Eugene Wilson and Asante Samuel will have their hands full Sunday. Al Bello/Getty Images

There's no way, right? No way on God's green earth the New England Patriots' injury-decimated secondary can manage to hang with the Indianapolis Colts' point-a-minute passing game. Can't happen. Not this time. Just not possible. Finally, the supremely prideful Patriots have run up against a mountain too ridiculously high to climb.

Gillette Stadium or no Gillette Stadium, Patriots weather or no Patriots weather, does anyone out there believe that New England, with a collection of cornerbacks named Asante Samuel, Eugene Wilson, Randall Gay, Earthwind Moreland and, gulp, receiver-pressed-into-DB-duty Troy Brown can stare down the likes of Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Brandon Stokley, Dallas Clark and Marcus Pollard and live to tell? Oh, and don't forget about Edgerrin James and the Indy running game.

No Ty Law. No Tyrone Poole. No chance, right? The Colts will just go to four wides the whole game and pass the Patriots into oblivion. What's to stop them? It could get ugly. It could get embarrassing. It could seriously put the damper on Romeo Crennel's job fair. And it should get Indianapolis to its second consecutive AFC title game.

Ah, but not so fast there, dear football fans. We are talking about Bill Belichick's New England Patriots, correct? The guys who sport a pair of Super Bowl rings? The folks who beat the vaunted St. Louis Rams' passing game in New Orleans a few years back, and found a way to cool off the absurdly hot Manning and the Colts in last year's AFC Championship?

Yeah, that's the team. Which is why of all the juicy subplots that will swirl this week in the build-up to the NFL's divisional playoffs, it's the Patriots versus Peyton that captivates like none other.

Admit it, it's only Monday and you can't fathom how Belichick is going to put this particular jigsaw puzzle together. But you know he will. Because he always has before. Somehow, the Patriots' ever-resourceful head coach and defensive savant will make Manning and the Colts' offense work for everything they get. With a strong assist from Crennel, his talented defensive coordinator.

And somehow -- stand by for our exercise in blind faith -- those plucky Patriots will find a way to beat the record-setting Colts. Again. In windy, wintry Foxboro. Thanks to the dour-looking guy in the headset and gray sweatshirt on New England's sideline.

I know, I know. It makes no sense. It's borderline loony. Tantamount to ignoring all the facts in the face of superstition. But I believe it. I may not be able to rationally explain it, but I expect the Patriots to slay the giant once more. I just don't know how Belichick and Co. will get it done.

The No. 2-seeded Patriots will have matchup problems everywhere they look Sunday, and that's even if they get linebacker Don Davis to slide back to safety at times, with Wilson, one of the team's starting safeties, to lend a hand at cornerback. Last year, the Pats beat the Colts 24-14 in the AFC title game, thanks to three interceptions by Law and four overall. If that bit of game-planning qualified as a masterpiece, what description will suffice on Sunday if New England wins, given that Brown, one of the team's top pass-catchers, might have to cover the Colts' No. 3 receiver, Stokley, for much of the game?

You could make the case that nothing in the past ever influences the outcome of a game played today, and that may never be more true than in this game, where the Patriots find themselves dealing with almost a unique set of circumstances in that their glaring weakness coincides with the Colts' greatest strength. Then again, Indy better hope history has little to say about Sunday's final score, because it loses if it does.

The Patriots have owned Manning and Indianapolis, winning five in a row in the series dating to 2001, with Manning 1-6 against New England in the Belichick era. Five of those games, all losses, have come in Foxboro. Manning is 0-6 overall in Foxboro, with just nine touchdowns and 16 interceptions in those games, and is 2-9 lifetime against New England. And did we mention the Patriots' franchise-record 19-game home winning streak, dating to the final game of the 2002 regular season?

Even Manning isn't buying into the notion that the Patriots without Law are suddenly vulnerable against Indianapolis. On paper, maybe. On the field, maybe not so much. After all, Manning points out, Law has been missing from the lineup since Halloween, and New England (14-2) keeps right on rolling.

"It's been no Ty Law since the Pittsburgh game, and they win every game,'' he said. "Ty is one of the top players in the NFL, and of course he's missed, but as we all say, 'Everybody else has to step up,' and they've been stepping up.''

What Manning is great at is finding a defense's weak link, and then exploiting it. With the Patriots' secondary, his only dilemma might be deciding where to attack first. Wherever Brown is lined up? How about Davis? Or does he pick on NFL Europe castoff Moreland, or the rookie, Gay? Options, options.

