Deja vu averted

By Chad Finn

November 21, 2010

2 minutes to read

Yeah, you bet they were thinking about what happened last year.

Right up until James Sanders prevented it from happening again.

With the Colts, who trailed the Patriots 31-14 with less than 11 minutes remaining today at Gillette Stadium, suddenly in a position to steal a victory after scoring two fourth-quarter touchdowns in a span of four minutes and marching deep into Patriots’ territory in the final minute, players on both sidelines caught their thoughts turning to their previous meeting last November. And why not? This one was beginning to look an awful lot like it.

A season ago, the Colts pulled out an improbable 35-34 victory over the Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium, a game the Patriots led — wait for it — 31-14 early in the fourth quarter. But the Colts rallied, and aided by outstanding field position after the Patriots failed to convert a daring fourth and 2 at the Indy, scored the tying touchdown with 13 seconds remaining. Matt Stover’s extra point gave the Colts a 35-34 win.

History appeared to be repeating itself today, albeit at a different venue. But James Sanders’s interception at the Patriot 6 with 31 seconds remaining and the Colts trailing, 31-28, secured the tense victory for the home team.

“Certainly felt like it, yeah,” said Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. “Certainly felt like it. I’m just sick about not extending the game. There’s just no excuse just not to extend the game there and give [Adam] Vinatieri a chance for a field goal. Certainly, we were going for the win. We had some time, had some timeouts and felt like we had a good play call. [It was] just a poor throw and it’s really sickening.”

The Patriots, as you might have suspected, had a different postgame perspective. When asked if he was having a feeling of deja vu on the Colts’ final possession, he could barely mask his frustrating that the game had come to that point.

“We put ourselves in that situation at the end,” Brady said. “I’m sitting on our sideline saying, ‘We did it to ourselves.’ If they kicked the field goal there…if they scored a touchdown, we’ve got to out there for a two-minute drive. If they kick the field goal, it’s going to overtime. That’s what I was thinking. You can’t…you know, you just say, ‘Well, this is the situation. Let’s go out there and try to get it done.’ But our defense came up with a big play. That was a great catch by James [Sanders]. It was unbelievable.”

Even he man who made that great catch — make that the game-saving catch — said he was aware something had to be done to prevent history from repeating itself.

“For a minute, I was thinking, deja vu,” Sanders said. “As a defense, we knew that if we didn’t make a play, we were going to lose the game. [Peyton] wasn’t just going to give it to us. We had to go out there and take the win. We made a play at the end and came out on top.”