Colts Pass On Pain to Marino, Dolphins

You don’t have to enjoy the smell of burning rubber or consider basketball a religious experience to adopt these local mutts as the NFL’s resident fun bunch.

It’s almost like college football: Arizona State beating Nebraska week after week. A year ago they came within a juggled Hail Mary catch of playing in the Super Bowl.

The Indianapolis Colts, most of whom America met for the first time on Monday night, not only overcame the loss of their best player on offense once again, but played without five defensive starters and still managed to smite that win-it-all Jimmy Johnson and his Miami Dolphins, 10-6.

Proclaimed “Colts Loud and Proud Day” by the city’s mayor, Indianapolis reported en masse to the RCA Dome for the season’s first sellout and with 60,891 raucous fans waving white towels, it witnessed a franchise moment to savor.

“This team never ceases to amaze me,” said Lindy Infante, who is now 4-0 as Indianapolis’ head coach. “Basically, it’s just sheer determination. I don’t know how you can say enough about a team’s heart.”

The Buffalo Bills won this week without quarterback Jim Kelly, but ask the Cowboys how hard it is to win every week without some of their key contributors. Ask Johnson, who lost his streak of 11 consecutive victories dating back to his Dallas days, what it’s like to compete without quarterback Dan Marino.

“When you lose a player of that caliber of course you are going to have trouble,” Johnson said.

Marino set up the Dolphins with a 3-0 first quarter lead before leaving because of an ankle injury, but Miami was still armed with a 12-year gamer in Bernie Kosar.

Try winning week after week with the likes of Lamont Warren and Zack Crockett filling in for a game-breaking Marshall Faulk (sore toe). Try getting enough pressure on the opposition’s quarterback with Bernard Whittington and Steve Martin moving from the bench as reserve defensive tackles into the starting lineup for defensive ends Ellis Johnson and Tony Bennett.

Try shutting down the NFL’s No. 3 rushing attack after losing both of your starting outside linebackers (Quentin Coryatt and Stephen Grant) on the Dolphins’ first offensive drive. Try to duplicate the magic the Colts have latched on to now for more than a year.

“You don’t know who’s in out there,” said Tony Siragusa, Colts’ defensive tackle. “You just play with what you got. If you don’t respect us, God bless you.”

For all that is wrong with the Jets, Buccaneers and Cowboys, what better drama than watching and waiting and then thrilling at the sight of quarterback Jim Harbaugh emerging from a pile of clawing and grabbing and ripping Dolphins--hellbent on recovering a fumble--with the ball held triumphantly overhead.

“Jimmy was so exhausted holding onto the ball at the bottom of that mass of humanity that he had to come out of the game,” Infante said. “Everyone was pulling so hard at the ball and it was almost an eternity for him down there. But that’s Jimmy, determined, gutsy, and like everyone else out there, he spent himself.”

If Harbaugh doesn’t recover Crockett’s fumble with a little more than nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Dolphins take possession at the Colts’ 39-yard line with a chance to win.

“We just do what we have to do to win,” explained Infante, who was Harbaugh’s offensive coordinator a year ago.

“This is a team that believes in itself,” said Harbaugh, who threw a one-yard pass to tight end Ken Dilger in the second quarter for the game’s only touchdown. “We are going to fight and scrap and never quit, and we have 53 guys like that.”

Fifty-three guys--and the Colts need every last one of them.