Manning's next pass goes through Clark's hands in the flat to force 3rd-and-7. Peyton beats a safety blitz with a completion to Collie at the 45. Chris Carr breaks up a 2nd down pass to Collie; 3rd-and-7 again. The Ravens don't blitz, but Dwan Edwards (I think, neither Gumbel nor Dierdorf can be bothered to tell us) burns the left guard and forces a quick pass to Clark at midfield, well short of the first down. So they've forced a punt, which will kick off the 2nd quarter.

End of first quarter: Ravens 3, Colts 3.
SECOND QUARTER

Ravens start the quarter at the 9, and really, this game couldn't be going a whole lot better for them so far. Rice up the middle for 6, then for 2. Good fill by Brackett on 2nd down. Flacco ruins things by air mailing one well over Mason's head on third down. 3-and-out for Indy.

T.J. Rushing returns a poor kick across midfield, and the pressure's squarely on the Raven defense right now. Manning slams a pass off a Raven lineman on 2nd down but Addai avoids disaster by fielding the pop-up at the Raven 46. Just a 4-man rush on 3rd-and-7, but Manning steps up and overthrows Garcon by a country mile. Huge opportunity squandered by Indy there. Reggie Wayne in serious danger of becoming the latest WR to disappear this postseason.

Ravens take over at their 20, but the Colts 3-and-out them a second straight time. They stuff a screen to Rice on 2nd down, and on 3rd down, the RG Marshall Yanda lets the blitzing Brackett go to help pick up Dwight Freeney on a loop. Not sure I understand that at all. The now unblocked Brackett goes straight to Flacco for the sack.

Yeah, this game's just a bit different from the last two playoff games we've seen this year.

Colts at their 25, and here's Wayne, gaining 12 on a dig route and making an amazing, fully-extended grab for 11 on a quick slant. Donald Brown's first carry takes Indy across midfield. A lob for Wayne on a corner route misses by a lot, and we've got 3rd-and-6 again, with the Colts threatening to bog down at midfield again. Clark advances the chains, though, making a stumbling catch and diving for the 1st. The Ravens, who are usually described as a 3-4 defense, have vanilla-rushed 4 men the entire game, which is helping out their coverage, and Indy's season-long inability to run the ball may bite them in the ass yet tonight.

The Colts get a delay-of-game penalty at the 40 but Addai gets it back the next play, and a slant to him sets up 3rd-and-2 at the 33. They bring in DT Eric Foster the next play at fullback, but Haloti Ngata and Terrell Suggs blow up the right side of the Colt line anyway and take Addai down for a loss. The Colts line up to go for it on 4th-and-3 but the Ravens take a timeout.

4th and almost 4 from the Raven 35: the Colts empty the backfield and throw to Addai in the flat, and I'm not sure he got the ball across the line. Dannell Ellerbe spun him around with a solid hit at the sideline.

The refs give him the first down; John Harbaugh should challenge that. If he had to get the 31 like TV shows, he never did. Ellerbe's hit prevented it. Nice illegal pick by the Colts on the play, too.

OK, the marker on that side was short of the 31, so that's what I get for going by the line on TV. The spot was right where it should have been. Short of the TV line, but correctly good for a first down.

Manning hits Garcon at the 20. The first half is nearly over, though it's barely an hour old. Mike Hart(!) turns a pass in the flat into an 8-yard gain by spinning away from Ellerbe. Hart plows Mike Alstott-style for the first down at the 10. Though he's about half Alstott's size. First and goal.

TD pass to Collie in the far corner of the end zone, beating Domonique Foxworth. Great route (and head fake) by Collie, usual brilliant throw by Manning to cap off an 8-minute drive.

Colts 10, Ravens 3.
Two-minute warning.

Parmalee comes up short of the 20 on the return. Wow, they open up with an inside handoff to Rice for little gain. That's some attacking 2-minute offense there. Hell, Indy calls the time out. They think they can get the ball back. Lot better frame of mind then coming out with 2:00 left and planning to NOT SCORE. Freeney gets to Flacco on 2nd down and the pass misses Clayton by quite a bit. Rice bobbles a screen pass away for Baltimore's third straight 3-and-out. That possession couldn't have gone worse for the Ravens if they were trying to fail.

