Indianapolis at Tampa Bay

Indy head coach Tony Dungy returns to his old stomping grounds, carrying an undefeated team with him. Indianapolis is doing just about everything right. We all know about their offense. Their defense is the big surprise this year. As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, I liked the Colts because they can now keep the score reasonable enough so that Peyton Manning doesn’t have to force plays to try to win games. Indy’s defense is ranked sixth in the league after four games. The Colts have won their four games by an average of 31-12. The only way we could expect to be GETTING 4 points with a team that is on such a roll is in this situation. They are going into hostile territory on Monday night against the World Champs. Because of that, this spread is a little inflated. I expect Edgerrin James to play in this one and the Colts will need his hard running up the middle. Carolina showed us that Tampa’s defense must be attacked in this way. Road teams that shot the lights out and won big in their previous game are 45-18 against the spread (2-0 this year). A big test for both teams but I believe the Colts will show they are for real on Monday night.