The peerless Colts

The hot topic, and one it's finally late enough in the season to address appropriately: will the Colts go undefeated and win the Super Bowl, becoming only the second team ever to do so?

No.

Why not? Well, to go undefeated requires three things. First, your team has to be really, really good. Second, your team has to stay really healthy. And third, your schedule has to be really, really easy.

Do the Colts have what it takes?

1. Are the Colts good enough? The '72 Dolphins are never really judged fairly in historical terms-if anything, going undefeated hurt them, because everyone minimizes that as an accomplishment. And the fact that they've shown T.O.-sized egos in retirement doesn't help their case.

I don't think the Dolphins are the best team ever, but they were by far the league's best in 1972. First in offense. First in defense. First in scoring offense. First in scoring defense. Not one but two thousand-yard backs. Am I forgetting anything?

Oh yeah, they won most of those games behind a backup quarterback, Earl Morrall, who sounds like a West Texas oil tycoon. Wait, scratch that one-relying on the backup was probably a blessing, considering the starter was some bespectacled dweeb named Griese.

Anyway, like the Dolphins in days of yore, the Colts have been the best team in the NFL this year, but not by the same margin. The Colts are third in offense and fourth in defense right now. If that sounds impressive, keep in mind that last year's Broncos finished a similar fifth in offense and fourth in defense. The Colts are, however, first in scoring and fourth in points allowed-which is pretty good, but not '72 Dolphins good.

So in a word, no.

2. Are the Colts healthy enough? Injuries are huge, and good teams become great just by avoiding them. (Recent Patriots squads being the obvious exception.) The Colts have been very healthy this year.

And now's probably a good time to point out that Peyton Manning, whom I love to mock for his laughable combination of physical agility and mental toughness, has never missed a game in his career. (Is inagility a word?)

Who knows what kind of depth the Colts have? A few injuries, especially on defense, could submarine them.

Yes (but still pending).

3. Is their schedule easy enough?

Do people really appreciate how easy the Dolphins had it? According to a few-years-old SI.com piece, they had the easiest schedule of any Super Bowl team (which I believe is still correct). Opponents' winning percentage: .367. Mathematically, you'd see that means that opponents would have handed them nine wins all by themselves (not really).

(Before you say-of course their opponents had bad records, they all had to play Miami!-notice how many good teams played rough schedules. And notice how many of those teams were Broncos.)

Well, the Colts haven't done too shabbily for themselves in the schedule department. According to one of the greatest minds/most mediocre Halo players in the universe, the Colts' opponents this year have a winning percentage of just .396.

But...their remaining five opponents combine for a .545 clip, highlighted by a stretch of at 8-3 Jacksonville Dec. 11, hosting 7-4 San Diego the next week, and on the road against 9-2 Seattle Christmas Eve. Anyone who told you the hard part of their schedule was over when they beat the Bengals (?) and Steelers is an idiot.

More to the point, Indy's weakest area, at least according to the numbers, is its run defense. They actually rank a respectable 10th in the league, but that's total yards per game, and the Colts often jump out to big leads and force opponents to abandon the run. Dig a little deeper, and you'll see that the Colts give up 4.4 yards per carry, which is 26th in the league. Did you see that LaDainian Tomlinson is coming to town in that stretch, and the next week they get on a plane to face league-leader Shaun Alexander?

And one more thing: Miami had to win seventeen games in a row to have a perfect year, including the playoffs; Indianapolis has to win almost that many just to get out of the regular season unscathed. Think about it, at 11-0, they're barely past the halfway mark.

Answer: not quite.

That's two nos and a "so far", so I think it's safe to say: the Colts are not going to go undefeated, even just in the regular season.

Having said that, I hope they do, then lose in playoffs, cementing Manning's legacy as a choke artist, as well as muddling the whole perfect season accomplishment just enough to obscure forever the accomplishments of those obnoxious old men.

Oh, and let's not forget one more crucial query: if the Colts are sitting at 13-0 or 14-0 but have clinched home-field, should they continue to play their starters? It's a tough one. Tony Dungy has already said he'd rest his team, because the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. I'm not sure what Dungy knows about that anyway-perhaps some of his old Buccaneers called him after they got a real coach.

Keep in mind that the most recent team to make a run at this, the '98 Broncos (who made it as far as 13-0), called it a plus when they lost late in the season because it gave them a chance to avoid the perfect season distraction and regain focus. But the Broncos weren't yet resting starters when they lost, and many of the players were holdovers from the '96 team, which rested early and cost itself dearly.

I think resting your players is a bad idea-too much opportunity to get cocky without backing it up. Of course, if Edgerrin James gets hurt and you bow out of the playoffs early, no one's going to care what your regular season record was.

I say you have to go for both. Teams that came close to a perfect season, went for it, and didn't make it-like the '85 Bears, or the aforementioned Broncos-still won the Super Bowl. Teams that rest early often bow out early.

Besides, what kind of championship mentality is, "I don't know about playing football, I don't want anyone to get hurt"? If you're competitive enough to win a Super Bowl, aren't you competitive enough to want to win every game before it?

If the Colts have a shot at an undefeated season and don't go for it, I guarantee they won't win the Super Bowl.