Colts have it back at their 38. You can feel a definite momentum shift here. Indy is clearly the team on the attack. Dumpoff to Brown for 8; he stops the clock with 1:20 left. Short pass to Clark to the Raven 45. Another dink to Garcon at the 41. Timeout with 0:55 left. Draw to Brown gets them down to the 27, after he SHOULDERS RAY LEWIS TO THE GROUND. Manning then goes to Wayne down the far sideline and he draws a pretty obvious pass interference on Foxworth. Baltimore takes a timeout with 0:28 left and the Colts at the 14. Manning misses an open Garcon in the near corner at 0:22. Lewis blasts a TD pass away from Collie, but with a helmet-to-helmet hit definitely worthy of a personal foul, though you can hear him complaining over the referee's mike to just let him play football. Colts at the 7, 0:17 left. Clark weaves with a short pass down to the 4. That did little but burn six seconds and cost the Colts their last timeout. Hang on, two seconds have mysteriously gotten back onto the clock. Suggs whips Charlie Johnson at LT and forces Manning to throw one into the ground. Peyton wants one more crack with 7 seconds left. Steve Spagnuolo would have kicked the FG about an hour ago. Harbaugh is VERY unhappy about something on the sideline, holding up 2 fingers and dropping B.S. bombs. The 2 seconds that re-materialized before the last play, maybe?

BALTIMORE THEN USES THEIR LAST TIMEOUT WITH THE PLAY CLOCK RUNNING OUT ON INDY? Ain't no good going to come out of that. The replay booth can't have anything to review, can it?

Manning hits Wayne slanting to the goal line for what could prove to be the decisive score of this game. Three seconds till halftime.

Colts 17, Ravens 3.

Squib kick runs out the rest of the clock.

Halftime score: Colts 17, Ravens 3.

I said the Colt defense was going to have to play big today, and they have. The Ravens had nine yards in the 2nd quarter and I'm fairly certain no first downs, since their last three drives went 3-and-out. Cam Cameron should be embarrassed at the way they ended the half, to be frank. They didn't even try to score when they got the ball with 2:00 left. Their coaching staff better come out of halftime a lot more aggressive than they were in the first half. The offense needs to come out attacking, and defensively, they're going to have to consider blitzing more, because they're putting no heat on Manning while still getting beaten through the air. For the Colts, keep it up on D and don't make any fatal mistakes on offense, and you're hosting the AFC Championship.

Fake halftime concert fans on the field: just one of many things I'd like to see banned from the NFL.

THIRD QUARTER
Perfect first half for Indy, who now have Baltimore exactly where they want them. Flacco's going to have to make some plays this half.

The Ravens start the 2nd half with a vanilla handoff to Rice for 2. I think Mason fumbled the 2nd-down pass, but it's ruled incomplete. Nice play by Melvin Bullitt to break it up either way. Flacco has to blow a timeout on third down with the clock running out. Ravens get out of trouble when Flacco beats Freeney's stunt with a dumpoff to Rice, and Rice charges almost out to midfield. A false start and a pass deflection by Raheem Brock on third down keep Baltimore from going any further. The Ravens down the punt at the 7, and better take advantage of that. Like right now.

Play-action pass to Brown and a quick slant to Wayne get Indy a first down. Halotia Ngata gets a step inside Ryan Diem, smokes him, and is on Manning so quickly that Peyton just hits the ground in the fetal position to avoid getting killed. Intriguingly, Manning rushes the next play and just barely misses Collie on a deep route over the middle. Garcon then loses a difficult kneeling catch at the sideline that would have been a first down. Crucial 3-and-out for Baltimore there.

Ravens at their 34. Rice off right tackle for 9. McClain can't fight through Brock for the first down off a fullback handoff. I don't think. Nope, 3rd and inches. False start on Jared Gaither, make it 3rd-and-5-plus-inches. Flacco hits Todd Heap for 13, to the strains of a surprisingly loud "HEEEEP" cry at Lucas Oil Field. Hoping to become the postseason Alex Barron, Gaither now gets called for a hold. A handoff and a nicely-setup screen pass to Rice, though, get them back up to 3rd-and-3. Flacco scrambles around forever before launching a crossfield lob for Rice, defended near-perfectly by Brackett. Demetrius Williams - THAT'S who you're throwing to on 4th-and-3? - makes a pretty poor effort on an out route and has the 4th-down pass go off his one extended hand. Colts ball.

Indy at their own 45. The Ravens appear to get a badly-needed play when Ed Reed jumps a deep sideline route to Garcon for an INT. He returns it deep into Colt territory, but trailing him downfield the whole way, Garcon catches up and BLASTS THE BALL away from Reed from behind. It bounces right to Dallas Clark and the Colts have the ball back.

Wow. I think this game may be over.

Manning overcomes a big loss by Brown by hitting Collie at the 40, though Edwards gets in another big hit. The Ravens blow a timeout on defense. A couple of plays later, Reed intercepts Manning again, and returns it inside the 10, but the opportunity for the pick came because Corey Ivy interfered pretty obviously with Dallas Clark. Put the Colts at the Raven 37 instead.

