We got back to work today after taking the weekend off.  With San Diego winning, we now know we play the Chargers this coming Sunday.  The players had a little more pep in their step today as we begin to prepare for a specific opponent.  We practiced twice last week, but without knowing for sure who we would play, it was more to keep ourselves sharp and keep our conditioning level good.  We gave the players Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off and most of the guys got away and relaxed.

 

I got a chance to watch most of the games this weekend and, once again, I was struck by the number of mistakes that really decided games.  It seems like you have to step it up to another level in the playoffs, but you really don't.  You just have to be able to play at high intensity, knowing how much is on the line, but still just execute and play basic, sound  football.  The New York Giants did the best job of that.  They didn't do anything spectacular, but made very few mistakes.  They played hard and came away with a convincing win. 

 

That's what we're going to emphasize this week.  Each man preparing and getting ready to do their job, but not feeling like you have to do anything special to win, just because it's the playoffs.  Fortunately, we have enough veteran guys who will echo that message to our new players.

 

San Diego is a hot football team right now, having won 7 in a row.  Their big question will be the health of Antonio Gates, their Pro Bowl tight end.  He hurt his toe in yesterday's win and we won't know his status until later in the week.  He's a great player who dictates what type of coverages you can play against them.  Everyone goes into games against the Chargers trying to handle Gates and LaDanian Tomlinson.  With that said though, we can't worry about who plays or who doesn't.  We have to get ready for their offense and be prepared to play our best game of the year.  In the first game we had against them, we gave them two special teams scores and missed a field goal, so we know that all three phases of our team have to be on for us to win. 

 

We also found out today Bob Sanders was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year.  That is a great honor for him and well deserved.  He brings a lot to our defense and is certainly one of the reasons we had such a good statistical year. 

 

But now our regular season is over and, just like with Bob's award, we have to put that behind us and prepare for this weekend.  It's going to be fun and I know our guys will be ready.

 We got an early start on Christmas today with a win over the Houston Texans 38-15.  Saturday night we talked about playing for pride but, more than that, playing to get a little sharper for the playoffs.  We really did play well, especially on offense.  We had a drive right before the half that ended with a fumble, but other than that, we scored on every other possession with our first offense.  Defensively we had a slow start but got some turnovers and controlled Houston's running game pretty well.

 

All in all, it was a good win against a team that had been playing well.  We got our thirteenth victory and played  without some of our usual starters.  Our defensive line was thin to begin with and Josh Thomas was not able to play because of flu symptoms so Dan Klecko, Darrell Reid and Ramon Guzman stepped up and played a lot more, and played well.  We think we'll get some of our defensive players back to practice this week--Mathis Brock and Bethea.  We'll see how they do and decide if we want to play them some against the Titans.

 

The surprise is how the playoff picture changed this weekend.  Cleveland's loss, coupled with Tennessee's win put the Titans in the driver's seat for the last wild card spot.  Because of that, NBC has changed us to the night game, moving us from 1:00 pm to 8:15.  It really isn't fair to fans who had already made plans but it will be the game with the most drama of the day.  If Tennessee wins they're in the playoffs.  If we beat them, Tennessee is out and Cleveland is in.  So everyone will have a thought about what we should do.  Our focus, though, will be to do what is best for us and not worry about anyone else's team.  We need some of our guys to get some work in but we'll decide on Friday how much the starters are going to play.  Right now we're just going to enjoy this win and enjoy the Christmas holiday.  We gave the players Monday and Tuesday off.  The coaches are going to try to get all of their work done on Monday so we can spend Christmas at home with our families.  We'll put together a good plan for the Titans, though, and we'll play to win--but we do plan on using everyone.

 

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and gets to experience what Christmas is really all about--God expressing His love to us through His son Jesus Christ.

 

 

It was definitely tough, but we arrived back in Indianapolis about 1:30 Monday morning with the division championship in hand.  Our win, coupled with Pittsburgh's loss, gives us the #2 seed and first round bye in the playoffs.

 

The weekend started off roughly for us, as we had to wait out the snow and ice Saturday, trying to leave for Oakland.  We sat on the runway from 1:00 pm to 3:30 before we were able to take off.  Once we got in the air it was pretty smooth, but still a long flight out to the West Coast.

 

We knew it wouldn't be an easy game and, as we were watching the early games, we could see that some upsets may be happening.  Seeing the weather at some places, we were definitely glad to be in Oakland rather than on the East Coast.  Just as we were leaving the locker room for introductions Jacksonville scored to go ahead of Pittsburgh and we knew we could wrap a lot of things up with a win.  We got off to a great start, helped by T J Rushing's big punt return and were up 10-0 and driving in Oakland's territory.  We thought Peyton had scored on third down, but after a replay it was 4th-1 at their one yard line.  I'm usually conservative in those situations but I thought a 17-0 lead might put them away.  We went for it and didn't make it.  I think that turned the game around as they became energized and had a 20 play drive to score.  It was a dogfight from there on out as their crowd really gort into the game.  They even took the lead in the 4th quarter 14-13, but our offense answered with a TD drive that was made possible by a fantastic catch by Reggie Wayne on third down.  That's what you need to win in tough situations--someone to make a big play and, for us, it seems like it comes from different people every week.  Our defense then stopped Oakland's last drive with a 4th down incompletion.

 

Knowing that we had won our 5th straight division title and secured that first round bye made for a great plane ride home.  That is the fun part of winning--enjoying 4 hours together and having some fun, whether it's card games, movies, music or just hanging out with each other talking. It's great to have that feeling that your hard work and togetherness has paid off.

 

Now we have to get ready for the next two weeks.  We want to get ready for the playoffs but we finish the regular season with two division games--Houston and Tennessee.  We don't need to win those games for the standings but you never want your division opponents to feel like they can beat you.  So we'll sit down and discuss how we want to play those games and how we want to handle the bye.  But right now we're just going to enjoy this victory for a day.

It's been a while since I've posted a message.  We have defeated Jacksonville and Baltimore and are now one victory away from our 5th AFC South division title in a row.  I was very proud of our team going to Baltimore and taking care of business in such a convincing fashion.  Many times, things just work out in your favor and the timing of the Ravens game was perfect for us.  We got a few of our injured guys back and the Ravens were coming off an emotional loss on Monday night to the Patriots.  We felt if we got off to a good start we could really make it tough on them and that's just what happened.  Offense, defense, and special teams made big plays early and that really took the crowd out of the game.  Their fans came wanting to cheer but by the end of the first quarter we were so far up we didn't have to contend with much noise after that.

 

We had some starters come back to the lineup (like Tony Ugoh) and some young guys come on and play well (Anthony Gonzalez, Keyunta Dawson, Quinn Pittcock, Michael Coe) so it was a big win for us.  Now we have to focus in on a team we have not played in a while, the Oakland Raiders.  They have a new coaching staff and some players I'm familiar with--Warren Sapp played for me in Tampa and is having a good year for them.  Domenic Rhodes was such a big part of our Super Bowl team last year but he is not getting many opportunities to carry the ball for them.  We're watching tape now, trying to get to know the Raiders a little better.

 

We need to win our game and have the Jaguars beat Pittsburgh to secure the division and the number 2 seed in the playoffs.  Everyone is concerned with Marvin Harrison's health.  He is actually running welll and practicing and we hope to get him back in the lineup this week.  We'll see how practice goes for him, but he's getting closer to being ready to play.

 

On a note away from football, Ben Utecht is performing with Sandi Patty in her Christmas concert with the African Children's choir and is just great in a duet with Sandi.  If you get a chance to see the show, it's tremendous.