Brady rallies Patriots over Colts

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 5, 2007 | by Dave GoldbergASSOCIATED PRESS

INDIANAPOLIS -- No running up the score this week. Against the Indianapolis Colts, Tom Brady was content to close out another victory for the New England Patriots by kneeling down three times.

In what was hyped as the biggest NFL regular season game ever, a midseason battle between two undefeated teams, the Patriots won Brady when threw two touchdown passes in a four-minute span of the fourth quarter Sunday to overcome a 10-point deficit and beat the Colts 24-20.

The win keeps the Patriots (9-0) on course to have the NFL's first unbeaten season since Miami went undefeated in 1972, and it gives them the first tiebreaker over Indianapolis (7-1) in the AFC playoffs.

"This is the first time we were in a ballgame late," said Brady, whose team had never before trailed in the fourth quarter and had beaten its previous eight opponents by an average of 25 points a game. "There wasn't any loss of confidence or determination."

New England linebacker Junior Seau added: "We were going against a hostile crowd, an undefeated team. We took our hats off to them. But we still played well enough to win."from Sports 1

New England, which had been scoring more than 41 points a game, had piled points on late in several games in which they were far ahead, including last week's 52-7 win over Washington.

This time they had to work their hardest just to win against perhaps the only team in the NFL close to them.

New England trailed 20-10 after Manning, who threw for 225 yards and one touchdown, scored on a 1-yard sneak with 9 minutes and 42 seconds left in the game, and the crowd roaring.

But on a second-and-10 from the Patriots 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, to injury. 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 hit Donte' Stallworth for 33 yards to the Colts 13 and on the next play found Kevin Faulk over the middle for 13 yards and the winning score with 3:15 left.

The game seemed to have turned with 13 seconds left in the first half, when Addai took a short pass from Manning and raced 73 yards for a touchdown.

That gave the Colts a 13-7 halftime lead and seemed to provide 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 after middle linebacker Gary Brackett picked off a Brady pass in the first minute of the fourth quarter and Manning scored on his 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. The long pass to Moss was New England's first gain longer than 19 yards. It came on a scramble by Brady, who extended his record with at least three TD passes a game to start the season to nine games.

Moss proved to be a key throughout, finishing with nine catches for 145 yards and one touchdown. That came in the first quarter, when he easily leaped high over 5-8 Tim Jennings to pull in a 4- yard TD pass.