If John Harbaugh had coached as hard tonight as he's whined, maybe this would still be a game.

Manning hits Wayne, who makes a kneeling catch at the 20, for another first down. Ravens do appear to have increased their blitzing this drive but it's not helping. Let me roll the TiVo back and see what they were doing on the two INTs that were called back. They brought a safety blitz on the left side and a LB on the right side the first time. Boop beep. Just a 4-man rush the second time, though. Manning's throw looks poor, but again, because of the interference by Ivy. So you could argue the blitzing is working to some degree.

We're done with the third quarter, by the way, with the Colts driving to put the game away.

End of third quarter: Colts 17, Ravens 3.
FOURTH QUARTER

Colts are at the 9-yard line after a couple more completions at the end of the 3rd. Ivy blows up Brown for a 3-yard loss. Jarrett Johnson then absolutely whips Charlie Johnson and forces Manning to slide for a loss. 3rd-goal from the 16, the pass gets away from Manning and he overthrows Wayne pretty badly. Stover's good from 33 to expand the Indy advantage.

Colts 20, Ravens 3.

Now or never for the Baltimore offense. Two screens to Rice get pretty much nowhere. 3rd-and-5. Flacco does hit the previously invisible Kelley Washington at the 45 for a 1st down. Rice fights all the way down to the Colt 25 on a draw play, but Brock gets downfield to put a lick on him and force the ball loose, and it bounces to Clint Session to essentially end this game. Colts ball around their 20.

Indy goes into bleed-the-clock mode here, which will work especially well with Baltimore already down to one timeout. They burn off a couple of minutes and punt.

Ravens at their 23 with 9:00 left. A HANDOFF TO RICE gets squat, then Jacob Lacey breaks up a sideline pass for Clayton. Third down throw is behind Washington due to the pass rush and he can't come up with it. 3-and-out. 8:00 left, down 17, the Ravens punt instead of going for it. YOU NEED THREE SCORES!

Colts at their 26. They 3-and-out again after Manning can't connect with Collie on a lob pass.

Ravens at their 22, 6:30 left now. Heap and Williams break tackles for 10 yards on back-to-back plays. Now Rice breaks a couple of tackles after the catch for 15. Ravens at the Colt 40. Flacco goes deep for Mason a couple of plays later, but underthrows him badly and gets picked off by Bethea. Game over, man, game over! Bethea lands hard after the catch and may have injured his hip or lower back.

Colts take over at their 2 with 5:00 left. One first down and I'm putting this game in FU-mode. Well, a couple of handoffs get them to the 7; 3rd-and-5. Brown gets dragged down by the back of his helmet on a draw play but there's no call. The Ravens stop the clock one last time at 3:14. So much for FU-mode.

Do you think the Ravens' mouthpieces are grape flavored? They look like they would be pretty yummy. They'll get the ball at the Colt 43 with about 3:00 to go. Colts curiously bring a big blitz but Flacco hits Mason for 9. First down to Heap at the 27. Dumpoff to Rice loses yards at the 2:00 warning.

Yanda's false-started the last two plays but it's Indy getting called offsides on 3rd-and-7. Heap drops a short pass, and we're at the point of no return, 4th-and-2. As Yanda false-starts yet again without a call, the pass goes off Rice's hands and on to Jarod Powers for the game-ending interception and Baltimore's 4th turnover.

The Colts kneel it out and will host the AFC Championship next Sunday.

Final: Colts 20, Ravens 3.

MVP: I had Raheem Brock as a candidate even before he forced Rice's fumble, and that play put him over the top. Besides that play, he had four tackles, deflected a pass and was a thorn in Baltimore's side all night. Brock especially represents a dominating performance by the Colt defense and their d-line, the people who were under the gun coming into the game. They held Rice to 67 yards and forced 4 turnovers. The middle of their line was especially dominant.

Looking ahead: The Ravens are still a young team. They're just going to get better on the lines. Ngata and I think Suggs are Pro Bowlers, and guys like Bannan and Dwan Edwards make a lot of plays. Michael Oher and Yanda have really come on down the stretch. With lines as strong as they have, and getting stronger, they're in great shape for the future. But with Mason about 100 years old and having already tried to retire once, they are in desperate need of receiving threats.

The Colts worry me a little bit, funnily enough, because of their offense. They can't run a lick. And even more funnily, that may work for them if they meet San Diego next week, but not as likely if they run into the Jets. Again, I get a day to think about it.

Two pretty dull games today, in retrospect, a rerun of last Saturday. Let's hope Sunday makes up for it again. Cowboys vs. Vikings at noon tomorrow.