. Why the Colts can get to at least 15-0. This entry isn’t about whether the Colts can finish the season 16-0. But because the Colts can’t go 16-0 without going 15-0, this entry should interest anyone interested in the topic. One of the most remarkably overlooked aspects of the last two weeks around the Colts — indeed around the entire NFL, because the Colts’ quest for 16-0 has become a national- and local-media obsession — is that the commonly held theory about how the Colts will approach the last three weeks of the regular season may be absolutely untrue. That’s because it may be based on absolutely the wrong season. Most analysts understandably have compared this season to the Colts’ 2005 season, when the team also started 13-0 and clinched homefield advantage with three regular-season games remaining. The perception has grown that the Colts rested their starters for three games that regular season, which led to a Divisional Playoff loss to Pittsburgh. The reality is the Colts didn’t pull their starters in post-first quarter situations until the 15th game of the regular season that season, and while many observers and analysts have made note of that, what almost no one has discussed is the Colts’ approach two seasons later. It’s the great lost element of the how-the-Colts-will-approach-the-final-three-games mystery that in 2007, the Colts clinched the No. 2 seed in the postseason with two games remaining. In Game 15 — with absolutely nothing at stake — the Colts beat the Houston Texans, 38-15, in a game at the RCA Dome. The game is significant not because of the score, but because QB Peyton Manning played deep into the third quarter, as did WR Reggie Wayne, who caught 10 passes. Five defensive players missed the game because of injuries, but those who did play, played extensively — and that seems the far more likely scenario for the 15th game of this season whether or not the Colts are unbeaten entering the game or not. Yes, the Colts rested players in Game 15 at Seattle in 2005. However, why would the Colts play Manning, Wayne and other healthy front-line players deep into a 15th game that meant nothing when the team wasn’t unbeaten and not do the same two years later in a season in which it still hadn’t lost? So, the answer to can the Colts get to 15-0 — and will they do whatever they can to win that 15th game — may not be a complete, emphatic, yes. They still won’t risk a borderline healthy player. But will they play the healthy ones all out? It’s hard to see why they wouldn’t.
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