This week's Monday Morning Hangover was cobbled together after drinking so much Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale that we remember only 19 tackles by Indy's diminutive dynamo, Bob Sanders.

 

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Reputations die gruesome, ugly deaths here on Planet Pigskin.

 

In the space of three hours last night, we saw some of the NFL's most grizzled old images cough up their own innards and choke to death in a pool of bloody bile live on national television.

 

The Colts beat their now-former nemesis New England 27-20 on a freezing (31-degree) night in Foxboro.

 

That's two straight wins in Foxboro, by a combined margin of 67-41, for a team that the Patriots used to kick around like a soccer ball in a Brazilian schoolyard.

 

The Colts have surrendered 375 yards on the ground in the past two weeks – on the road, against the two best home teams in football for the past decade – and beat each opponent. In the race for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, the 8-0 Colts now essentially have a three-game lead over their closest competitors in Denver (6-2) and New England (6-2). Baltimore has also joined the mix at 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the AFC, with that one conference loss coming against Denver.

 

The road to the Super Bowl, in other words, goes through Indy ... again. And it looks like the Broncos or Patriots will be the guests of honor.

 

A heroic life was given a 21-gun salute by New England's End Zone Militia last night.

 

The Patriots were the ultimate big-game team in 2003 and 2004, when they rolled to a 20-1 record over quality opponents (i.e., teams with winning records), a mark unmatched in football history. Of course, they ended each season with Super Bowl victories.

 

Since then, they're just 4-9 against winning teams – and 0-2 this season.

 

What about this year's big wins over Cincy and Minnesota? Those teams are just 4-4 right now. The Vikings suffered an embarrassing 9-3 loss Sunday to the 49ers, while the Bengals' season continued to spiral out of control after their fourth loss in their last five games, a miserable 26-20 defeat at the hands of the Ravens.

 

The Patriots are also 1-3 in their last four nationally televised primetime games – losing twice to the Broncos and now to the Colts.

 

The New England quarterback has thrown seven INTs in those four primetime games: two against Denver in the playoffs last year, one against Minnesota and four against Indy. 

 

Last night, he repeatedly forced balls into players who were well-covered. It was a forced pass to Doug Gabriel in the end zone, for example, that led to his first interception – and set the tone for the game on its opening drive.

 

The Indy coach has been roundly criticized by the Cold, Hard Football Facts – and many others – for his teams' inability to match their regular-season performance in the postseason. His chummy-pal reputation has been cited as one reason his teams don't bring it in big games.

 

But Dungy essentially called out Bill Belichick last night, while offering the most insightful commentary of the evening.

 

"The Patriots are doing uncharacteristic things," said Dungy at halftime, according to NBC sideline reporter Andrea Kremer. "The Patriots are pressing."

 

Dungy's team still has one of the worst run defenses in the history of the game – they allow 5.25 YPA this season – but he's come out each week with a well-defined, if obvious, game plan: ride his big horse, Peyton Manning. It's worked to the tune of an 8-0 mark – the only undefeated team in football at the halfway pole.

 

New England felt so threatened it, as Dungy said, did uncharacteristic things, like roll out trick plays, commit five turnovers and go for it on fourth down in their own territory.

 

Belichick came out of the locker room wearing a new red hoodie so bright it got a 1600 on its SATs.

 

His gameplan appeared far less an intelligent. In fact, New England did not have the well-defined attack you've come to expect from a Belichick team. It ran the ball fairly well in the first half – 22 carries for 97 yards (4.4 YPC) – but never made a concerted effort to pound an inept run defense into submission.

 

Maybe he knew that his ground game was not up to the task.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. It was just hanging out there like a big fat meatball.

 

 

Fans in New England are excited about the thunder-and-lightning attack of Corey Dillon and Laurence Maroney. They were even fooled into believing that their team had a "great" running game.

 

As the Chief Angry Troll noted in an appearance on sports radio WEEI in Boston Sunday, New England does not have a great running attack. The Patriots entered Sunday's game averaging just 4.0 yards per carry – smack dab in the middle of the league.

 

It was a classic example of Cold, Hard Football Facts trumping the reputation of Big Name Performers – in this case, Dillon and Maroney.

 

New England did little to enhance the status of its run game against the Colts. Sure, the Patriots averaged 4.5 yards per attempt (33 for 148) – but that was far below the 5.4 YPA Indy had allowed in its previous seven games.

