man, that was painful to watch. i cannot believe the pats blew the 21-3 lead. as a pats fan, i'm of course looking for things to blame - blowing the chance to put the game away very early when it was 21-3 by taking several stupid penalties in a row (4th and 27 = punt), half the team fighting the flu, stupid pass interference call against the pats, stupid no call against the colts, caldwell dropping passes like a moron, pats abandoning the running game (again) - but the reality is that the colts just wanted it more and played harder from the 2nd quarter onwards. everything the pats did, all the chances they had, they just didn't play it with the same intensity and heart they usually do. the colts fought as hard as i've ever seen them and flat out deserved the win. that's really all there is to it, in my opinion.
as much as i hate manning and think he's completely overrated - in no small part due to his (former) inability to perform when it mattered - he played a terrific game (first quarter aside) and picked apart the pats D. i was expecting to see his usually cry-baby face (esp after the pats went up 21-3), but he stayed determined and led an impressive comeback. brady played well too - in fact, it's hard to really put any blame on him. he put his team in a fantastic position to win, played fairly mistake free the whole game (although that can't be said of some of his receivers) and still found himself down 4 points with 56 seconds to go. the fact he couldn't pull off a miracle (again) does NOT make it a choke job. if he missed some super easy play or made very stupid decisions through out - as peyton had in many of his important games before - that would be choking. not being able to pull of ~70 yard touchdown drive with less than one minute is actually quite normal.