AP News, January 22nd, 2007
Corey Dillon had a 7-yard scoring run and New England recovered a fumble in the end zone to take a 14-3 lead over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2nd quarter of Sunday's AFC championship game.
The winner will face the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl on Feb. 4. The Bears soundly defeated the New Orleans Saints 39-14 earlier Sunday in the NFC title game.
The Patriots were handed a gift when Tom Brady's fumbled handoff to Laurence Maroney squirted through several Colts into the end zone and was recovered by tackle Logan Mankins.
Indianapolis got on the board late in the first quarter with a 42-yard field goal by former Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri, who booted five field goals in the Colts' 15-6 win over Baltimore in last week's divisional playoff.
One reason New England has won three NFL titles in the past five seasons is because it gets into the heads of opponents _ none more so than Peyton Manning and the Colts, who have twice been knocked out of the playoffs by Bill Belichick's team en route to the Super Bowl.
Still, that's in the past, as are the two playoff games won by New England over Indianapolis _ a 24-14 victory in the 2004 AFC title game and 20-3 two years ago in a second-round game.
Both those games were in Foxborough, as were wins by the Colts over the Patriots the last two seasons: 40-21 in 2005 and 27-20 this season, the latter giving Indy the tiebreaker for home field for this game.
Most of the pressure seems to be on Manning, who holds myriad passing records, including 49 touchdown passes in the 2004 season, but never has gotten to the Super Bowl and is 5-6 in playoff games.
That's in stark contrast to Brady, who has less gaudy passing stats but is 12-1 in the postseason. He owns three Super Bowl rings and two Super Bowl MVP awards for twice driving New England to the winning score on the final drive. Each time, the winning field goal was kicked by Vinatieri.
Neither Manning nor Brady has played especially well this postseason, in which their teams entered the playoffs as the third- and fourth-seeded teams in the AFC with regular-season records of 12-4.
The Colts' defense, which allowed 173 yards rushing per game in the regular season, by far the worst in the NFL, has allowed just one touchdown and a total of 127 yards rushing in the two games combined.
The Patriots also have won with defense although, as usual, they have an unexpected star _ wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, who has 18 receptions in the playoffs after having 11 in the regular season after being picked up off the street in October.
That they're meeting in Indianapolis should be a good omen for the Colts, who are 9-0 at home this season on the fast field. That helps not only Manning, Marvin Harrison and his other receivers, but also the very quick pass-rushing defensive ends Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis.
