When the Indianapolis Colts opened the season with wins in several low scoring slugfests, the rumor mill started churning. Perhaps they had transformed into a defensive team with an offensive unit no longer among the league’s elite. Yesterday’s 45-37 win over the Cincinnati Bengals laid those notions to rest.

Peyton Manning’s regularly staggering numbers have declined this year in large part because teams have stopped blitzing him and started concentrating on the vertical passing game. But Bengals coach Marvin Lewis built his defense around quick linebackers who can rush the quarterback, which made him think he could blitz Manning effectively.

Manning made him pay for it, methodically marching his Colts to touchdowns on their first five possessions. When Cincinnati’s linebackers blitzed, Manning simply lobbed passes over their heads to tight end Dallas Clark, who finished the game with career highs of six catches and 125 yards.

For Cincinnati, Carson Palmer repeatedly hit receiver Chad Johnson – who also had a career day – with eight passes for 189 yards. Johnson has made a living out of tormenting opposing cornerbacks, and he exposed Jason David as the weak link in the Indianapolis secondary. At 10-0, the Colts remain the class of the league, but until they find an effective replacement for David, teams will continue to pick on him. Their offense is good enough to score with anyone, but the Colts don’t want their defense to put them in any more 45-37 games.

Despite the loss, Cincinnati remained tied with Pittsburgh for the AFC North lead after the Baltimore Ravens beat the Steelers 16-13 in overtime. Pittsburgh backup quarterback Tommy Maddox had another dismal game in place of the injured Ben Roethlisberger, failing to see blitzes and going down six times.

In two games with the Ravens (the first being a 20-19 win in Week 8), the Steelers have learned that their straight-ahead running style doesn’t work well against Baltimore, whose massive defensive tackles, Kelly Gregg and Maake Kemoeatu, held Pittsburgh to just 70 yards on the ground. Pittsburgh will need a much better effort next Monday night when they visit Indianapolis in another meeting of the AFC’s elite.

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MONSTERS OF MIDWAY RETURN

Most observers attributed the Chicago Bears’ 6-3 start to an easy schedule. But a 13-3 victory over the Carolina Panthers yesterday vindicated the Bears, who have claimed for weeks to be one of the NFC’s top teams.

Chicago has yet to lose a divisional game and has all but clinched the NFC North. Now its focus can turn to winning home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 8-2 Seattle Seahawks, who survived a scare and won 27-25 at San Francisco yesterday, are the only NFC team with a better record than Chicago.

The conventional wisdom has been that Chicago has a good defense and a bad offense, but yesterday’s game showed that Chicago actually has a great defense and a competent offense. After 10 games, the Bears have allowed just 110 points – the best in the league this year – and are on pace to allow 176 on the season, which would be fewer than any of the great Bears defenses of the 1980s.

Carolina’s Steve Smith had a career-high 14 catches and 169 yards, repeatedly beating cornerback Charles Tillman. But Chicago decided to let Smith get his yards and make sure no one else could beat them. That worked, as cornerback Nathan Vasher intercepted two passes – as many as Carolina’s second receiver, Ricky Proehl, caught. Chicago sacked Jake Delhomme eight times and forced him to fumble twice.

Carolina had been on a six-game winning streak, but only one of their opponents in that stretch, the Tampa Bay Bucs, has a winning record. The Panthers share first place in the NFC South with the Bucs, who beat Atlanta 30-27 yesterday, and those three teams will continue to fight it out in the South through the remainder of the season. Carolina remains the favorite, but the Panthers missed a big chance to make a statement yesterday.

Chicago did just the opposite. Rookie quarterback Kyle Orton obviously still has room to grow, but, unlike Bears quarterbacks of the past few years, the offensive line protects him well enough that he can lead Chicago into the playoffs without fear of death. Right tackle Fred Miller returned from a broken jaw (suffered in a fight with teammate Olin Kreutz) to shut down Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers, and the line also helped running backs Thomas Jones and Adrian Peterson combine for 124 yards on 29 carries.

Chicago’s offense doesn’t have a Jim McMahon or a Walter Payton. But the 2005 Bears have a defense worthy of the old “Monsters of the Midway.”

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DUST BEGINS TO SETTLE IN NFC EAST

Washington’s 16-13 loss to the Oakland Raiders makes the Redskins a long shot to come out of the NFC East, but Dallas’s 20-7 win over Detroit ensured that the Cowboys will have an exciting race with the Giants down the stretch.

Washington’s offense fizzled yesterday; their only touchdown was scored by linebacker Lemar Marshall on an interception return. Quarterback Mark Brunell struggled with his accuracy, completing only 14 of 32 passes. He also lost a fumble, and running back Clinton Portis lost two. Washington’s turnover differential this season is a awful minus 13.

At 5-5, the Redskins are two games out of first place. To win the East, they probably need to win all six of their remaining games. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that they play both the Giants and the Cowboys at home in the season’s final weeks.

Bill Parcells has his Cowboys playing a physical brand of defense and a run oriented offense, reminiscent of his Super Bowl-winning Giants teams of 1986 and 1990. Against Detroit, Dallas opened the game with a 14-play, 84-yard touchdown drive and followed that with a 13-play, 89-yard field goal drive. After taking a 10-0 lead, the Cowboys relied both on their defense to smother Detroit and on running backs Julius Jones and Marion Barber to run down the clock.

Dallas finished the game with 42 rushing attempts and a time of possession edge of more than 12 minutes. If the Cowboys continue to play with such strength and consistency, they’ll have a great pennant race with the Giants in an NFC East looking more and more like its 1980s heyday.

Mr. Smith is a writer for the statistical Web site FootballOutsiders.com.