The unrecognizable Indianapolis Colts played in front a capacity home crowd and home television audience for the first time this season Monday night.
They took on the Buffalo Bills only four weeks after blowing a 26-0 lead in Buffalo and losing 37-35 to stay perfectly frustrated.
Their luck didn’t change Monday night as they lost 9-6 on Steve Christie’s third field goal, a 27-yarder with no time left, to join the Bears as the NFL’s only 0-7 teams.
It was only the second game in league history with no turnovers and no touchdowns.
The last time the Colts were on national television they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC playoffs last year. The last time they were on Monday Night Football, they beat the Miami Dolphins in September 1996 to remain the last undefeated team in the league at 4-0.
Times have changed so drastically that Jim Harbaugh looks like he is still playing quarterback for the Bears and Lindy Infante looks like he is still coaching the Packers. A once-magical Colts team has gone poof.
“Confidence is such a big thing,” said director of operations Bill Tobin, another former Bears employee who can identify with Chicago’s plight.
Despite an enthusiastic towel-waving crowd that greeted the Colts, they appeared far from home. Harbaugh had to call two timeouts early in the first half because of communication problems from the bench. The poor clock management turned atrocious before halftime, when the Colts parlayed a first down at the Bills’ 20 into two sacks, a loss of 20 seconds and a missed 51-yard field goal in a sequence ABC commentator Dan Dierdorf said would embarrass a high school team.
With two rookies starting on the Colts’ line, Harbaugh’s pocket collapsed regularly and Infante’s system of deep drops seemed to play into the waiting arms of pass rushers Bryce Paup and Bruce Smith.
Paup and Smith turned tackles Tony Mandarich and rookie Adam Meadows into turnstiles. Harbaugh suffered four sacks in the first half. Infante showed him open receivers on the Polaroid pictures, but Harbaugh was not under siege on the sideline.
Harbaugh had to leave the game midway through the third quarter when Bills linebacker Sam Rogers rolled up on his right ankle. Paul Justin, another ex-Bear, took over and led the team on its first scoring drive of the night, a 39-yard field goal by Cary Blanchard.
Adding insult to injury was the news out of Buffalo that ex-Bills quarterback Jim Kelly had called Harbaugh “a baby” on a local Buffalo TV show on Sunday. When an Indianapolis station requested footage of the accusation, it was told that Kelly was embarrassed by the comment and thought it wouldn’t get outside of Buffalo.
Since Harbaugh’s courageous play in 1996 earned him the George Halas Award from the Pro Football Writers Association for “playing with abandon despite injury or personal problems off the field,” Kelly’s charge represented a radical change of opinion from one year to the next.
Not since the 0-11 New Orleans Saints of 1980 had a winless team appeared on Monday night as late as the Colts.
The Bills took a 6-0 lead on two field goals by Christie. Receiver Andre Reed caught his 800th pass in the first half, joining Jerry Rice, Art Monk and Steve Largent in pro football’s rare 800 club.
