Colts vs. Chiefs Preview: Coming out Party for Curtis Painter and Delone Carter

This Sunday should be the Colts first win of the season.  There's no excuse to lose to a very bad Kansas City Chiefs football team.

The Chiefs won their first game of the season last week over the worst team in the league the Minnesota Vikings 22-17.  They come to town with quarterback Matt Cassel and head coach Todd Haley's relationship rocky at best.

The Chiefs also have had the injury bug hit them as well.  They are without their best defensive player Eric Berry, and their best two offensive players in Jamaal Charles and Tony Moeaki for the season.

If it wasn't for their win last week I'd say they were the worst team in the league.  Their first two games they lost by a combined score 89-10 and it wasn't like they were playing the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints.  They played the Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills.

They lost to San Diego in Week 3 and as stated earlier, beat an awful Minnesota Vikings last week.

The Chiefs bring in the worst offense in the league. They can only run the ball and that's it.

They only average 12 points a game.  That's 30th in the league. 

They average 114 yards per game on the ground, which is good enough for 14th in the league.  If the Colts defense can stop the run like they did against the Steelers and in the first three quarters of the Monday Night game, it will be a long day for the Chiefs.

My advantage in that match-up goes to the Colts.

The Colts can force a ton of turnovers when Cassel goes back to pass.  They're the 29th rated pass offense in the league.  I expect Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis to have huge days.

Advantage Colts.

On the Chiefs defensive side they're a little bit better in that they try and do nothing but force turnovers.  The Colts are a good team to do that on.

The Chiefs though, bring in the 31st ranked defense in the league.

Even though the offensive line has injuries for the Colts, I expect them to have a big day in the air in wake of it.  This will be a Curtis Painter coming out party if he can read the Chiefs' blitz from the 3-4 scheme.

He's accurate on screen passes obviously and I expect that Pierre Garcon and Reggie Wayne will capitalize on the weak Chiefs secondary.

The Chiefs rank among the league's worst in pass coverage.  So, if the Colts can keep the passing game short and set up play action, they will have no troubles.

The Chiefs are also the worst team in stopping teams on third downs.  I thought it was painful watching our defense on third downs.  That's nothing compared to the Chiefs.  Their main struggle is giving up short yardage runs on late downs.  I expect Delone Carter to have a big day as well in those scenarios.

We drafted him to be that guy to get short-yard first downs and with all the slack head coach Jim Caldwell got after not going for short yard runs on third and even fourth down, he will give the young rookie a shot.  This is especially since the Colts only ran the ball four times in the second half against the Bucs.

Advantage on those match-ups goes to the Colts.

The Colts get back linebacker Ernie Sims and defensive tackle Fili Moala this week, so that will help alleviate the injury bug.

Prediction:

With the success the Colts have against the Chiefs in winning 10 of the last 11 meetings, I think they will win again this Sunday.  The Chiefs just don't have enough to stop the Colts.

Indianapolis 27  Kansas City 13