Peyton Manning overcame a shaky start to carry the Colts to victory. AP
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COLTS 38 PATRIOTS 34

Remember how the 2005 season ended for the Colts? Peyton Manning had moved the team to the Pittsburgh 28 at the end, needing a field goal to send the Divisional Playoff game into OT, but Manning missed two hopeless, low percentage throws into the left corner of the end zone and Mike Vanderjagt missed the 46-yarder and that was it for Indy.

I asked a lot of students of quarterback play about this in the offseason. As adept as he was at working a game, why did Manning get so foolish at the end? The consensus was that he was trying too hard to win it himself, to remove the stigma that he could do everything in football except come through when the stakes were highest.

There is still one Super Bowl to go, of course, but right now, after the defeat of the Patriots, Manning is taking that final step to the very top. He worked a magnificent game Sunday. Courageous, too, after the terrible run of luck, including one miserable call in the end zone that went against the Colts in the first half. He just kept running that hurry-up, no-huddle offense, and in the fourth quarter, when the combined teams put five scoring drives together, you had a very sure feeling that when Manning stepped to the plate with 2:17 to go, on his own 20, the Colts were not going to be stopped.

He made all the right throws. The only miss was one that reserve tight end Bryan Fletcher dropped, and on the next play Manning came right back to Fletcher, whose entire regular and postseason production had been 18 catches. It was Manning's best throw of the day, a 31-yard corner pattern to the left, the ball laid in Fletcher's hands perfectly.

One play and one penalty later they were down to the Patriots' 11. New England prides itself on short-yardage and goal-line defense. Remember the one that stopped the Colts on the one-yard line a few years ago? But it was different this time. The Patriots were exhausted. The no-huddle had drained them. They were ready to be bludgeoned into submission, and the Colts did so, with three straight running plays that put six on the board. Right now this is the defining element in a Colt team that is the best of the Manning era, and entirely different.

It can exert its will over the toughest defenses. Remember when they used to be called a finesse outfit? Forget it. Right now they're anything but. In the playoffs they opened by pounding the Chiefs, a muscle team, for 188 yards rushing. Against the Ravens, the self-proclaimed toughest (and certainly the loudest) defense in the NFL, they dominated at the end. They ran 12 plays, 11 on the ground, to use up 7:16 and put the game away.

"For the past three weeks, the concept of a running game was something we had to have," Manning said Sunday. "There's nothing like being able to close out a game on the ground."

"The Pats were tired," said Dominic Rhodes, the power back. "Our Quick Offense did that to them. When you get to this part of the season, you don't want to play finesse football. You go out and dominate. That's the kind of team we are now."

The Patriot defense was on the field for 80 snaps. Unless you're a team that can lavishly substitute, and the Patriots weren't, it's very hard to stand up to this kind of pressure.

"Our Lightning Offense took away their legs," said guard Ryan Lilja. "Sooner or later it's gonna get to people. It's our bread and butter. I don't know if other teams can practice against it, if their scout teams can simulate that every day. It's funny, you see guys on the other team laying down and faking injuries to buy a little time. You see people taking themselves out of the game for a play or two."

Well, the Bills brought a hurry-up they called the K-Gun into four Super Bowls, and got no victories. I remember talking to their linemen about how much the up-tempo took out of them, as well as the opponents.

"Nah, we're used to it," said Indy RT Ryan Diem. "We do it all year long. We've practiced it from day one in the summer."

What's Ahead

I really don't understand turnovers and why some teams are good at causing them and others aren't. I mean doesn't every defensive player want to strip the ball? Don't all defenses work at it? But to build a whole season on the turnover premise ... well, that might be OK for the regular season, even for an opponent such as the Saints, but I can't see it putting a Super Bowl trophy on the table.

So why do I assume that the Colts will be immune from the Bears' snatch and grab? Just a feeling that they're too experienced, too sound offensively, to get snookered that way.

I can't see Grossman beating anybody, if he played the way he did against the Saints. Then again, I don't know what kind of pressure Indy will bring.

"We're not a blitzing team," said Anthony McFarland, the DT imported from Tampa Bay to firm up the run defense. "We rely on our small, quick ends to get an outside rush, and our inside stunts to give us a push up the middle. And what if the Bears block all that and make Grossman comfortable? Or maybe if they go max-protect to give him time to air out the long ball? What then? Who blitzes?

"Um, might be different guys," McFarland said. "Nobody that I'm really aware of."

I think that's the only way Chicago can win, if Indy decides, just as New Orleans did in crunch time, that a serious blitz package is just too unsound, and the rush will be of the conventional variety. And I also don't know the condition of LCB Nick Harper's injured ankle that kept him out for three quarters against New England.

Chicago's springboard to success is a very strong ground game, but Indy's good against the run now that Rob Morris has joined the mix at strong linebacker, and Bob Sanders is in the secondary.

I see a big Indy win, with the hurry-up gradually breaking down an opportunistic but worn out Bear defense.

Final score: Colts 34, Bears 24