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Colts 19, Tennessee 13
OVERTIME
Indianapolis scored on a 16-yard pass from Luck to Ballard to notch a critical road win. The drive started at the Colts' 20. Runs of four, 19, nine, five and five yards got the Colts into Tennessee territory. Luck teamed with Reggie Wayne on a 20-yard completion into the red zone. Ballard was stopped for no gain on a rush before his game-deciding possession. It marked the Colts' first road win since December of 2010.
FOURTH QUARTER UPDATE
Two rushes by Ballard got Indianapolis to its 11 and on third down Luck hit Donnie Avery for a first down to avert a punt. The Colts reached their 28 and ended regulation. This marks the Colts' first overtime game since December 15, 2010, a 31-28 loss to Dallas.
Starting from its 20 and with three time outs, Tennessee moved to the Colts' 41 before having to punt. The Colts took possession at their six with 56 seconds left.
The Colts tied the contest with 3:24 to go as Delone Carter scored on a one-yard dive. The drive was 80 yards in 14 plays and included a fourth-and-one conversion from the Tennessee 8 when Carter burst forward for seven yards. Luck completed key passes to wide receiver LaVon Brazill and tight end Waslye Saunders. Luck also converted a first down with a rush off right tackle. The Colts drew even for the first time since early in the first quarter.
Tennessee upped its lead to 13-6 on a 30-yard field goal by Bironas with 10:26 to go. Hasselbeck completed two passes for 36 yards, while Johnson rushed for 37 yards on five carries to put the Titans deep in Indianapolis territory. The Colts stood tough and Jerry Hughes had a sack to force the field goal.
THIRD QUARTER UPDATE
The Colts zipped with runs of 17 and 13 yards by Vick Ballard before a penalty slowed the drive. Indianapolis to the Tennessee 48 before stalling. McAfee punted 48 yards into the Tennessee end zone.
Four Hasselbeck completions helped Tennessee move to the Colts' 27 but on fourth down, Bironas was wide left from 45 yards out. The score remained 10-6, Tennessee.
On the third play of a drive that reached the Tennessee 32, Luck was intercepted in the end zone by safety Michael Griffin. It was the first Indianapolis turnover on the day. Tennessee took possession with 7:21 left. Griffin also had the blocked field goal at the end of the half.
Indianapolis stiffened on its first defensive possession of the half, forcing a punt that rolled dead at the Indianapolis 44-yard line.
Indianapolis moved from its 25 to the Tennessee 26, and Vinatieri hit a 44-yard field goal to make the score 10-6. It was a 10-play, 49-yard drive. A sack preceded Vinatieri's field goal, the 400th of his career.
SECOND QUARTER UPDATE
Starting from its 19 with three time outs and 56 seconds to go, Indianapolis moved to the Tennessee 19-yard line with four seconds to go. Vinatieri had a 37-yard field goal blocked at the gun.
A first half that saw few possessions and extended drives saw the third score of the game when Kendall Wright caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from Hasselbeck. It was a 12-play, 72-yard drive that featured multiple penalties, including two offensive pass interference calls. Tennessee took a 10-3 lead with one minute left in the half.
Indianapolis moved inside Tennessee territory via three first downs before having to punt. McAfee's pooch punt was returned to the Titans' 28, where they will start their third possession.
Tennessee was unable to sustain any offensive momentum and punted to Indianapolis. The Colts took possession at their 20.
FIRST QUARTER UPDATE
Indianapolis answered Tennessee with an 83-yard drive that reached the Titans' two-yard line. Andrew Luck was stopped short of the goal line on a third-down rush, but Adam Vinatieri booted a 20-yard field goal to end the drive. Indianapolis used 12 plays on the possession. Tight end Dwayne Allen had two receptions for 37 yards, while Luck completed three passes in four attempts. Vinatieri hit his 399th career field goal. The kick was the 20th successful for Vinatieri on first-quarter attempts.
Tennessee took a 3-0 lead on its first drive with a 39-yard field goal by Rob Bironas 7:25 into action. The drive was 13 plays and 59 yards. The Titans reached the Indianapolis red zone before a penalty and sack hurt the effort. Drake Nevis had an eight-yard sack of Hasselbeck, his first career sack. Hasselbeck hit five passes on the drive for 54 yards. Chris Johnson rushed for 19 yards on the drive.
