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December 19, 2011

FINALLY! THEY WON

Colts’ losing streak ends at 13 after ouster of division rival

Tom James Tribune-Star Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS — It was a day of firsts for the Indianapolis Colts.

Mired in a frustrating and disappointing 0-for-13 slump this year, they registered their first regular-season National Football League win since Jan. 2, knocking off the Tennessee Titans 27-13 Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

That’s big enough news for a team that has a quick turnaround. Another AFC South rival, division champion Houston, comes to town for a nationally televised game (NFL Network) Thursday night.

The victory was also the first for quarterback Dan Orlovsky, both as the Colts’ starter and as a starter in the National Football League. In fact, it was his first win as a starting quarterback since leading his collegiate alma mater, Connecticut, to a Motor City Bowl victory that wrapped up the 2004 season. He was 0-9 as an NFL starter coming into the game.

There’s more. Much maligned running back Donald Brown, who was the Colts’ top draft pick in 2009, put together a breakout performance against the Titans. Brown ran for a career-high 161 yards on just 16 carries, including an 80-yard scamper with 3:26 remaining in the game that essentially sealed the victory for the Colts.

It was a run had to be seen to be believed. With Indianapolis holding onto a precarious 20-13 lead after a 7-yard scoring pass from rookie quarterback Jake Locker to wide receiver Nate Washington, the Colts had the ball at their own 20-yard line.

Brown took the handoff from Orlovsky — a former UConn teammate — and ran to his right, where Tennessee’s defense appeared to have stacked up the play. But the quick-footed running back bounced away from the Titans’ defenders, circled back to his left and found an entire sideline open.

As he tried to outrun the defense, Brown picked up an assist from an unexpected source. Orlovsky made the key block that made the play go. Additional downfield blocks from wide receiver Reggie Wayne and tight end Jacob Tamme allowed Indianapolis to go home a winner.

The touchdown run was the longest by a Colts player since Tom Matte also had an 80-yard run for a score on Oct. 12, 1964, against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“It feels great,” Orlovsky said afterward. “I’m very humbled to be a part of it. I’m happy for a lot of people on this team, for a lot of people in this organization. It is a lot better than the feeling we have had lately.”

As for his block on Brown’s touchdown run, the former backup at Detroit and Houston said that it was the best he could do for a fellow Huskie.

“I think the word of him as a football player [and] more as a person,” Orlovsky said. “He is a guy that I feel gets better with every carry. He starts to run better as the game goes on. [Besides] I have been living at his house for four months rent-free. I told him [later] that the hip check was the least I could do.”

The Colts led early in the game, for a change, and trailed 6-3 at the half. Tennessee placekicker Rob Bironas, a long time Indianapolis nemesis, had second-quarter kicks from 53 and 21 yards out. Adam Vinatieri’s 47-yard field goal at the end of the first quarter had put the Colts on top for the first time since the fourth quarter of the Kansas City game on Oct. 9.

Indianapolis took control in the second half, scoring on a 18-yard touchdown pass from Orlovsky to Wayne and a 32-yard interception return for a touchdown by cornerback Jacob Lacey, another Colts player who has struggled this season. Both scoring plays came within a couple minutes of each other midway through the third quarter.

Vinatieri’s second field goal of the game, this one from 40 yards out early in the fourth quarter, pushed the Indianapolis lead to 20-6, its largest of the year and biggest since a 30-17 win over Houston last November.

Locker’s TD pass to Washington narrowed the margin to 20-13, but that was as close as the Titans would get. Veteran Matt Hasselbeck started at quarterback for Tennessee but had an uneven day, completing 27 of 40 passes for 223 yards but giving up interceptions to Lacey and middle linebacker Pat Angerer. It was Angerer’s first NFL interception.

Hasselbeck missed practice time last week due to a calf injury that he incurred in a home loss to New Orleans last week. Locker entered the game late in the fourth quarter and led the Titans to a touchdown on his first offense series. His second drive, however, came to an end at the Colts’ 6-yard line as a fourth-down pass to wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins was overthrown into the back of the end zone.

With Tennessee out of timeouts, Orlovsky took two kneel downs to run out the clock.

“Obviously, the guys were pretty excited about a real good performance. They played well. The defense did a nice job running around and hitting. [The Colts defense] made [Tennessee] work for everything that they got throughout the ballgame and did a tremendous job,” a relieved coach Jim Caldwell said afterward.

“They were really a force out there. They hung in there long enough for the offense to at least get something going at some point, and [the offense] finally got a few things going and got us in position to get a couple of scores. Special teams held their own in there as well. It was a heck of an effort. And they’re excited about it, obviously.”

Orlovsky completed 11 of 17 passes on the day for a meager 82 yards. But it was the Indianapolis running game, which gained 205 yards overall, that controlled the game. Joseph Addai added 20 yards in 11 carries while rookie Delone Carter had 19 yards on three attempts, including a 10-yard run on third-and-short.

The 205 rushing yards were the most for a Colts team since Indianapolis had 226 yards against Denver on Sept. 30, 2007.

“Certainly that old adage that [a running game] is a quarterback’s best friend is indeed the case. I don’t know if we threw it 17 times or so today, and that’s because of the fact that we could run it and run it effectively,” Caldwell said.

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