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The Denver Broncos are decent favorites against the Indianapolis Colts in short because they're coming off their most impressive win of the season, and the Colts are a dumpster fire. Eric Goodman and Zach Fogg of Mile High Sports invited Indianapolis radio-man Joe Staysniak to talk about the game from Indy's point of view. Here are three highlights from Staysniak.
1. Colts show same problems, week after week
"It's the same thing, every single week. It's the same ineptitude. It's the same problems every single week," Staysniak said. "Pep Hamilton lost his job (Tuesday) because of it. Pep would come out and tell you, 'Yeah, we have to run the ball more.' And then against New England we'd run the ball nine times. Frank Gore gets the ball nine times. He comes back out and says, 'Yeah, we need to run the ball more.' And then against the New Orleans Saints, Frank Gore runs the ball, I think, 13 times.... It's the same thing, over and over again."
That has to be one of the reasons Hamilton was fired (among other scapegoat-y reasons), so don't be surprised if the Colts come out showing the Broncos something new Sunday.
2. Receivers aren't productive
"When you look at yards per pass play, they're 31st in the league," said Staysniak. "Part of that is the quarterback is not getting the ball to the right guys, or even guys in the same colored jersey. The other thing is, T.Y. Hilton just signed a big contract extension. He's been worthless. Andre Johnson's not had an opportunity to do things, but when he does, it's not like there's any YAC after he gets done. So some of these guys aren't playing that well. Our best receiver right now is Donte Moncrief, a guy in his second year, who's starting to come on a little bit. And they targeted him seven times last week, and he only had two catches."
3. Expectations are still high
"I think the expectations are set so high. You made it to the Championship Game a year ago. All you had to was plug in a couple of key guys. You needed to get a little bit better at run defense, a little bit better at running the football. You put Frank Gore on this team, that solves that, and you figure that you had things figured out. So expectations are high. Making the playoffs isn't going to save anyone's job around here. "