Cornerback Vontae Davis left the game on the first drive with a knee injury. He is questionable to return.
McAfee's kickoff resulted in a touchback, his 16th on the season.
Tennessee won the coin toss and elected to receive. Indianapolis will have the win at its back to open the game.
COLTS PRE-GAME REPORT
The sun is shining with partly cloudy skies. The win in LP Field is coming from the north at approximately 10 miles per hour, and gusts up to 25 miles per hour are possible during the game. Pre-game temperatures are near 50 degrees.
COLTS GAME-DAY DEACTIVATIONS:
WR-Nathan Palmer
CB-Darius Butler
DE-Lawrence Guy
OT-Tony Hills
DE-Fili Moala
NT-Antonio Dixon
LB-Robert Mathis
EXPECTED LINEUP CHANGES FOR COLTS:
Vick Ballard starts at RB for Donald Brown
Jerry Hughes starts at SLB for Robert Mathis
Drake Nevis starts at DT for Fili Moala
COLTS PRE-GAME NOTES:
The Colts enter Sunday's game with 26 October victories since 2002, the fourth-most in the NFL (34, New England; 31, New York Giants; 27, Pittsburgh).
Indianapolis has won six of nine games at LP Field, and the Colts have won 14 of the last 18 meetings with the Titans.
After Tennessee, the Colts have two games in 11 days.
Andrew Luck needs one more 300 game to tie Peyton Manning's (4, 1998) club and NFL record for the most by a rookie quarterback. He currently is tied with Cam Newton (3, 2011) for second-most. Robert Griffin III and Brandon Weeden enter today's games with two each.
Luck joined Cam Newton as the only players with three 300 games in the first four games of a career.
Luck is the first NFL rookie to pass for 1,200 yards and record at least two wins in his team's first four games. After the Cleveland win, he was the first NFL rookie QB with 1,500 passing yards (1,674) and three wins in a team's first six games.
Luck has 1,674 passing yards through six games. The NFL record for the most through seven career-opening games is 2,103 by Cam Newton and 1,783 by Brandon Weeden.
Luck is averaging 279 passing yards a game, most among rookie QBs.
Luck leads AFC QBs with 115 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground.
Donald Brown had career-best 161 rushing yards against Tennessee in the last series meeting, including an 80-yard scoring run that tied the club record for longest run from scrimmage.
Reggie Wayne has receptions in 102 straight games. He leads active NFL receivers with 179 career games played. Wayne (145) is one of six Colts ever to start more than 100 consecutive games (208, Peyton Manning; 115, C-Ken Mendenhall; 104, DE-Fred Cook; 102, DB-Jason Belser; 101, OT-Tarik Glenn). He has played in 172 straight games, the league's best streak by a WR.
Wayne (909, 12,374) is 14th in NFL career receptions. The player ahead of Wayne is Torry Holt (920, 13th). He is 16th in NFL reception yards. Next on the yardage list is Art Monk (12,721, 15th).
Against New York, Wayne became the 14th NFL player with 900 career receptions.
Against Green Bay, Wayne (13-212, 1 TD) produced his highest yardage day (200 vs. Dallas 12/5/10) and became the first Colts receiver with two career 200 regular-season games. His yardage ranked only behind Raymond Berry (224 at Washington 11/10/57) and it was the fifth 200 game in club regular-season history (224, Berry; 212, Wayne; 210, Roger Carr at NY Jets 10/24/76; 203, Reggie Langhorne at Washington 11/7/93; 200, Wayne). Wayne became only the seventh player since 1990 to have a 200 game in a 10th career season or later (James Lofton, Irving Fryar, Jerry Rice, Shannon Sharpe, Rod Smith, Terrell Owens (2), Wayne (2)).
He earned the AFC Offensive Player-of-the-Week honors for the first time in his career.
The Colts are 28-12 when Wayne tops 100 reception yards, 19-12 when he has at least eight receptions, 53-13 when he scores a touchdown.
Wayne (75) needs one touchdown to move past Edgerrin James for third-most in Colts history (128, Marvin Harrison; 113, Lenny Moore).
