NASHVILLE, Tenn. – How’s that matchup of Super Bowl favorites looking now?
In a word: bor-ing.
When the Indianapolis Colts come to town to face the Seattle Seahawks this Saturday, the game won’t have quite the allure it once did. The Colts (13-1) are no longer chasing a perfect regular-season record – they lost 26-17 to San Diego on Sunday – and the Seahawks (12-2) have already wrapped up a first-round playoff bye.
So what’s left to play for?
“It’s big for us,” Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens said. “We’re going to go out there and play our game. We’re not going to go out there and sit back and try not to lose. We’re going to try (to) win.”
The next game on the schedule wasn’t lost on anyone Sunday, even though defensive end Bryce Fisher tried to play it off by turning to teammate Joe Tafoya and asking, with plenty of mock ignorance, “Who do we play next week?”
The Seahawks still need one win, or a Chicago loss, over the final two weeks of the regular season to clinch home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. But the Colts have already sewn up the top seed in the AFC, and now that they are no longer shooting for regular-season perfection, they might give stars such as Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James and Marvin Harrison some time off Saturday.
”We want to win the next two games,” Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy said after the Colts lost to the Chargers on Sunday. ”But we’re going to use everybody on our roster.”
Despite the dwindling sense of importance, Saturday’s game will still have plenty of interest. When the top teams from both conferences square off, people tend to get excited.
“When the time comes, it’s going to be a great atmosphere,” Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander said. “It’s going to be a showdown, and the chess game starts: How much are you going to show? Are we going to show what we want them to see? Are we going to show what we don’t want them to see? What’s real? What’s fake?
“The chess game starts, because the way things look, we could play each other again in a month.”
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