Colts host Cowboys

If there were ever a time to push the panic button, now would be that time for the Indianapolis Colts. There are just five games left to their 2010 season, and unless they want to add to the list of teams that lost the Super Bowl one year and failed to make the playoffs the next, they might be in a must-win NFL betting affair against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday afternoon at Lucas Oil Field.
Yes, if the playoffs started today, Peyton Manning and company would be watching from the couch. Indianapolis would lose the tiebreaker in the AFC South standings to the Jacksonville Jaguars and would be nowhere near claiming one of the two Wild Card bids to the second season that the conference has to offer.
Back-to-back losses really have Indy reeling, especially knowing that Manning looks very un-Peyton Manning-like at the moment. "The Sheriff" has tossed seven INTs over these last two games, and nine picks in his last four, giving him 11 on the season.
What we still have to remember though, is that this is Peyton freaking Manning. The man has thrown for 3,344 yards and 22 TDs, and no one knows how to pick apart a defense at the line of scrimmage before the ball is ever snapped like good old No. 18 does.
Getting some players healthy would really help, though. As of Wednesday, running backs Joseph Addai and Mike Hart plus wide receiver Austin Collie are all listed as questionable with various ailments, while starting linebackers Clint Session and Gary Brackett are probably both still out of the lineup as well.
These injuries are clearly taking their toll on the Colts right now. Manning has only had one other skill player on offense, WR Reggie Wayne, that has played in all 11 games. Eight different receivers and tight ends have been in the starting lineup at least once this year, while four different running backs have had their hands on the pigskin at least 25 times. Only Wayne and TE Jacob Tamme have even played in all 11 games with Manning, and no other offensive skill player has appeared in more than nine games.
Dallas quarterback Jon Kitna is going to have his work cut out for him in this one, but the job can't be all that much more difficult than it was last week when Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints came to town on Thanksgiving Day. Kitna threw for 313 yards that day and clearly had the Saints dead to rights if not for the inopportune fumble by Roy Williams on the pass play that should have iced the game.
Since replacing the injured QB Tony Romo, Kitna has had three games with at least 310 yards passing and two with less than 190.
Defensively, the Cowboys are still a wreck, as they rank No. 30 in the league in scoring at 27.4 PPG against.
These two teams don't square off all that often, but when they do, the edge normally goes to the Colts. Indy has won three of the last four in this series both SU and ATS, but the one time the Cowboys pulled off the 'W' was in the last meeting in "Big D," a 21-14 win in '06.
This is only the fourth all-time meeting between the teams in Indianapolis, and the only time the Cowboys won a game here was in 1993, a 27-3 victory.
Indianapolis is 6-2 ATS in its last eight games played on field turf, and especially off of that horrifying loss last week to the San Diego Chargers, there is plenty of reason to expect the Colts to get some revenge in this Sunday's matchup. They are 5 ½-point choices of the oddsmakers at BookMaker.com, while the 'total' chimes in at 47½.