Curtis Painter (281 yards, 2 TDs) made his debut as the Colts’ starter and in one game already looked leagues better than Kerry Collins has in his three game body of work this season.  Painter did whiff on a lot of throws (13 of 30), but he had poise enough to toss two long touchdowns and bring the Colts to the brink of a win.  Speaking of poise, it was another gutsy performance for Josh Freeman (314 total yards, 2 TDs), who isn’t doing it so much with his stats this season as he is with his leadership and grit when the Bucs are down. 

Pierre Garcon (2-146, 2 TDs) only caught two passes on the whole night against a stout Bucs passing defense; of course, those two passes went for almost 150 yards and two scores.  It was obvious that Painter wanted to take some shots, and he has the arm to do it.  Garcon may be a decent flex play going forward if Painter is willing to take a few shots down the field.  Reggie Wayne (4-59) and Dallas Clark (3-46) put up their standard stat lines for 2011, which are mere shadows of what the two would do if Manning’s neck wasn’t busy healing from being fused together.

For the Bucs, Preston Parker (5-70, 1 TD) continues to look like a decent weapon out of the slot, while Mike Williams (5-66) actually turned in a half-way decent game.  Unfortunately for fantasy owners, half-way decent is an improvement for Williams this year.  Kellen Winslow (5-33) made a few tough catches, but has been seriously capped in yardage thus far this season.

The Colts didn’t do a whole lot of running in this game, which was a little puzzling since they had the lead for most of the game.  Joseph Addai (11 car., 41 yards; 1 rec., 7 yards) led the way for the little bit of rushing the Colts cared to do, but he did share about a third of the snaps with rookie Delone Carter (7 car., 21 yards).

Blount Force Trauma.  Blount Weapon.  Smoking Blount.  However you want to describe him, LeGarrette Blount (25 car., 127 yards, 1 TD; 1 rec., 14 yards) physical running was impressive, as he more closely resembled a bulldozer than a running back in closing out the Colts during the fourth quarter.  Earnest Graham (2 car., 24 yards; 3 rec., 27 yards) played quite a bit on third down, but was clearly second fiddle to Blount.

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