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Manning on fire as Colts cruise past Texans

Dec 23, 2007 - 10:34 PM INDIANAPOLIS (Ticker) -- Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts appear ready for the playoffs.

Manning played a near-perfect first half as the Colts began a two-week tuneup for the playoffs with a 38-15 victory over the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Dallas Clark caught two scoring passes and Reggie Wayne had nine catches for 135 yards for the Colts, who last week clinched the No. 2 spot in the AFC playoffs with a 21-14 victory over the Oakland Raiders last week - setting an NFL record their fifth straight season with 12 or more victories.

"It didn't have a lot riding on it, standings-wise," Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "But (I liked) the way we practiced and how we came and played, with a lot of our young guys coming up and performing."

Indianapolis (13-2) will host a divisional playoff game the weekend of January 12-13.

"It was really a good win for us and it feels good to get 13. There were a lot of positives today, but more than anything, I was just really impressed by the way our team came out and played and the level of precision we had."

After Indianapolis yielded a touchdown on the game's first series, Manning and the offense scored 38 unanswered points, including 24 to close out the first half.

Manning, playing again without injured wide receiver Marvin Harrison (knee), completed 21-of-26 passes for 241 yards and two touchdowns in the half, as the Colts rolled up 292 yards - two 92-yard drives - and 19 first downs while scoring on all four possessions.

"We had a couple of long drives there," Manning said. "We really didn't have good field position, because their punter did a good job backing us up. When you're backed up, the first thing is to protect the ball and then get it past the 20 to change field position. Any time you can go the whole distance there, it's pretty deflating for the defense."

After Adam Vinatieri booted a 29-yard field goal with 6:59 left in the first quarter to cut the Colts' deficit to 7-3, Manning engineered a 92-yard drive on 12 plays, capped by Joe Addai's 2-yard touchdown run with 12:14 left in the second. Manning completed all six of his passes during the drive, including a 42-yarder to Wayne.

The Colts needed just eight plays to cover 92 yards on their next possession. Manning was perfect on all six pass attempts during the drive, including a 6-yard TD pass to Clark with 5:45 left.

"We spread the ball around," Manning said. "We had some good runs, and we didn't really have any 3rd-and-long's. Any of our third downs were short yardage situations and anytime you can stay in that kind of mode, that means you are doing some good things on first and second downs."

Bob Sanders then intercepted Sage Rosenfels and returned the pick 29 yards to the Houston 26. Four plays later, Manning hit Clark for an 11-yard score.

On the opening drive of the second half, Clifton Davis capped a 78-yard drive with a 4-yard TD run, and a 7-yard scoring pass from Manning to Wayne increased the bulge to 38-7 with 3:08 left in the third.

Manning finished the game 28-of-35 for 311 yards and three touchdowns without an interception as the Colts improved to 11-1 all-time against the Texans.

"You never know how a team is going to respond when you technically have nothing to play for," Clark said. "I think the coaches did a great job this week of not reminding us of that. It was business as usual all week, and I think that shows you the mindset and the maturity of this team."

Rosenfels was 22-of-36 for 233 yards with two TDs and three interceptions for Houston (7-8), which had a two-game losing streak snapped.

"We were dominated," Texans coach Gary Kubiak said. "We had been playing some pretty good football, and we came in here expecting to continue to play well. But we were just totally dominated by them in all three phases; we got outplayed, we got outcoached, and we got our butt kicked big time."

The Texans got off to a quick start when Rosenfels hit Kevin Walter with a 17-yard scoring pass with 11:19 left in the period. He completed 4-of-5 passes for 51 yards during the eight-play, 76-yard play.

Rosenfels capped the scoring with a 6-yard TD pass to Andre Johnson with 67 seconds left.