Monday Night Football: Buffalo vs. Indianapolis

Heading into the season, there was just a short list of things we knew about the Indianapolis Colts. Now, after just two games, we now know that Jeff George is the league's most prolific passer, while Jessie Hester is by far the best receiver at levitating footballs. Apparently he's pretty good at catching them too, leading the league in receiving yards and touchdowns after the first two weeks. Tonight, they'll meet up with divisional rivals in the Buffalo Bills, a team that was chewed up and spit out last week by the San Francisco offense. It will take a few more weeks to make believers out of anyone, but the Colts can make a big statement on the national stage if they can continue to click offensively while making sure to kick Jim Kelly and his boys around while they're down. Let's head out east where the only things rising earlier than the sun are Jeff George's botoxed eyebrows.

Quarter One
The Bills win the toss, eliciting Dean Biasucci to crawl out from his burrow and boot one Kenneth Davis. Davis gets a nice return to the Buffalo 45-yard line, where Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas get to work. Thomas takes two straight pitches for 32 yards, then feigns another one to allow Kelly to drop back and launch it to a leaping Thurman in the end zone. Oh hey, Bills, nice to see you finally decided to show up this year!

Buffalo leads 7-0

Clarence Verdin won't be Verdancing on his first return of 2 yards, giving the Colts unfortunate starting position on their first drive of the game. Anthony Johnson makes the best of his immaculate abilities by busting loose for 11 yards on the first play from scrimmage, but George goes 0-for-3 on the next three plays to force audiences to be subjected to the name 'Rohn' showing up on their television sets.

Kelly finds Andre Reed wide open along the sideline for a 49-yard run and catch, surprisingly just their second such connection of the season. Two plays later, and Carwell Gardner is in for his first touchdown.

Buffalo leads 14-0

Verdin fares slightly better with a 35-yard return, though the quarter is destined to end with a deafening thud after Johnson runs into his own offensive tackle and George overthrows Jessie Hester by a country mile.

Quarter Two
Though if the Colts could only turn back time, they'd repeat the end of the first quarter endlessly to avoid the soul-crushing and drive-killing Jeff George interception in the end zone, the first of his season.

Thomas meets resistance for the first time in the game on the next two plays, losing a total of 6 yards. On 3rd and 16 and at the precipice of their own doom on the 1-yard line, Carwell Gardner hitches up the Bills' offense and avoids certain death with a 10-yard run. Of course, Chris Mohr is still rolled out to punt, but the constant derailing of the Colts' chances at scoring are sure to nab some sadism points.

The Colts begin their third drive of the game near midfield, picking up just their second first down with a Johnson run into Bills' territory. Two plays later lead to a 3rd-and-1 situation, where Rodney Culver avoids a Buffalo blitz and gains a valiant 4 yards and a fresh set of downs. His martyrdom will be honored and revered in Indianapolis for quite some time for his willingness to lay down his body for this rare opportunity, and for that we honor him with the screenshot you see on the right. Okay, now that we're done with that, we should probably tell you about Johnson's fumble over to Phil Hansen just as the Colts appeared to have something going. What's that? Rodney...who?

With just a few seconds left on the clock to get into field goal range and put this game effectively out of reach, the Bills opt instead to go with the "Hey, what a surprise, Reed's wide the f@ck open again" play along the sidelines that leads to his first touchdown of the season, a beautiful 51-yard mudhole stomp.

Buffalo leads 21-0

Halftime - Bills 21, Colts 0

Quarter Three
Indianapolis can take pleasure in knowing they've got a fresh start in the second half, and if it's believed that Ted Marchibroda delivered one of his inspiring speeches at halftime, then the Colts can still make some magic happen. And sometimes, the magic behind the act isn't always clear. So while most of us were groaning after Johnson's gain of 0 and Jeff George's passes to the moles living in the RCA Dome, the real believers knew the magic of Rohn Stark was just about to begin.

There's no magic involved when Kelly finds Reed for a 75-yard touchdown. Black magic, maybe.

Buffalo leads 28-0

If the Colts begin a drive at their own 42-yard line, and nobody has their televisions on to see it, did it really happen? The answer is yes, though it's an answer that took lots of hard work and cost a few lives here at the Tecmo Bowl to uncover. Johnson pulls in a catch and runs it to the Buffalo 31-yard line. Jeff George throws three more incompletions as he hurtles back down through the stratosphere, though Biasucci salvages something from this mess  with a 48-yard boot.

Buffalo leads 28-3

The third quarter ticks away into the fourth with the Bills actually taking more than three plays to get into Colts' territory again.

Quarter Four
Thurman Thomas is gobbled up by an inhumanely starved Colts defense on two straight plays, eliciting Kelly to go for Reed again on 3rd-and-15. An overthrow of the wide open Reed could just be a simple miscalculation on Kelly's part or perhaps the Bills actually exhibiting sportsmanlike play by not running up the score. Yeah, we blame Kelly too. Steve Christie still gets 3 points to erase anything the Colts' previously accomplished on their last drive.

Buffalo leads 31-3

Jeff George is politely introduced to Shane Conlan on the first play of what he hopes is the last drive of his life. He decides not to prolong it by throwing it to the renowned butterfingers of Anthony Johnson, and then lobbing it out of bounds on two separate occasions, including a 4th and 13 play from his own 27-yard line. Make sure to keep those eyes pinned open, Alex. This show's not done for a long time.

Jim Kelly gets chased down by a couple of Colts' defenders on the next play, and decides to effectively sign their pink slips by scampering 27 yards for a touchdown.

Buffalo leads 38-3

With little to no time left to get his passing accuracy into double digit percentages, George opts to go for broke with a bomb to tight end Kerry Cash. Instead, the ball finds Henry Jones of the Bills, a man who has caught more George passes today than anyone on his own team.

Thurman Thomas catches his second touchdown, giving Kelly 4 throwing scores on the day to equal the amount George had previously led the league with. Lady and gentlemen, we've been hustled.

Buffalo leads 45-3

The final drive of the game for the Colts begins promising with Verdin crossing over to the Buffalo 48-yard line. As the Bills defenders leave the field to celebrate their slaughter, Anthony Johnson runs 22 yards before falling into a sinkhole while Jessie Hester refuses to catch another ball. With one second left in which to score dignity points, Hester makes his first reception of the game at the Buffalo 10-yard line before tripping over a sleeping Nate Odomes and fumbling the ball out of bounds.

Final: Bills 45, Colts 3

Some people have watched vivisection documentaries and still walked away with more innocence and naivete than those of us subjected to this horror show. Jeff George was abysmal, though his receivers weren't much help. It's almost as if members of the Bills slipped some sort of hallucinogenic terror drug into the Colts' Gatorade to make them think the football was a flying tarantula. Of course, Buffalo always finds ways to torture their little brothers of the AFC West, no matter how well Indianapolis seems to be playing up to that point. Plus, we would never imagine Buffalo to resort to such nefarious means to win a game.