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.

Monday Night Football: Indianapolis vs. Detroit

Get Bentley'd

Indianapolis travels north on I-469 to Detroit for a Monday Night Football clash with some incredibly poignant implications. The Colts are within one win of a first-place tie with the Bills, while Detroit can enter the land of wins, which hasn't become too exclusive in recent days. Albert Bentley is on the bus with the Colts for the trip, returning from a mysterious injury in Week One. On the other end of the ball is Barry Sanders, who has yet to score a rushing touchdown this year, a statistic that seems exponentially related to Detroit's winning percentage. Indianapolis' run defense is middle-of-the-road, but you can believe they're ready to stop the run as Rodney Peete has yet to show any sort of a threat in the air. Although they are both classic franchises within the NFL itself, the history between these two teams isn't filled with too many storylines, so hopefully Jeff George and crew can make a few before I run out of things to say.


Quarter One
The host team wins the toss and elects to receive. Mel Gray brings the ball out to the Detroit 12-yard line and the men from the Motor City get to work. The first play from scrimmage is a Barry Sanders pitch that's good for 17 yards. The second play is a lateral to Sanders is good for another 16, and the Detroit offense looks to be running on all cylinders. After two batted away passes, however, the well-oiled machine now looks like a Volkswagen lemon, and on 3rd and 10 when Peete's pass is nearly picked off, the Lions will be lucky if they can be salvaged for spare parts.

He not only catches footballs, he births them

Indianapolis takes advantage of their new Bentley-fied offense with a pitch to Ivy Joe Hunter for a yard. Dennis Gibson eats Jeff George for breakfast, or dinner, we're not sure when he woke up today, and it's third and long. George shows off his Fighting Illini credentials on the next play with a long pass to a wide-open Bill Brooks for 36 yards into Detroit territory. The storybook beginning for the schoolboy legend playing for his hometown comes to a startling cliffhanger, however, when he's sacked twice by Chris Spielman, with the second one being on 3rd and 26. Something tells us this villain won't be one to go away in the next chapter or two.

After being pushed back from the Detroit 45 to their own 28-yard line, Indianapolis punts it over to the Lions, with Mega-Boot Rohn Stark still limiting Detroit to a touchback with a monster 70+ yard punt. Peete gets his first completion to a man with the last name of Johnson and the first name that is not Calvin, at least not quite yet. Richard Johnson brings it into Indianapolis territory as time expires in the quarter.

Quarter Two
Peete momentarily forgets that he has a SkyNet cyborg on his team named Barry Sanders, and runs a bootleg for 12 yards twice in a row. After the resounding success of these two running plays, Peete gets a little too greedy and forces a pass out of bounds on both first and second down. On 3rd and 10, Peete drops back to pass, and Jeff Herrod drops him back a few more yards for a sack to take the Lions out of field goal range.

Like a wild stallion riding into the sunset of his career

The Colts start from their own 20-yard line after another touchback, and Albert Bentley gets his first play from scrimmage for a 21-yard dash around the right side. After this gracious display of sportsmanship from the Lions defense, they pounce on Bentley during the next play for a 5-yard loss. Jeff George puts the team on his back and gallops the necessary 15 yards for a first down, and them promptly bucks them all off when he tosses up two horrible-looking ducks for incompletions. On 3rd-and-10 from the Detroit 43-yard line, George's pass to Jessie Hester is good for 27 yards and the Colts are trotting right along. Detroit uncorks the thorn from its collective paws and stuffs Hunter, while on second down they paw away a pass by George. It's third down inside the red zone, and the Colts come back to life just in time, trampling over the Lions with a beautiful strike from George to Bentley in the end zone.

Indianapolis leads 7-0

With 53 seconds left in the half, the Lions start from their own 32-yard line. Knowing his options are limited, Peete goes with the most undesirable one and lobs up an interception to Chris Goode in Detroit territory with plenty of time remaining for another Indy score.

From the Detroit 47-yard line, George surveys his own options, scanning the field for a wide open Brooks and Hester. When he can't distinguish their routes beneath his increasingly furrowed brows, he chucks it behind him to Hunter for a loss of 4 yards and an unfortunate amount of clock time. Hunter is given the ball in a more conventional manner on second down, and he graciously runs down the clock on this uninteresting half of football.

Halftime - Colts 7, Lions 0

Quarter Three

I don't think he's down yet; better keep piling on!

Clarence Verdin is the recipient of an inadequate Eddie Murray kickoff, and he returns it to a very desirable field position at the Indianapolis 48-yard line. An Albert Bentley pitch gets the ball to exactly midfield, and then a perfect toss to Hester gets the ball to exactly within Code Blue field position for Detroit. Pat Beach gets involved with a bumbling five-yard catch-and-run in which he sheds about ten defenders, but can't quite get the eleventh to uncork his hands, and falls down at the 3-yard line. Bentley gets an opportunity for the first rushing touchdown of his short season, but instead decides to crash into the brick wall of Ray Donaldson's ass. George opts for the easier route, and tosses a fade to Bill Brooks in the corner of the end zone to move Indianapolis' chances at a possible Week 4 first place tie with Buffalo from laughable to George Lopez laughable.

