With that being said, here is the “State of the Colts,” mid-season edition!

The Record

While I’ve always had complete faith in this team, I didn’t think they’d be undefeated at this point. I mean c’mon, they replace was one of the best coaches of all-time in Tony Dungy, they’re still 7-0? That speaks volumes to this entire organization. They kept the pieces in place to make this season a success, and so far, so good.

I was a little worried about back-to-back road trips to Miami and Arizona, and really thought that the first loss of the season could come to the Cardinals. However, Dwight Freeney was in beast mode that game, and they completely decimated the Cards. None of the other games on the schedule made me that worried, though in past years, games at Tennessee haven’t gone entirely well. But luckily, the Titans are 1-6 this year, so there was no way the Colts were losing that one.

The Coaching

What more can you say about Jim Caldwell? The guy is the first rookie head coach to start the season 7-0 since 1931. That’s right, he’s this era’s Potsy Clark.

The transition has been very smooth from Dungy to Caldwell, and though Caldwell really hasn’t had to face much adversity whatsoever this season, he’s simply done his job and got the team wins. Of course, we’ll know more about Caldwell’s coaching if the Colts hit a rough patch at some point, but the apple obviously doesn’t fall far from the tree, as Caldwell has picked up right where Coach Dungy left off. Kudos to the entire coaching staff for a job well done up until this point.

The Offense

When the year started, I never thought I’d say that Peyton Manning would have one of his best seasons yet. Of course, you expect Peyton to get better, but I didn’t think he would actually be playing the best football of his career. And even with the injury to Anthony Gonzalez, he’s had no trouble finding his receivers. He’s made Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon household names now, and that’s simply what he does. He makes his receivers better.

Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark have both had awesome seasons as well, as both are like Peyton and fine win. They get better with age. As for the running game, it hasn’t hit it’s stride yet, but it’s continually getting better. Joseph Addai hasn’t been a force on the ground, but rookie Donald Brown clearly has the potential to be a great back in this league. I feel good any time that guy touches the ball.

The Defense

Now while the pass defense has played exceptionally well, the rush defense is where we find the Colts’ biggest problem thus far. However, the problem isn’t as big as you might think. They let Ronnie Brown run all over the place in Miami. They still won the game. They let Steven Jackson run all over the place in St. Louis. They still won the game. And they let Frank Gore take a long run to the house on Sunday, but once again, the Colts came out on top.

So while the rush defense is clearly the biggest weakness up until this point, it hasn’t exactly cost the Colts anything. They’ve made the plays when they’ve needed to, and that’s all that really matters in the end. Even on days where the offense hasn’t looked particularly fantastic (vs. SF, for example), the rush defense has contained backs enough to where it didn’t hurt them in the win/loss category. With the excellent pass rush and excellent secondary, there’s some room for error for this defense when it comes to stopping the opposition’s rush offense.

The Special Teams

No problems here whatsoever, except for the fact that Adam Vinatieri is out with an injury. The Colts have picked up Matt Stover though, and they’ll be fine until the most clutch kicker in the NFL returns to action.

We expected this to be a strong point of this team, and it hasn’t disappointed so far. Great teams have great special teams. The Colts fit that category.

The Upcoming Schedule

The Colts didn’t play their best game on Sunday against the 49ers, and they’ll need to get back to playing excellent since they have a tough stretch coming up here. The next four games are:

vs. Houston
vs. New England
at Baltimore
at Houston

That’s easily their toughest stretch of the season since the Texans are playing well as of late. The showdown against New England in a few weeks will go a long way in determining who the best team in the AFC is. But, that’s pretty much the case every single year these two teams play. We’ll really see just how good this team is in the next four games, because if they come out of that 4-0, then we could be seriously talking about a perfect season.

But, we’ll let things play out before we start discussing that scenario.

I’m glad that one is over, and that’s one I won’t be going back to watch on the TiVo later tonight. So sorry Colts’ fans, I won’t be breaking down the tape Ron Jaworski-style this week.

But again, we’ve gotta remember that it was indeed a win. There are no such thing as style points in the NFL, which was certainly good on this day for the Colts.

It wasn’t a Manning-like today for Peyton Manning, even if he did throw for 347 yards. He overthrew several passes, which is something that we don’t see on a regular basis from him. Plus, Joseph Addai had more touchdown passes than he did, as Addai made the 22-yard pass to Reggie Wayne that would put the Colts in front for good. That’s right. Manning had zero touchdown passes to Addai’s one. The NFL is an interesting place.

You have to give a lot of credit to the Niner defense, as they seemed to always have an answer for Indy when they were trying to drive for a touchdown. This made Matt Stover busy on the day, as he kicked his first four field goals as a Colt. Welcome aboard, Matt.

Of course, he’s no Adam Vinatieri, but if he kicks like he did today, we may just alternate kickers in order to keep them fresh. I’ll pass the idea on to Coach Caldwell.

All in all, it’s a good victory for the Colts, especially on a day where they clearly didn’t have their best stuff. The 49ers aren’t a bad team, even though that was their third loss in a row. Frank Gore made things look a little scary early on, because after he broke that 64-yard run, I thought it may be a long day for Indy. But aside from that run, they held him to just 27 yards on 12 carries. Good job by the rush defense to pick things up in the second half.

So Colts’ fans, now I turn it over to you.

What did you think of today’s game? Just one game? Or should we be worried?

HOW THE COLTS CAN WIN

The Colts need to keep doing what they’re doing. That might sound a little cliche, but it has worked for them so far this season. Peyton Manning is playing some of the best football of his career, and if they can keep protecting him like they have been, there’s not a secondary in the league that can stop him. He’s turned average receivers into playmakers, so they must continue to put the ball in the air.

WHY THE COLTS COULD LOSE

The only glaring weakness we’ve seen from the Colts all season has been the rush defense. And you bet that Niners’ coach Mike Singletary wants to give the Colts a heavy dose of Frank Gore this week on the ground. For some reason, despite their outstanding play everywhere else, the Colts are still struggling to stop the run. While I have confidence in the amount of points that the Colts can score, they don’t want to get in a hole early just because they can’t stop the run.

COLTS’ X-FACTOR

To me, this has got to be Dwight Freeney. Freeney was back at practice on Friday, despite battling the knee injury, so he should be good to go for tomorrow’s game. If Freeney can get a lot of pressure on Alex Smith, sort of like he did in the meeting with Kurt Warner and the Cardinals earlier this season, the Niners have no shot. Smith isn’t the most accurate quarterback without pressure, and if Freeney is all over him all the time, it’s going to be hard for them to get any type of passing game going.

WHO WILL WIN?

This game sort of scares me a little bit, and no, not just because it’s Halloween weekend. The Niners have looked rough the last few weeks, but they are a better football team than they’ve shown in those two games.

But, the Colts are undefeated, and a Peyton Manning-lead team doesn’t lose these kinds of games. The Colts want to keep the momentum going, and they will.

Prediction: Colts 28, 49ers 17

What are your thoughts on this week’s game?