Wayne has 12,374 career scrimmage yards, second in Colts history (14,608, Marvin Harrison; 12,065, Edgerrin James).
Wayne's 47 receptions and 666 reception yards are the most for him through six games in any season of his career.
With 111.0 yardage average this year, Wayne tops AFC.
The Green Bay game was Wayne's 15th with 10 receptions, one behind Marvin Harrison's club record. Jerry Rice (17) is the all-time leader, while Wes Welker (16) is tied with Harrison for second-most. Wayne is tied with Andre Johnson (16) for fourth-most. Wayne (2007-08) is tied with Johnson (2008) and Brett Perriman (1995) for the NFL lead with three straight games with 10 catches.
Against Green Bay, Wayne became the 16th NFL player with 40 career 100 games (76, Jerry Rice; 64, Randy Moss (active); 59, Marvin Harrison, 51, Terrell Owens; 50, Don Maynard; 47, Torry Holt; 47, Michael Irvin; 46, Jimmy Smith; 45, Isaac Bruce; 43, Tim Brown; 43, James Lofton; 42, Cris Carter; 41, Lance Alworth; 40, Steve Largent; 40, Steve Smith (active)). Rice, Maynard, Irvin, Lofton, Alworth and Largent are Hall-of-Famers.
Antoine Bethea has 48 tackles this season and has 739 for his career. Bethea is one of seven Indianapolis Colts to top 700 career tackles (1,149 Jeff Herrod; 1,052, Duane Bickett; 785, Jason Belser; 754, Gary Brackett, 744, Eugene Daniel).
Kicker Adam Vinatieri has scored in the last 136 consecutive games. His 53-yard field goal with eight seconds left against Minnesota was the 24th game-winning kick of his career.
Vinatieri (398) needs two field goals to be the eighth player in history to reach 400 for a career. He needs eight field goal attempts to move past Jim Turner (488) for 10th-most in history. He needs 42 points to move past Lenny Moore (678) for fourth-place in Colts career scoring.
Linebacker Jerrell Freeman has topped the club in tackles in each of the first six games. Freeman had 13 at Chicago, 18 vs. Minnesota, 16 vs. Jacksonville, 11 vs. Green Bay, 19 at New York and seven vs. Cleveland, and he was involved in takeaways in two of the first three outings – scoring interception return at Chicago; forced fumble against Minnesota. Freeman is the first Colts undrafted player ever to return an interception for a touchdown in a career debut, and was the first to do so in the since 1987 (LB-Peter Noga; DB-Paul Tripoli).
Against Jacksonville, T.Y. Hilton became the first NFL rookie receiver this year to post a 100-yard game when he had 113 yards against Jacksonville 9/23.
Linebacker Dwight Freeney (103.5) has recorded sacks against 27 of 31 teams. Detroit, the club's opponent on 12/2, is one of four teams Freeney has not produced a sack against. Freeney has 25 career multiple-sack games, including five three-plus sack games. He has sacked 51 different quarterbacks. Freeney has seven of the 17 double-digit sack seasons in club history.
Freeney has 13 career sacks vs. Tennessee, second-most for him against any opponent (15.5, Houston).
Linebacker Robert Mathis (88.5) has sacks in seven straight games. In 2005, he set and NFL record with sacks in eight consecutive games to start a season. Mathis has 20 career multiple-sack games, including two three-plus sack games. Mathis has four of the 17 double-digit sack seasons in club history.
The Colts are 25-8 when Freeney and Mathis combine for sacks. The each produced 10 sacks in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010 to set the NFL mark for most seasons with teammates doing so together. They surpassed Reggie White and Clyde Simmons. They have combined for 20-plus sacks in five different seasons (26.5, 2004; 22.5, 2005; 22.0, 2008; 23.0, 2009; 21.0, 2010).
Bruce Arians is the fifth interim head coach in club history (1972, John Sandusky, nine; 1974, Joe Thomas, 11; 1984, Hal Hunter, one; 1991, Rick Venturi, 11 games). Ron Meyer succeeded Rod Dowhower in 1986, but he was not an interim head coach. In beating Green Bay, Arians was the only Colts interim coach to win his first game.
