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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Monday, March 18, 2024

Patriots dispatch Colts, stand alone atop AFC

s111914NFLPhoto
Rookie running back Jonas Gray rushed for 201 yards and four TD's in the Patriots' 42-20 victory over the Colts on Nov. 16.

Andrew Luck is a very good quarterback on a good Colts football team. At some point, probably soon, he will be a great quarterback on a great Colts team. That time, however, has not yet come.

Indianapolis was coming off a bye week and sitting atop the AFC South entering its Week 11 matchup with New England. The Patriots, too, just had their week off and a five-game win streak of their own to defend.

The Colts entered Sunday night’s primetime matchup with the best offense in football.They had scored the most points in the league and Luck had passed for more yards than any quarterback in the league.The Patriots, at 7-2 and atop the AFC standings, came into the contest widely regarded as the best team in the league. For Luck and his Colts, this game marked an opportunity, at home, to assert themselves as a true contender, both in the conference and for the Super Bowl.

Instead, they fell flat, and in a big way. The Patriots ran the ball down their opponents' throats for four quarters all the way to a 42-20 victory. The win came largely due to the performance of former practice squad running back Jonas Gray, who finished with 201 rushing yards and four touchdowns, the latter of which is a team regular-season record.

Luck didn’t have a bad game; he went 23-of-39 for 303 yards passing, and threw two touchdowns and an interception. But he could only watch from the sideline as his defense was repeatedly gashed almost every time it took the field.

Tom Brady’s performance was as unimpressive as it had been in almost two months. His two first-half interceptions had Patriots fans worried, but they proved irrelevant. Brady played much better in the second half, and the team managed to gain 248 yards on a whopping 41 carries against Indy’s Swiss cheese run defense, proving that the Patriots can be a great team when Tom Brady doesn’t have a great day.

The Patriots' dispatching of the Colts showcases two teams on opposite sides of the playoff picture. The Colts will likely win their division and host a first-round playoff game. However, they don’t have the look of anything resembling a true contender. In a rush to anoint third-year star Luck as a premier passer, the fans and media also seem to have rushed to laud this Colts team -- but as the Colts showed Sunday night, they need lots of work.

On the other hand, the Patriots cemented their position amongst the NFL elite. So far, they have been the best team in football. 

At this point, there is a decent sense of the best teams in the league. In the AFC, the team currently playing the best football outside of New England is the one that most recently defeated the Patriots: the Chiefs. They sit at 7-3 on a five-game win streak, and have to their name a blowout victory against the Pats earlier in the season. The Broncos have an incredible amount of talent and, in Peyton Manning, maybe the greatest quarterback of all time, but they were knocked around when they visited the Patriots in Week 9 and lost on Sunday to the far-from-great Rams, falling to 7-3.

The NFC is home to the team with the best record in football, the Arizona Cardinals. Their 9-1 record thus far is a function largely of their aggressive defense, efficient offense and great coaching, seeing as backup Drew Stanton was able to lead them to a victory over the Lions this week. 

But the team in the NFC playing the best football right now is the Packers, who have won six of their last seven. In each of their last two contests, the Packers put up more than 50 points. Green Bay seems like it's shaping up to be the counterpart to New England in the NFC. Like the Patriots, everything seems to have clicked into place for the Packers.

A lot can happen between now and the end of the regular season in December, but the playoff picture is starting to come into focus. The Patriots, as they always seem to be, are right in the middle of the conversation. Right now, they stand atop the masses.