Indy Football Report Editor John Oehser breaks down the Week 7 NFL matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and St. Louis Rams, which will be played Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Mo., Sunday at 1 p.m. . . .
THE VIBE . . .
The Indianapolis Colts are coming off their bye week, and they’re very much not buying into the drum-roll-accompanied joke that it’s hard to tell the difference between a bye and their opponent this week, the St. Louis Rams. But that’s certainly the theme around Indianapolis this week — the media’s focus on the winless Rams and their slim-on-paper chances of beating one of the NFL’s hottest teams and the Colts’ expected insistence that the Rams not only have a chance Sunday, but are in fact a very good team despite their record. Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell began his Wednesday meeting with the media — the week’s tone-setting press conference — with a long discussion of the Rams’ many strengths. A followup question asked with a bit of levity, “Then why are the Rams 0-6?” Caldwell’s response was no joke and it was that the Rams were indeed no joke. “You look at penalties and turnovers,” Caldwell said. “Typically that makes a difference in the ball game. I can tell you this, they (Rams) keep getting better every week. You look at their game against Minnesota. They turned the ball over three times inside the 10-yard line. They left either nine or 21 points on the table. I don’t think you’ll see them do that very often. I just see them trending (up) and getting better and better. We’d better be ready to play when we walk into that stadium.” Colts QB Peyton Manning also spent a lot of time Wednesday discussing the Rams’ strengths and how he doesn’t consider a team’s record when preparing for a team. If this seems like a familiar theme, it is. The Colts played winless Tennessee the week before an October 18 bye and talked throughout the week of the dangers of Tennessee, which were made more believable because the Titans won the AFC South a year ago. The Rams have lost 16 consecutive games and are at that learn-how-to-win-under-a-first-year coach stage. Teams at that stage historically don’t fare well against the Colts in the Manning era.
