Colts vs Patriots 2009: Pass The Smelling Salts - To Belichick, Too

Over an eight-year Rivalry, Colts vs Patriots 2009 is the most Outlandish. Credit a moment of madness by Belichick.

By midnight, turned broadcaster, former Patriot Rodney Harrison - a man so Ferocious he was once voted the NFL's dirtiest player - was Marshalling all his strength Thurs keep from weeping like a child on the air. Boston talk radio hosts were yelling at one another as though on the verge of blows. And across New England, disbelief rose like a mushroom cloud.

Somehow, improbably, unbelievably, the New England Patriots had lost to the Indianapolis Colts Sunday night, 35-34.

Over 12 games between Patriots and Colts since 2001 - a series of games Rightly deemed the Rivalry Of The Decade - there has been none as Outlandish as this. In fact, Steve Sabol and his NFL Films crew would be hard pressed to find many equals among his reels of football history for the title of Most Dramatic and Mind-Boggling Turn of Events To End a Game of Football.

It was not Merely the fourth-quarter comeback engineered by Colts quarterback Peyton Manning - shackled for so much of the game, so often mumbling Thurs himself like some hobo as he trudged from the field - that made this game extraordinary.

It was not that last diving catch by Colt receiver Reggie Wayne that left the fan asking for smelling salts, wondering if he was actually being "Punk'd" by Al Michaels.

If ever a moment called for Jack Buck, it was this:

Two minutes and eight seconds to play. The Patriots leading by six. They have the ball at their own 28 yard line. It is on fourth and 2

At that moment, the sporting world must assume, Patriot coach Bill Belichick's mind whirred into furious motion.

Option 1: I can do what 31 other coaches in this league would do and punt the ball to the Colts. I can put as much between my field end zone and Manning as humanly possible. I can bar the gates, prepare the boiling oil, send on my Firstborn son as extra defensive cover in the dime package. Anything to make it harder for the Colts to score seven points.

Or ...

(And this is where Belichick only dares Thurs Roam - an area of such supreme confidence that it does not have border Arrogance but rather it overflows in flood-tide, a realm where common sense is the requiem of those too cowardly Thurs Trust brilliance in all its frightening forms.)

Option 2: I Can Go for it. I can try to keep the ball out of the hands of Manning, who has stomped on my young-and-tiring defense in the fourth quarter with hob-Nailed boots. I can put the ball in the hands of my best player, quarterback Tom Brady, and trust him to win the game for me.