Jacksonville at Indianapolis

The 2009-10 NFL season will open without Tony Dungy at the helm of a team for the first time in over a decade. Dungy established himself as one of the all-time greats, winning at Tampa Bay and Indianapolis, including a Super Bowl a couple of years ago. Jim Caldwell takes over for the Colts as they face the Jacksonville Jaguars this week. The Jags could never get anything going a year ago as nothing seemed to go right for this team. They went from 11 wins in 2007 to five in 2008 thanks primarily to an injury-riddled offensive line that forced them away from their successful play action passing attack. They lost both starting guards and their center in the very early going and no team is going to win when that happens. It led to a running game that was literally grounded and exposed QB David Garrard to 42 sacks (double his previous high). The offensive line is healthy to start the season and Garrard lost 20 pounds in the off-season, setting up a swifter QB and back to the rollout play action formations in which he has had his greatest success. Maurice Jones-Drew finally gets to tote the rock exclusively and this team will be better for it. I expect the Jags to improve tremendously on offense this year. The Jags match up well with the Colts up front and their hard-nosed smash mouth tactics have taken advantage of Indy's weak interior defense. The Jags have always played well against the Colts and these games are very frequently tight and hotly contested. The last 14 times these teams have met, 12 games were decided by eight points or less and the Jags have covered four straight at Indianapolis. Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio is now 5-1 ATS as a divisional dog of 7+ points. This is just too many points in a division rivalry like this one. The line is big because Jacksonville is underrated. I like the Jags to put up a real fight here.