The NFL season is going to come down to a battle of the Patriots and Colts on either the weekend of January 7^th/8^th or 14^th/15^th (For those of you who are sure it will happen in the division round, how sure are you that Pittsburgh, San Diego or Kansas City can’t win a game in Denver or Cincinnati? Yeah, thought so).  Whoever wins that battle will be crowned the Super Bowl XL champion; there is no reason to debate that fact.  It has become as annual as the Cowboys vs. 49ers were in the early 1990’s; when these teams meet in January, the Lomardi trophy can’t be far behind.

I know that astute observers are wondering, much as the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry USED to be thought, how can a hammer have a rivalry with a nail?  The Pats postseason success against the Colts is so absolute that the Colts have never gotten close enough to the trophy that one day will honor the current patriots head coach to feel its glare?  Why?  Because each of the past two seasons, the AFC Championship game in January 2004 and the Division Round in January 2005, it is when the Pats beat the Colts that they new the championship was theirs (last year had as much to do with the Steelers and Cheeselessburger’s awful performance the night before the Pats/Colts game against the Doug Brien led Jets).

Obviously, to analyze this game, we have to go back to the night of November 7^th, when the Colts whipped up on a hobbled Patriots squad 40-21 in Massachusetts.  Two things about that game (1) If Corey Dillon doesn’t fumble right before the half, which had the effect of a 14-point swing, we may have had an entirely different game in the second half and (2) The Patriots defensive backs were incapable of stopping the Colts on the somewhat slower tracked than the defacto Super Bowl will be played on (RCA Dome).

Patriots’ defensive coordinator Eric Mangini blitzed very infrequently throughout the long night, as he did throughout the early season, and actually left Pats DBs exposed as Peyton Manning never had a hand on him all night and had all the time in the world to pick them apart.  That has changed in recent weeks as the Patriots amoeba like front seven is playing like they have been in the rejuvenation machine.

Oh, I almost forgot, Richard Seymour didn’t play that night.  Seymour’s presence is huge because his ability to consistently occupy and, many times, beat two blockers creates the angles and lanes the Patriots transcendent linebacking corps of Rosey Colvin, Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel and old man winter, Willie McGinest, use to make their jail break.  In fact, it was the Colts game where Colvin took the first steps toward being the edge rusher the Pats signed away from the Bears two and a half years ago. 

Home field?  Does even the most ardent anti-Patriot fan (yes, I mean you Skip Bayless) really believe that it matters where Tom Brady surgically dissects the opposing defense?  No, it will start with the Patriots front seven to play like the Chargers did on Sunday.  A scheme that was created in the Patriots imagine, with personnel acquisition (i.e. defensive ends who morph to edge rushing linebackers) tips right out of the Belichick/Pioli playbook.  Oh yeah, and Marty’s minions did it on the same RCA turf that the Pats will attempt to do it on in three to four weeks.

If the front seven plays their game, it ultimately will come down to the Patriots DBs stepping up to the level of the Chargers on Sunday or the Pats of the past two January slayings of the Colts.  Obviously, if Rodney Harrison were back there, New Englanders would already be getting the extra parka in tow to descend upon Motown.  But no one recovers, teaches and overcomes better than Belichick and whereas last week this writer couldn’t imagine them walking off the RCA turf with the upset, on this day it is hard to imagine them not doing it.

Greg