Indianapolis leads 14-0

Rodney Peete does his best Heisman trophy impersonation

Mel Gray returns an equally opportunistic kick from Dean "It's soo-chie" Biasucci across midfield to the Colts' 48 yard-line. Peete overshoots Robert Clark on first down, and we here at The Tecmo Bowl are  beginning to understand that whole 'No Rushing TDs for Barry Sanders' thing. Peete spit-shines that philosophy even more when, while connecting with Aubrey Matthews for a 15-yard gain, promptly takes a blitz for a loss of 9 on the next play and tosses the ball out of bounds on second down. With 3rd-and-19 and a frothing Jeff Herrod staring at them in the face, the Detroit offense pulls off one of the trickier slot passes seen in Tecmo to Matthews, who gets the 19 yards plus one needed for a first down. The Lions and Barry Sanders are stopped on the next two plays, but Rodney Peete roars back when he sheds multiple defenders for a 16-yard touchdown run.

Indianapolis leads 14-7

Verdin returns a more traditional Murray kick to the Colts' 25-yard line. The third quarter ends with a long Hester reception into Detroit territory, busting open the Lake Michigan levees and washing away hopes of a Detroit comeback.

Quarter Four
And Chris Spielman starts building those levees back up with his third sack of the game. A Bentley pitch is picked, and ol' Uncle Alby is almost put back on a stretcher. On 3rd-and-23 back on their own side of the field, George overshoots Hester by a good 10 yards and somewhere on the sidelines, QB Bills and Co. are suiting up in silver and Honolulu blue.

The famous Barry Sanders tight-rope run

Detroit begins what will come to be known as 'The Motor City Melee' by Steve Sabol's writers with Peete absorbing a Jeff Herrod sack on first down. The second play from scrimmage is a tipped pass that falls harmlessly out of bounds. On 3rd-and-19, a pivotal sack by Sam Clancy gets the t-shirt presses in Indonesia cranked into high gear, but Wayne Fontes tosses conventional wisdom aside and shouts "Nobody punts in Tecmo!", and fucking goes for it on 4th-and-28 from the shadow of their own goal post. And in true Tecmo fashion, a Barry Sanders pitch is good for 46 yards to midfield. After this miraculous turn of events, Detroit soon faces another third down situation, to which they wisely entrust Sanders to convert once more. The glory is all Robert Clark's, however, when on the very next play he brings down a Rodney Peete pass for a touchdown.

Score tied 14-14

Verdin rumbles to the Indianapolis 42-yard line with nearly a minute and a half to go. With enough Bentley runs combined with no Chris Spielman sacks, the Colts may have a chance to kick their way into unheard-of territory within the AFC East. However, showing the infamous unconventional play-calling that usually gets them a perennial 2-14 record, Rick Venturi calls for two Jeff George passing plays that fall predictably incomplete. On 3rd-and-10, Ivy Joe Hunter is entrusted with the incredibly important conversion, and proves why his followers in Twitter are dozens less than Barry Sanders with a 5-yard run that doesn't exactly tick away the necessary amount of seconds. But the Colts didn't travel all this way for an overtime loss, and on 4th and 5 from their own 44-yard line, the Colts dig down deep and go for it. George lobs it up to Hunter, who bobbles and drops the ball. Venturi is seen pocketing an envelope with a very clear blue buffalo logo in the corner.

Who said these two couldn't exhibit exciting
and/or inept football?

With 21 seconds left to strike a final blow, Peete tosses a shovel pass to Sanders, who trucks it down the middle of the field, leaving defenders in his wake. Amazingly, he trips over a rift in the space-time continuum and falls over at the 2-yard line, sending this game into OT for the first time since we began covering them, much to this writer's seething disgust.

Overtime - Colts 14, Lions 14

Overtime
The home team wins the toss, and the momentum shift is more noticeable than the transmission of a '48 Lincoln. Sanders, the obvious horse of Fontes' overtime schematics, takes the first two plays for a total of 31 yards into field goal land. When his next play is blitzed for a loss of 6, the Lions decide to go to the air. The choice, in hindsight, could be diagnosed as a poor one by focus groups of coaches and men wearing beer helmets when Peete is intercepted in the end zone for an Indianapolis touchback.

This picture will be used for all 'Wanted' posters in Indiana

Bentley can't TCOB when he's blitzed for a loss of 6 on first down. George is reunited with Spielman on the next play for a loss of 12, putting the Colts in precarious position at their own 2-yard line. And then, in what could only be described as a twist on the modern-day home-grown quarterback legend, the villain Chris Spielman claims the spoils when he vanquishes the hero and safeties Detroit into their first win.

Detroit leads 16-14

Final: Lions 16, Colts 14 (OT)



This wasn't an easy game to watch, let alone write about, but the ending made it probably the most worthy of all games to recount this week. Don't get me wrong, the forced intrigue I wrote about early on did sort of get my Tecmo juices flowing, but right after the first kick-off I immediately began looking for pencils to sharpen or doorknobs to tighten. The first half didn't disappoint in its suckitude, but as soon as the Colts scored again, I started to take notice. A 3-1 Colts squad? Please write me if any of you in Tecmo land have seen this before, and I'll send you a notarized certificate asking you to "get out of town!" Unfortunately, the Lions struck back, and we didn't even get a Barry Sanders touchdown to show for it. The Colts go to 2-2 and will more than likely never recover, Bills fans everywhere rejoice their blasphemous lifestyles, and this writer will go to bed a more angst-ridden and jaded individual.