Peyton Manning Goes Bird Hunting: How The Ravens Ended Up Shooting Themselves

January 16th, 2010 was a night for the great city of Indianapolis to remember. It was the Colts' first playoff win since winning the Super Bowl back in February of 2007.

While the Colts' offense was a bit slow out of the gate, the defense showed shades of the 2007 playoff defense that held the Ravens to six points in the playoffs that season. This year would be no different, as the Colts allowed the only three Ravens points on their first drive of the game, and held Ray Rice to 67 yards rushing.

One of the two biggest factors in the Baltimore melt down—turnovers.

Quarterback Joe Flacco of Baltimore completed 20 of his 35 passes for just 189 yards and two interceptions. Baltimore also had two lost fumbles, one coming from running back Ray Rice and the other coming from safety Ed Reed.

Reed's fumble was considered the play of the game. After intercepting a lofty pass from Peyton Manning, Reed found an empty running lane in front of him to the endzone. The problem was that the intended receiver, Pierre Garcon, was hot on his trail. Garcon chased Reed for about 40 yards and was able to pop the ball out of Reed's hands and tight end Dallas Clark recovered the fumble.

The other aspect to Baltimore's beat down were penalties. The Ravens had two different plays that were erased due to foolish penalties. The first was on a 68 yard kick return that was brought back to the Baltimore five yard line for an illegal block in the back. The other play was another Ed Reed interception that was wiped away when teammate Corey Ivy was called for pass interference.

In addition to those two penalties, the Ravens helped Indianapolis out all night with a series of other penalties, such as Ray Lewis' penalty for a helmet to helmet hit on wide receiver Austin Collie in the endzone.

The Indianapolis Colts took advantage of these Ravens misfortunes by turning turnovers and penalties into points. The Sheriff of Indianapolis, Peyton Manning, rallied his deputies and was able to put up 20 points on one of the leagues' most feared defenses.

The game also had another meaning to a certain player.

Wide receiver Pierre Garcon, a Haitian-American, was playing for his friends and family who were devastated during the earthquake earlier this week.

Now, the Colts are once again bound to the AFC Championship game.

They are no strangers to the Championship game, as this is there third trip in the last 10 years, the third most by a team in the AFC since 2000 (Patriots 5, Steelers 4).

Their opponent is still unknown, as they will play the winner of today's game with the New York Jets and the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers are the favorite to win, but it would appear that Manning has enough filled out in his notebooks of notes to be prepared for them this time.