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Just think how bad Manning made Denver's sixth-ranked pass defense look on Sunday, and the Broncos field stalwarts like Champ Bailey and John Lynch in their secondary, with safety Kenoy Kennedy being another solid starter. That unit managed to hold Manning to 457 yards passing and four touchdowns in Indy's 49-24 first-round thrashing of Denver. Even factoring in the dome-field advantage they had on Sunday, the No. 3-seeded Colts should be able to hang up some crooked numbers in Foxboro as well.

"It's an opportunity,'' Manning said of the rematch with the Patriots. "I played like an absolute dog (in last season's AFC title game), no ifs, ands, or buts about it.''

Manning's bent on revenge. The Patriots are almost comically outmanned. So why do I think New England will win? Because in Belichick I trust. Now all we have to do is get to Sunday and see how it all plays out.

Around the league...

• The four losing head coaches in the first round of the playoffs sure didn't help themselves out regarding their postseason reputations. Consider:

San Diego's Marty Schottenheimer now has a career record of 5-12 in the playoffs. He has lost five games in a row in the postseason, and eight times headed up a one-and-out playoff club. Though he has qualified for the postseason 12 times in his 18 years of NFL coaching, Schottenheimer only once has had a team win more than one game in the playoffs (the 1993 Chiefs went 2-1 and lost at Buffalo in the AFC title game).

Denver's Mike Shanahan is now 0-3 in the playoffs since John Elway retired following a second consecutive Super Bowl title in the 1998 season. Shanahan hasn't won a division title since that season, and his team hasn't earned a home playoff game in that span.

Seattle's Mike Holmgren is 0-3 in the playoffs since coming to Seattle in 1999. Overall, he's dropped his last five postseason games, dating back to Green Bay's 31-24 upset loss to Denver in the January 1998 Super Bowl.

Green Bay's Mike Sherman dropped to 2-4 as a playoff head coach, and he now owns the only two Packers losses at home in the postseason (where they are 14-2 overall in franchise history). In two of the past three seasons, Green Bay's season has ended with an upset loss at Lambeau in the first round of the playoffs (Atlanta in 2002, Minnesota in 2004).

• Tough weekend for the NFL's playoff teams from the west. Seattle, San Diego and Denver all lost, with the favored Chargers and Seahawks falling at home. Yes, NFC West member St. Louis won, becoming the first non-winning playoff entrant to advance in the postseason. But think about it. The Rams were playing the Seahawks, meaning at least one member of the West had to move on.

• Sorry, but I'm not going to make too much of the Brett Favre retirement talk until they send out the news bulletin and announce what time his final news conference will be. Favre was obviously disappointed by his four-interception showing Sunday against the Vikings, and at this point in his career every season could be his last. But he's playing too well and still having too much fun for me to believe he could walk away from the game and not return for a 15th NFL season.

• The curious thing is not that all four divisional games this weekend will be rematches of regular-season contests. The curious thing is that all four rematches will be played at the same place where the regular-season game occurred:

The Eagles beat the Vikings in Philly in Week 2. The Falcons beat the Rams at the Georgia Dome in Week 2. The Steelers knocked off the visiting Jets at Heinz Field just four weeks ago, and of course, the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots started the 2004 season by nipping Indianapolis at Gillette Stadium in the Thursday night regular-season opener.

• I don't think the Falcons are doing handstands about having to face the Rams' potent passing game in a dome setting. That might be the upset of the week waiting to happen in the divisional round. Another happy member of the final 8? Minnesota, whose middle-of-the-road secondary picked off four Favre passes and now draws the Eagles' receiving corps without Terrell Owens. The Vikings' defense just might make things very difficult for Donovan McNabb and Co.

• I'm guessing that wherever he was on Sunday, Falcons defensive coordinator Ed Donatell felt a bit of vindication in seeing Green Bay's defense do a meltdown job against the Vikings. Donatell was fired by Packers head coach Sherman last season after his unit gave up that fourth-and-26 completion to Philadelphia in the divisional round, which kept Green Bay from closing out the Eagles and moving onto the NFC title game.

Now it looks like Packers defensive coordinator Bob Slowik, who replaced Donatell, will have a turn on the old hot seat. Green Bay's defense finished 25th in yards allowed this season, and 23rd in points allowed.

• Here's an amazing stat: With all his playoff success, Favre has never had a four-touchdown passing game in the postseason. Minnesota's Daunte Culpepper managed it on Sunday, in just his third career playoff start.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.