History Backs Colts out of the Gates

Look out AFC South because the season is here and the Indianapolis Colts pride themselves on fast starts, in case you don’t remember. The 0-4 preseaon may come as a shock, but it is impossible to overlook their history and their reputation of recording fast starts to the season.

Losing the Superbowl last season would clearly be their main motivation for taking the division and league by storm heading into their Week 1 tilt on Sunday in Houston. But the Colts will also want to rectify their poor showing in August. The ego may have taken a dent, but if the kinks have been ironed out, they could be the teacm to catch all over again.

And they’ve got and statistics on their side…good statistics. The numbers show they love setting records and they love sustaining streaks. Each team in the AFC must realise it will have to slay a beast in order to represent the conference in Arlington on February 6.

The Colts are without question the best team during the first months of the NFL season, and their September record has traditionally been explosive. In the last 10 seasons, their record is 26-6, the league’s strongest. Four of the past five seasons, the Colts entered October undefeated.

In October only Pittsburgh has a superior record to the Colts, who are an impressive 27-10 since 2000.

In the last six seasons, they have had winning streaks of seven games or more, an NFL record.

They hold the NFL’s longest regular season winning streak with 23 straight spanning from November 2008 to December 2009.

They’ve got work to do in erasing their preseason from the minds of their competitors, and Houston could be the first victim.