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Home:
Date: November 4, 2007
Week 9
Scoring:
Team 1 2 3 4 Final
NE 0 7 3 14 24
Visitor playmakers:
WR Wes Welker, LB Rosevelt Colvin, RB Kevin Faulk, DE Jarvis Green, LB Mike Vrabel, DB Rodney Harrison, WR Randy Moss
Home playmakers:
LB Gary
Network: CBS (KCTV
Announcers: Jim Nantz, Phil Simms
Pregame: Yes
Halftime: Yes
Postgame: Yes
Commercials: No
Grade: Very Good
Notes: No running up
the score this week. Against the Colts, the New England Patriots had to
struggle just to survive. Survive they
did, staying on course for an unbeaten season as Tom Brady threw two of his
three touchdown passes in a four-minute span of the fourth quarter to overcome
a 10-point deficit and beat Super Bowl champion Indianapolis. The win, in perhaps the NFL's biggest
regular-season game ever, keeps the Patriots (9-0) on course for the NFL's
first unbeaten season since Miami did it in 1972 and gives them the first
tiebreaker over Indianapolis (7-1) in the AFC playoffs.
New England, which had been scoring more than 41 points a
game and had beaten eight opponents by an average of more than 25, had piled
points on late in several games in which they were far ahead, including last
week's 52-7 win over
But on a second-and-10 from their own 42, Brady hit Randy
Moss over the top for 55 yards to the Colts 3 on a play in which Indy lost Bob
Sanders, its best defensive back. That set up a 3-yard TD pass to Wes Welker. Rosevelt Colvin knocked the ball loose from
Manning to force a punt on the next series. Then Brady found Kevin Faulk over
the middle for 13 yards for the winning score with 3:15 left. Jarvis Green knocked the ball lose from
Manning and Colvin recovered to clinch the game on the Colts' next series.
For three quarters this looked like Indy's game. It seemed to have turned with 13 seconds left
in the first half, when Joseph Addai took a short pass from Manning and raced
73 yards for a touchdown, at least twice faking out New England defenders who
seemed as if they expected him to run out of bounds to stop the clock. That
gave the Colts a 13-7 halftime lead and seemed to be a huge momentum shift.
It certainly energized a Colts defense that was flying all
over the field at the start of the second half. Dwight Freeney and Robert
Mathis kept Brady under pressure most of the afternoon and when middle
linebacker Gary Brackett picked off a Brady pass in the first minute of the
fourth quarter that led to Manning's sneak, Indy seemed in control.
But Brady, who had 30 touchdown passes in the first half of
the season, putting him on course to shatter Manning's three-year-old record of
49, finally awoke late. The long pass to Moss was
Moss proved to be a key throughout, finishing with 9 catches
for 145 yards and a touchdown. Coach
Tony Dungy said the Colts had prepared for Moss, knowing the Patriots would go
to him when they needed a big play. Yet, they were unable to contain him when
it counted most.
The Colts played without Marvin Harrison, their top
receiver, who missed his third straight game with a knee injury. Starting left
tackled Tony Ugoh also was out and the Colts lost
Tony Gonzalez,
This game was supposed to be more like that AFC title game than the defensive struggle it was until Brady finally made his big plays.
Running time: 3:25 (2 discs)