Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts preview

The Green Bay Packers will look to build a winning streak as they travel to take on the Indianapolis Colts.

The Colts will be playing with heavy hearts as earlier this week it was reveled that head coach Chuck Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia and will be leaving the team for the rest of the season to receive treatment.  The Colts will be doing their best to win this game for him but they have to deal with a Packers team that seems to have figured out their offensive woes.

Last week the Packers Aaron Rodgers threw for over 300 yards and four touchdowns.  With the added running attack from Cedric Benson (84 yards), the Packers offense seems to have found a way to reach the level that they played at last season.  This could prove to be bad news for the Colts, who are dealing with injuries in their defense and haven’t performed well as a unit all season.

While the offense shouldn’t have any trouble moving the ball, the Packers defense is looking for a better performance than the one against the Saints last week.  The Colts offense is putting up solid numbers behind number one overall pick Andrew Luck.  The Colts are averaging 357 yards per game, 267 of those belong to the passing game.

While Luck has played well, he is showing signs you would expect from a rookie quarterback.  He has a completion rate just over 53 percent and owns a five to four touchdown to interception ratio.

The Colts offense is very pass heavy, which puts a lot of pressure on Luck.  If the Packers are able to shut down the Colts running game, which shouldn’t be too difficult, they will force Luck to beat them with his arm.  Doing this will give the Packers secondary a chance show what they have got and they could make life very difficult for Luck.

This is a game that the Packers should be able to win and should be able to win it easily.  The Colts have shown some promise this season but as a team they are still in the rebuilding phase.  The Packers are also still trying to prove to everybody they are the dominant team they were last season.  This is a perfect opportunity for the Packers to do just that.

Packers win this one by 10+ points and improve to 3-2 on the season.

The Keys to Victory

1. Keep the offense going – The Packers offense finally resembled the dominant unit that was on display all last season in their game against the Saints last week.  They will undoubtedly look to continue that level of play and hope that it continues throughout the season.
2. Don’t let the rookie beat you – Last week the Packers defense, most notably the secondary, really struggled.  Luck is good and will be able to take advantage if the Packers secondary plays just as poor as last week.  The defense will have to step it up and return to the level of play they had during weeks two and three.
3. Keep the emotions in check – The Packers seem to have issues keeping their emotions in check and it has led to penalties in multiple games this season.  The Colts emotions will be riding high after the announcement of Coach Pagano’s battle with leukemia so the Packers need to keep their emotions in check so it doesn’t lead to scraps or full out fights.  Cooler heads will need to prevail this week.