Meet The Opponent: Indianapolis Colts
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Posted Under: 2000 Patriots Season
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This Week’s Game
Indianapolis at New England
FOXBORO, MA — New England (1-4) is getting set for an important divisional game against their AFC East rival Indianapolis Colts (3-1) at Foxboro Stadium. It is the first of two meetings that will take place within the next three weeks, as the Patriots will head to Indianapolis after next week’s rematch against the Jets in Foxboro.
The Patriots are coming off of their first victory of the season after beating the Denver Broncos 28-19 last Sunday in Denver. The win was their first ever at Mile High Stadium, as well as their first victory in Denver since 1968. New England will now turn their attention to the Indianapolis Colts, who they’ve had success against in recent years. Since Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was drafted in 1998, the Patriots hold a 3-1 edge over them, and both Drew Bledsoe and Terry Glenn have fared well during those games. Last season Glenn had 122 yards receiving in their first meeting in Foxboro, and then when the team went down to Indianapolis he racked up 148 more.
Drew Bledsoe, meanwhile, totalled 299 and 379 yards respectively in each of their meetings last season. New England’s only loss the past two seasons came in Indianapolis, and they currently hold a 2-0 series advantage at Foxboro during that span. The Colts have looked very good however thus far during the 2000 campaign, and head coach Bill Belichick feels that for a team that went 13-3 last season they’re getting little recognition.
“Even though they are the defending division champs and they’re clearly one of the top teams in the league it still seems like they are a little bit underrated,” said Belichick. “I think that this may be the team to beat”
“I really don’t know why [they’re underrated] they look pretty good to me.”
One of the keys to this week’s game is for the Patriots offense to come out and give the same performance they gave Sunday against the Denver Broncos. New England came out and put points on the board early and got the Broncos out of their game plan. Against Indianapolis they’ll need to try and do the same thing, but most importantly they’ll need to try and sustain drives and keep the Colts offense off the football field. While it’s great to keep Peyton Manning on the sidelines by keeping possession of the ball, Bledsoe said on Wednesday that they’ll need to score points and not settle for field goals in order to win.
“I think that everybody that plays Indy tries to do the best they can to keep the ball out of their offense’s hands as much as they can,” said Bledsoe. “But in doing that you also have to put your points up. You can’t just come out and say OK we held the ball for nine plays on that drive and we got a field goal out of it. You can’t look at it that way because if you’re not scoring points then you put yourself in tough shape.”
“Just look at what happened this past week at Buffalo. Buffalo really played well against them. They moved the ball up and down the field but they ended up getting stuck with some field goals and ended up getting beat at the end similar to our game against the Jets. We moved the ball very well against them, settled for field goals, and ended up losing the game.”
THE LAST TIME
In their last meeting in Foxboro last season, New England spotted the Colts a 28-7 lead before scoring 24 unanswered points en-route to the victory. Drew Bledsoe threw 4 touchdowns finishing the day with 299 yards in the air.
TO READ ABOUT THAT GAME CLICK HERE
BLEDSOE ON SURPASSING STEVE GROGAN’S
RECORD AS PATS ALL-TIME PASSER
“One of the most gratifying things in holding this record now is that my name goes above Steve’s in the record book,” said Bledsoe. “Any time you have your name above a guy like him, it’s an honor and a privilege.”
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