 

In fact, among Indy's first eight opponents, only the immortal N.Y. Jets trio of Kevin Barlow, Leon Washington and Cedric Houston had less success running the ball. Here's how Indy's first eight opponents have fared on the ground, ranked by rushing yards per attempt:

 

Team	Attempts	Yards	Avg.
Tennessee	31	214	6.9
N.Y. Giants	28	186	6.6
Denver	36	227	6.3
Jacksonville	40	191	4.8
Washington	24	114	4.8
Houston	23	108	4.7
New England	33	148	4.5
N.Y. Jets	37	135	3.6

 

The greatest clutch kicker in history had made 30 consecutive field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime. He missed a 46-yarder last night with 2 minutes remaining and a chance to give the Colts a comfortable two-score lead.

 

He also missed a 37-yard attempt in the third quarter.

 

It's still an upgrade for Indy over Mike Vandershank, who cost the Cowboys a game yesterday when he attempted a game-winning kick and hit the ball so low that human ears could not hear it. The kick was blocked, and Washington's Nick Novak responded with a game-winning field goal on the next play.

 

The Cold, Hard Football Facts love to break down games with our Quality Stats. But, as we've long noted, turnovers are the second-most important stat in football, trailing only final score. Our Quality Stats, as useful as they are, pale by comparison.

 

The Colts forced the Patriots to cough up the ball five times for the first time since Oct. 28, 2001 – a 31-20 loss at Denver in which Brady tossed four INTs.

 

The bottom line is you simply don't overcome turnovers, especially interceptions. Last year, for example, we looked at every playoff game in the Super Bowl Era. Teams that tossed four or more INTs in the playoffs are 1-39.

 

We don't have the data for regular season games, but it's hard to imagine the winning percentage with four INTs is any better.

 

The Patriots actually did many of the things you'd expect a team to do to beat the Colts. They ran for more yards (148 to 53), they were better on third and fourth down (9 for 15 vs. 5 for 10), and they had an edge, if only a slight one, in time of possession (30:34 to 29:26).

 

The Colts did have advantages in almost every single one of our Quality Stats – but at the end of the day, the turnovers mattered most.

 

Indy's ability to win with no run defense continues to defy common sense. This is a team whose biggest star and top defensive lineman, Dwight Freeney, has recorded just 10 tackles and one-half of a sack in eight games.

 

He had one tackle last night.

 

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The communication between Manning and his wideouts has been well-documented.

 

His ability to communicate with center Jeff Saturday doesn't get the same attention, but is just as important. Like most centers, Saturday is responsible for handling the blocking calls at the line of scrimmage and Manning's animated audibles certainly test his skills on each and every play.

 

But like Manning and his receiving corps, Manning and his center benefit from a lot of time together.

 

In fact, Manning and Saturday have now played 102 games together – more than any other active center-QB combo, and fifth-most in the Super Bowl Era.

 

Trent Green and Casey Wiegmann in Kansas City are second on the active list, at 80 games. Of course, with Green's injury, that couple is separated for the foreseeable future.

 

With their 8-0 start, Manning and Dungy have surpassed Ken Stabler and John Madden as the winningest QB-coach combo in the Super Bowl Era: They have a regular-season record of 56-16 (.778).

 

Here's the rest of the top five (min. 50 games):

 

QB-Coach	Record	Pct.
Manning-Dungy	56-16	.778
Stabler-Madden	60-19-1	.756
McMahon-Ditka	46-15	.754
Plummer-Shanahan	38-13	.745
Brady-Belichick	64-22	.744

 

Indy is the first team since the Packers of 1929-31 to start consecutive seasons at 8-0. Those Packers teams won three straight NFL titles, in the days when the championship was awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season.

 

The AFC has suddenly reasserted itself over the NFL's senior circuit, highlighted Sunday by a dominating victory by the worst team in the AFC over the best team in the NFC.

 

The lowly Dolphins forced six turnovers as they upended the previously undefeated Bears, 31-13.

 

Kansas City cruised to a 17-0 second-quarter lead and beat St. Louis, 31-17.

 

And the sickly Bills beat the sickly Packers, 24-10, despite being beat up and down the field all day. Green Bay churned out 427 yards of offense and 26 first downs, to just 184 and 11 for Buffalo. The Bills have never lost at home to the Packers (5-0).

 

In fact, only one NFC team beat its AFC opponent Sunday. The Giants, who have the second-best record in the NFC (6-2), squeaked out a 14-10 win over the sad-sack Texans (2-6), a team that's 4-20 since the start of the 2005 season.

 

The AFC has a 20-17 advantage and has not lost a season series to the NFC since 1995.

As if we need any more evidence of the superiority of the NFL brand, the league has sold out every single game this season – a record nine straight weeks.

 

It shatters the previous record for most sellout weekends in a season – four – set in both 2004 and 2005.

 

In fact, the league had sold out every game in a weekend just 13 times between 1973 and 2005.