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NFL: COLTS: WEEK BY WEEK

Despite Another 9-0 Record, Colts Focused on Next Opponent

/noticias.info/ By John Oehser - Colts.com

INDIANAPOLIS – A striking thing about the Colts’ approach to their very unique situation is there’s little striking about it all.

A quick survey of the Colts’ locker room Wednesday to see just how the Colts were approaching being 9-0 for a second consecutive season revealed:

No new tactics.

Few new quotes.

Little fresh insight.

Essentially, Colts players said Wednesday, they will take the same approach to being 9-0 this season as they did last season – which is to say, they hardly think about it at all.

They are focusing on this week’s opponent, the Dallas Cowboys.

They are focusing on winning the AFC South.

They are focusing on improving.

Beyond that . . .

Well, there’s just not much beyond that.

“We strive for the Ws, no matter how they come,” Colts offensive tackle Ryan Diem said Wednesday as the AFC South-leading Colts (9-0), the NFL’s last remaining unbeaten team, prepared to play the Dallas Cowboys (5-4) at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas, Sunday at 4:15 p.m.

“We’re finding ways to win. Something you hear (Colts Head (Coach) Tony) Dungy say a lot is, ‘Find a way to win, whether it’s special teams, defense, or if we can put up some points offensively.

“Either way, it’s a team victory.”

The Colts this past Sunday beat the Buffalo Bills, 17-16, in the process becoming the first team in NFL history to start consecutive seasons with nine consecutive victories.

“We really haven’t talked about that very much,” Colts quarterback Peyton Manning said. “I certainly haven’t gotten into much of a comparative analysis compared to last year. We’re truly kind of a one-week-at-a-time-approach team. That’s what we’ve always done and that’s what we’ll continue to do. You never take wins for granted.

“You appreciate the wins and at the same time, you’re trying to constantly improve. We need to improve this week.”

The Colts have won 31 of 34 regular-season games dating to midway through the 2004 season. They have won 30 consecutive regular-season games in which they have yet to clinch their playoff positioning and 30 of 31 regular-season games in which Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has played into the second half.

“We just come in and prepare the same way we did last week and the week before,” Colts center Jeff Saturday said. “We boil it down to how we play. If we play good football, Colts-style football, not turn it over and create turnovers, it’s going to be tough for teams to beat us.

“That’s the way we look at it.”

Since the Chicago Bears lost to the Miami Dolphins on November 5, the Colts have been the NFL’s last remaining unbeaten team. It’s a status they held for two months last season, during which they won their first 13 games.

That streak lasted long enough to dominate conversation on national radio and television shows into December, and while the attention on the current season-opening winning streak hasn’t reached that level, the buzz has
begun.

On Wednesday, ESPN’s cameras were in the locker room at the Colts’ complex for a second consecutive week, and the Dallas Morning News and Philadelphia Inquirer had writers at the Colts’ complex Wednesday.

“It definitely brings more media attention, which is cool,” Diem said. “We’re fine with that. It’s no big deal. We’ve just got to go out and handle our business. It’s something we’ll look back on down the road and go, ‘Wow, it was pretty cool to be part of history like that,’ but our focus right now is to finish out the year the right way.”

Part of the focus in recent weeks has been not just the streak, but the nature of the streak – as in, just how it is different from last year’s streak.

A year ago, the Colts won each of their first 13 games by at least seven points, setting an NFL record for consecutive victories by a touchdown or more. This season, two of Indianapolis’ victories have come by one point – at home against Tennessee and Buffalo – and seven of the nine victories have come by a touchdown or less.

The Colts have trailed in six of their last seven games.

“I look at it as, ‘We’re winning games,’ ’’ Saturday said. “However you’ve got to win them, it doesn’t change them. I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh, they’re close games. They’re tight games.’

“I look at it as we’re finding ways to win. However we have to do it, I don’t care if they’re one point or 50 points, that really doesn’t bother me at all.”

Dungy said while he appreciates the difficulty of eight- or nine-game winning streaks, he said what the Colts have done is in one sense not entirely unique.

“What people have to understand is that these streaks the last two years have been at the beginning of the year, so everybody is focused on them,” he said. “If you lose one at the beginning and then go on a streak, you’re playing the same kind of ball, it just doesn’t have the focus. We’ve had several streaks the last few years. We had an eight-game streak in ‘04 that nobody really zeroed in on and we had a five-game streak at the beginning of ’03.

“This team knows how to continue to play good ball and what I like about this team is their consistency. For us, the undefeated thing is not a big deal. The fact that we’ve done it at the beginning of the year has probably put a little more light on it, but it hasn’t changed the way we approach things.”

As has been the case the past two seasons, when it comes to winning streaks, records and history, that’s the standard Colts answer – that all of those things are fine, but they are also periphery issues. And while players said they know that’s not a particularly exciting answer, there’s really not much beyond that.

“We’re going to do the same thing,” Colts defensive end Josh Thomas said. “That’s what Coach Dungy preaches. It’s PC (politically correct) and its cliché, but honestly, that’s exactly how we take it – one snap at a time. None of us are looking ahead.

“We’ve got Dallas this week and that’s honestly all we’re thinking about.” notas_de_prensa_archivo