RANDOM OBSERVATIONS : COLTS @ JAGUARS, FIRST HALF EDITION

by Davey, Blown Coverage

Holy crap. Monday Night Football. Colts at Jags. My pants are wetter than a midget in a swimming pool. We all know the stories here. The Jags hate the Colts and probably play them harder than any other team does. I hate the Colts and therefore I'll be rooting for Jacksonville tonight. See, simple math really.

It hurts to write this but I'm expecting Indy to win this one. They're coming off of a bye, it's prime time and they know that the Jags will be gunning for them. It might be close, but I sadly think that Indy will win here. For fantasy purposes I have Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison and Fred Taylor. Tirico, Jaws and Kornheiser are the commentators and we are ready to go..

• Espn starts things off by showing this little segment with Steve Carrel where Carell is asked to give advice to the Jags defense on how to stop the Indy offense. Carell offers up plenty of options which include bludgeoning Manning with a stick but the best one by far was the option of getting Peyton pregnant. Meanwhile Peter King nods his head and offers to seed that soil.

• Reggie Nelson almost picks off a Manning pass when Peyton tries to connect with Marvin Harrison off of the play-action. If I'm Nelson, I'd be concentrating on connecting my helmet a few times with Marvin's sore knee right now.

• Espn shows a graphic that says that Hunter Smith has punted 13 times so far this season. I don't know what's more surprising, seeing Hunter Smith's cool goatee or the fact that this Colts offense has actually been forced to punt 13 times this season.

• David Garrard leads one of his receivers and the poor guy gets destroyed by Kelvin Hayden. I'm not going to lie to you, I don't know who that Jags receiver was...

• And there's another Hunter Smith punt. We're about midway through the first quarter and Smith has already had to do more than he usually does in an entire game.

• Jaws mentions that when the Jags ran for over 300 yards on Indy last season, that it was mainly because Bob Sanders wasn't playing. Kornheiser jumps in and sarcastically refers to Sanders as Chuck Norris because he can single handedly stop the Jaguars running game. I fully expect Kornheiser to get a roundhouse kick to the sternum within the next 5 minutes because he used Norris' name without permission.

• And the Colts strike first. Indy puts a nice drive together and Kenton Keith finishes it off with a strong touchdown run. So with all of Indy's offensive weapons, the first touchdown goes to Kenton Keith, a guy who my fantasy opponent is starting today. Awesome. My life is one big party. Indy 7, Jax 0.
  

• David Garrard gets sacked and takes a helmet to the knee. It looks like it could be a knee injury but it could also be his ankle that got rolled up. Garrard is going to be taken out and the great Quinn Gray will make an appearance. This will surely make the Jags feel good about their chances tonight.
  

• Yup, and Quinn Gray shows why he is Quinn Gray. Gray tries to get cheeky on his first pass attempt and it's picked off by Bob Sanders. For those of you who wonder why Quinn Gray has been a third stringer for most of his career...well, there's your answer.

• After Peyton connects on a long pass to Reggie Wayne, he finishes off the drive with quarterback sneak touchdown and that was pretty gay if you ask me. Meanwhile, David Garrard is getting ready to get back in the game and I can't blame him. A crippled Garrard is still a notch above Quinn Gray. Colts 14, Jags 0.
  

• Garrard is hobbling around and he is not looking good out there. The Jags offense gets stopped again and this one might get out of hand if they don't get a stop here.
  

• The Colts drive into Jaguars territory but the drive comes to an end when Kenton Keith fails to catch a pass that was tossed in his direction. Peyton is furious at Keith for not catching that and that was probably the most "PG-13" scolding that Keith has ever gotten in his life. Vinatieri adds a short field goal and the Colts lead 17-0.
  

• And there's halftime. The Jags defense got off to a strong start but the lethargic offense is not helping their cause and the Colts are taking advantage of that. If the Jags don't come out firing, this one will be over very soon...

* Image courtesy of Boxofficeprophets.com