Sunday's Colts-Packers game will be the first without Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers since 1997.
And that game has its own strange history.
The Colts entered Week 12 of the 1997 season with an 0-10 record and were hosting Brett Favre's 8-2 Packers (who were defending Super Bowl champions) at the RCA Dome. Backup quarterback Paul Justin was entering his fourth start for the Colts after Jim Harbaugh broke his hand when he punched Jim Kelly in an NBC production meeting.
Green Bay jumped out to an early 14-3 lead, but the Colts ripped off 21 consecutive points on a Marvin Harrison touchdown and then back-to-back defensive scores: First, defensive back Monty Montgomery strip-sacked Farve, and defensive lineman Albert Fontenot picked up the loose ball and rumbled 33 yards for a touchdown. Then, Favre overthrew wide receiver Antonio Freeman and was picked off by safety Robert Blackmon – who, as he was being tackled, lateraled to safety Jason Belser, with Belser dashing 50 yards for a bizarre pick-six.
The score at halftime was 28-27; Favre tied the game at 38 late in the fourth quarter with a 26-yard touchdown to Freeman. Justin quickly completed passes of 27 yards to tight end Ken Dilger and 18 yards to Harrison to get the Colts into field goal range, then after the two-minute warning, Justin found Dilger for a 28-yard gain to get the Colts to the Packers' one-yard line. Kicker Cary Blanchard connected on a 20-yard game-winning field goal as time expired to earn the Colts' their first win of 1997.
The Colts went on to have the worst record in the NFL at 3-13, earning them the No. 1 overall pick they used to draft Manning. The Packers? They went on to win the NFC, losing to the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.
The Chuckstrong Game
One of the Colts' most memorable games in the last few decades came in 2012 against the Packers:
The NFL Pillars of the 1960s
Before the Baltimore Colts joined the newly-formed AFC following the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, annual battles with the Packers defined the NFL as the league grew in the 1960s.
"You had Johnny Unitas, you had Bart Starr, you had Don Shula, you had Vince Lombardi, you had these gigantic legends," Gerry Sandusky, the Voice of the Baltimore Ravens, told me during a conversation for “The Move” podcast. "You knew every year the championship would either run through Baltimore or Green Bay, and it became this massive rivalry at the exact same time that from '58 forward, the league starts to grow exponentially."
From 1953, when the Colts were established in the NFL, to 1969, the Colts played the Packers 32 times. They met in the divisional round of the 1965 playoffs, with Green Bay winning, 13-10, at Lambeau Field. The Packers went on to win the NFL Championship a week later.
From 1958-1970, the Colts or Packers either made or won the NFL Championship/Super Bowl in all but two seasons.
