Colts dominate Bengals in wild card win

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Bring on the Broncos! Despite a handful of mistakes, the Colts left no doubt who the better team was Sunday, even out rushing Bengal star back Jeremy Hill in an impressive playoff performance.

“A couple of hills and valleys in the first half,” said linebacker Jerrell Freeman, who led the Colts with 15 tackles. “We had to kind of corral 32 and 25 there for a second, but I think all-in-all, the back end held up, the front seven was real good this week and we can keep building on that.”

This week it was all about Cincinnati’s running game, but the Colts slammed the door on that early, not giving Hill a chance to do much in his playoff debut.

“We had to, we knew they were going to come here and run the ball,” said defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois. ” They’ve got a great team, they can run that ball almost anytime they want to, but today, that was the first thing, we had to stop the running game.”

Erik Walden came up with a few quarterback pressures agreed.

“We had some penalties, you know, turnovers, sometimes we get out of our gaps, there’s alot of things we’ll be able to correct, but at the same time, we’re glad we were able to get a win in the first round.”

The offense also left some points on the field with penalties and dropped passes in critical situations.

“There were plays that need to be made and some penalties that can’t happen,” said tackle Anthony Castonzo. “It does say something about our team when something does happen out there, we come out the next time and basically forget about it, and say let’s go forward, let’s do our jobs and that’s kind of been the story with our team all year.”

Boom Herron was a real difference-maker on offense, and he did it against the team that drafted him in 2012, so did the win mean a bit more to the Ohio State grad and Ohio native?

“Yeah, I know a lot of those guys from being there,” said Herron. “You know it means more for us to get the win then going out and beating those guys, so I was just happy to help the team win the game today.”

Colts now relish the opportunity to even the score against Peyton and the Broncos after falling in Denver on opening day.