The Patriots and Colts were like Coke and Pepsi, same product, different taste. Their quarterbacks, Manning and Tom Brady, were compared and debated and so were their team-building models. The Patriots believed in “value’’ and the idea of interchangeable parts. The Colts always ponied up for their stars. They believed in continuity and the star system with everything orbiting around Manning.
Both worked. From 2001-10, the Patriots and Colts were the two winningest organizations in the National Football League. Including the playoffs, the Patriots went 135-44 (.754) during those 10 seasons, playing in four Super Bowls and winning three. The Colts compiled a 124-53 record (.701) over the same span, playing in two Super Bowls and winning one. The teams played 13 times with the Patriots winning eight overall, and two of the three playoff matchups.
But any relevant discourse about the Colts-Patriots rivalry moving forward will be settled definitively in favor of the folks from Foxborough by two years: 2008 and 2011.
In 2008, the Patriots lost their franchise cornerstone just 15 offensive snaps into the season, when Bernard Pollard plowed into Brady’s left leg and left ligaments dangling in his knee like ornaments from a Christmas tree. The Patriots soldiered on with Brady’s understudy, Matt Cassel, and won a remarkable 11 games, becoming the first team since the playoffs expanded to six teams per conference in 1990 to miss the playoffs with that many victories.
The Patriots still had the foundation of the club that had posted the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history, and they also benefited from the good fortune that the previously untested Cassel, who hadn’t started a game since high school, turned out to be a starting-caliber quarterback. Cassel made the Pro Bowl as an alternate last season for the Chiefs.
