Until the Colts won the Super Bowl in 2007, I considered the Colts' 41-38 over the defending champion Packers on Nov. 16, 1997 to be my greatest moment as a Colts fan. For a regular season win, it does not come much better than that.
Green Bay came in to the RCA Dome with an 8-2 record, the Lombardi trophy, the best QB in the league in Brett Favre and the favorites to win a second consecutive Super Bowl. They had a showdown with Dallas the next week at Lambeau Field and just needed to beat the lowly Colts to up their mark to 9-2.
The Colts came in winless. The only team in the NFL to lose their first 10 games in 1997. Indy had just been beaten badly by the unimpressive Bengals and had ugly losses to San Diego, Buffalo and Tampa Bay. There was NO way they could even give the Packers a game.
Early on, it looked to be a blowout. Green Bay took a 14-3 lead in the first, but Al Fontenot and the Colts defense made a few big plays and the Colts only trailed by a point at halftime (28-27).
Even with FOX analysts saying that Green Bay would eventually pull away after the half, the Colts kept up the pace and lead by seven with just three minutes to play.
Favre took the Packers down the field in three plays, and tied the game.
But the Colts played the final two minutes perfectly. Backup QB Paul Justin led Indy down the field and a key third down pass to Ken Dilger set the Colts up with a First and Goal on the Packer one with about 40 seconds to play. Head Coach Lindy Infante then made the best decision of the year to knee the ball three times and with three seconds to play, call a timeout and have kicker Cary Blanchard drill the game winner with no time left.
It was the first victory of the season, and it came against the best team in the league. The highlight of the year seemed to overcome the disappointment of having a terrible season.
The Colts finished 3-13 that year, the worst mark in the NFL.
At the time, I was really mad that the Colts had the worst record in the league. But looking back, I would say a lot of teams wish they were the worst in the NFL in 1997.
Having the worst record gives you the first pick in the next year's NFL draft. In this case, that meant Peyton Manning was coming to Indianapolis.
So the benefits of being so bad in 1997 have paid off. In a big way.
It was essential that the Colts were bad in 1997. And since they had three games to win, it was so nice that one was against the Packers.
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