Sorgi answers the call, plays his part for Colts

<em>Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky </em> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="65"><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><font size="2"><img alt="" border="0" height="90" hspace="4" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/headshots/nfl/players/65/5718.jpg" vspace="4" width="65" /></font></td></tr><tr><td align="center" colspan="1" rowspan="1"><font size="1">Sorgi</font></td></tr></table> <p>INDIANAPOLIS -- The phone didn't ring.</p> <p>Early on, <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=5718" shape="rect" target="_new">Jim Sorgi</a> wondered if it was a bad thing that associate head coach Jim Caldwell wasn't calling down to the sidelines to chat when the Colts offense came off the field.</p> <p>"First couple series, we kicked field goals, so I thought he was going to have something to say," Sorgi said. "Then we got the ball back real quick and I ran back out there. The phone never rang. I thought, 'I'm either doing real well and he doesn't want to talk to me or he's mad at me somehow and he doesn't want to talk to me.' I was like, 'I didn't do too much for him to be mad at me, so hopefully he was happy for me."</p> <p>Of course he was.</p> <p>After the game during a pause between rounds of reporters milling around his locker, Sorgi accepted handshakes, hugs and congratulations from both Caldwell and team president Bill Polian, and knew he'd done just fine.</p> <p><a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=1428" shape="rect" target="_new">Peyton Manning</a> was in for nine plays. Sorgi got the other 56.</p> <p>The longtime backup did solid work in a game with no impact at all on the playoffs. He hit on 73 percent of his 30 passes for 178 yards, with no touchdowns, no interceptions, no sacks and a solid but hardly spectacular 87.9 passer rating.</p> <p>Sorgi got <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=4482" shape="rect" target="_new">Dallas Clark</a> the yards he needed to set a single-season record for a franchise tight end, passing John Mackey (829). He got <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=939" shape="rect" target="_new">Marvin Harrison</a> the catches he needed to move into second-place on the all-time reception list. He got an earful -- the good kind from the coach-to-quarterback communication device -- from Manning. He got to lead the Colts to their ninth consecutive win, a somewhat bizarre preseason-like 23-0 toppling of the <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/clubhouse?team=ten" shape="rect" target="_new">Tennessee Titans</a>.</p> <p>And he got to show that he knows the right answer to what he enjoyed about it all the most.</p> <p>"What was fun about it was getting to take a knee at the end of the game, knowing that you'd won the game," he said.</p> <p>Meaningless to most because the Titans were locked in as the No. 1 seed and the Colts could not improve or slide from their standing as the No. 5 seed, Sorgi found plenty of significance in a rare chance to play.</p> <p>"There was a lot riding on this game, you had a lot of guys that needed some yardage and some balls for some records, we needed the 12th win for 12 wins for six straight years, which no other team has done," he said.</p> <p>Manning reached his own milestone of 4,000 passing yards for a record ninth season on the first drive of the game, thanks, ironically, to a delay of game penalty and a sack which increased the available yardage on the first series of the game.</p> <p>Then he took off his helmet and put on a headset.</p> <p>He passes the call from offensive coordinator Tom Moore to Sorgi on the field.</p> <p>"I was kind of in his ear the whole game calling plays and we were huddling, which is something different," Manning said. "Jim did a good job, we threw it a good bit, we gave him some good experience and they were still blitzing, playing seven- or eight-man fronts depending on what our formation was so it's not like they were just sitting back.</p> <p>"I was kind of hearing it from Tom, digesting it and calling plays as if I was in the game so Sorg could just sort of repeat it. Also we didn't really want to have to audible a lot at the line of scrimmage to a team that you potentially may see again, so you really didn't want to reveal too much and Jim did a good job of keeping from having to make a lot of changes at the line of scrimmage."</p> <p>It was Sorgi's first action of the year.</p> <p>Previously he'd played as a reliever in 14 games, with six touchdowns, one interception and a 90.4 passer rating.</p> <p>Titans defensive end <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=1767" shape="rect" target="_new">Jevon Kearse</a> said his team wasn't happy that Sorgi had the success he did, but pointed out the team was without three injured linemen -- <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=3543" shape="rect" target="_new">Albert Haynesworth</a>, <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=2582" shape="rect" target="_new">Kyle Vanden Bosch</a> and <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=5658" shape="rect" target="_new">Dave Ball</a>.</p> <p>"But then again we couldn't sub our guys, we didn't have a lot of guys up as far as getting pressure," he said. "Next game in the playoffs, we're going to have a lot of guys we can switch up."</p>

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