Published: November 10, 2008 11:10 pm         

After shaky start, Colts turning their season around

INDIANAPOLIS — After having their backs to the wall a couple of weeks ago, the Indianapolis Colts now have the look of a team on the verge of turning its National Football League season around.

The Colts got off to a shaky 3-4 start, but back-to-back wins over New England and Pittsburgh have Tony Dungy’s squad back in contention for a possible AFC wildcard playoff spot.

“I thought that [the 24-20 victory at Pittsburgh] was a big win for us in a lot of ways. We went on the road, again, and beat a good team on the road. And that’s always gratifying to win like we did, coming from 10 [points] down. That’s not easy to do, especially [at Pittsburgh]. That’s certainly a team you don’t want to fall behind and have to get one-dimensional on, having to throw to win,” Dungy said Monday.

“We did some things well. No. 1, taking care of the football and not turning it over. We still got hit by some of the penalties, which I don’t like to see. Had some really kind of fundamental errors. But, all in all, I thought we played hard. We held together. And won a game that we needed to make plays in the fourth quarter to win. So that was positive.”

While Indianapolis hasn’t been mathematically eliminated from the AFC South divisional hunt, the Tennessee Titans — now with a 9-0 record — will be tough to catch over the remainder of the regular season schedule.

With a 5-4 record, the Colts returns to Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday to face divisional rival Houston before going back on the road to play at San Diego and Cleveland.

Dungy will allow Indianapolis to bask in the franchise’s first win at Pittsburgh since Sept. 9, 1968, for a couple of days. But the focus will return to the Texans and the task at hand on Wednesday.

“We fought. Didn’t play perfect, but we made enough things happen and faith in each other was the big thing [in the win],” the Colts coach said after the win over the Steelers.

Dungy said that the victory over Pittsburgh may have been the team’s best overall effort of the season thus far.

“I thought so. You’re playing a quality opponent. You get down by 10. It’s tough to come back [at Heinz Field]. And hanging in there, not letting things bother us. But hanging in there against a good opponent, it probably was [the biggest win of the year],” he said.

“I told our team [after the win over Pittsburgh] that three weeks in a row we’ve played the division leaders in the AFC. We’re in Tennessee in the fourth quarter and we really felt like [had] we played a little sharper, we can win that game. We beat the [AFC] East leaders [New England] and now we’ve beat the [AFC] North leaders.

“What it tells us is we can play with anybody. We’ve got to get sharp enough where we get a streak together and we get ourselves in [the AFC wild-card hunt]. If we do, we’re going to be in good shape. Just these last three weeks, playing against these top teams, our team knows where we are.”

Dungy, though, is stressing the importance of winning this week against the Texans. Indianapolis rallied from a 20-10 fourth quarter deficit for a 31-27 win at Houston on Oct. 5, so he knows the road to the postseason doesn’t get any easier.

“Houston was playing very well [in its loss to Baltimore]. They were in that game. Just a couple of turnovers, kind of similar to the way that they played against us, and all of a sudden they’re out of the game. But it’s going to be tough,” the Colts coach said.

“[Wide receiver] Andre Johnson’s playing great. It’s going to be [the Texans’] last stand, so we’ve got to be ready to defend our home turf and see if we can get on a three-game winning streak.”

Any chance to make a serious run for a wild-card spot in the playoffs is pretty much dependent on getting on a hot streak over the final two months of the regular season.

“You really do [have to get on a winning streak]. It’s hard to, you know, win two, lose one, win one, lose one and win enough games to get [to the playoffs]. And that’s how we’ve been in the first half of the year,” Dungy added.

“We talk about starting off the second half of the year. We got our first win, but now we’ve got to put [a win streak] together. And we’ve got a chance, coming back home, to get win No. 2 of the second half and build on it. And it will be critical to have a good performance and play better than we did against Pittsburgh.”

• Harrison fine — Wide receiver Marvin Harrison is fine, according to Dungy. The eight-time Pro Bowl selection suffered what was described by team officials as a concussion during the fourth quarter of the Pittsburgh game. He was, however, able to return for the next Colts’ offensive possession and was able to finish the game.

“I promise you if he had a concussion that he wasn’t able to play, he wouldn’t have been in the game. We’re very, very cautious about that. We’ve had guys out for a long time with concussions. So he was evaluated and was allowed to go back in the game,” the Colts coach said.

Harrison had three catches for 37 yards against the Steelers, but wasn’t able to come up with at least three other passes from quarterback Peyton Manning where it appeared that he had gotten behind the Pittsburgh secondary. He ranks fourth on the team this year with 30 receptions for 357 yards and three touchdowns.

“He’s 100 percent. It’s just one of those stretches we’re going through. We have taken those plays for granted ever since I’ve been here, that we’re normally going to get two or three deep shots. And when we get them, and we get them set up, they’re usually touchdowns,” Dungy said.

“We’ve had Reggie [Wayne] catch two tipped balls where he’s covered pretty well [against Pittsburgh]. And we got Marvin open and haven’t been able to hit him. So we just have to keep working. But he’s 100 percent and hopefully we’ll hit some of those in the second half of the year.”

Dungy dismisses any talk of the 36-year old Harrison losing any of his athletic skills.

“He’s practicing and working. If he wasn’t getting open and wasn’t getting behind people, I’d be concerned. But every game we seem to get him behind people. We’ve taken those for granted. I think we’ll hit him in the future hopefully,” he said.

• Wayne sprains ankle — While the Colts appeared to have come out of the Pittsburgh game in relatively good shape physically, a sprained ankle suffered by wide receiver Reggie Wayne may limit his work in practice this week.

“Reggie got rolled up on the one ball that was incomplete, an ankle sprain. But other than that, I think just minor, minor stuff. Should be OK,” Dungy said. “He’s gotten banged up a little bit the last two weeks. He finds a way to keep going. I don’t know much he’ll be able to practice [this week]. But my sense is he’ll be ready on Sunday.”