Phew!!!

This AFC championship game was historic...on many levels..

Colts head coach Tony Dungy reacts with the fans after the win. - Sam Riche /The Star

The Colts pulled off the biggest comeback in NFL playoff history.


Not just the first Black head coach in the super bowl...but the first TWO!!.


The Colts played in Super Bowl Five, in 1971, when they were the Baltimore Colts.


The shocking, dismal performance of the Colts in the first quarter turned into a breath-taking heart-stopping gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride for the next forty five minutes of regulation! At score 14-3, (after about five minutes into the second quarter) I started thinking "rout." When Asante intercepted and returned for a touchdown, 21-3, (one minute later) I seriously wondered if I didn't have something else to do. Peyton responded with a good drive, but it ended with a three point Vinatieri kick. 21 - 6 and no sign that the defense was going to show up...Thank goodness my daughter, the Patriots fan, called to offer condolences, or taunts? I reminded her (and me) that the third quarter is always the Colts best 15 minutes of the game. Having re-committed to the game, I hung in for the assumed relentless Brady bunch slaughter of the hapless playoff Colts. when the score was 28 - 28, I finally was able to ask Lady Espresso if it was okay to start hoping again...
Finally, I'm breathing normally again, and my heart beat is skipping no longer. The funny thing is...my daughter is not answering her phone at this time. I'm sure she's just studying!!!

It took a special second-half comeback and a two-minute drive, but Peyton Manning and the Colts are going to the Super Bowl.
Stepping over recent history, a hated nemesis and an inept first half, Manning and the Colts dispatched the New England Patriots 38-34 in the first AFC Championship Game to be held in Indianapolis. It will be the Colts’ first Super Bowl trip since the team moved here in 1984.

This AP account from WISH_TV describes the scene, but not the nail-biting, white-knuckled panic...

It was anything but by-the-book, and that started becoming obvious when New England left guard Logan Mankins opened the scoring by pouncing on a fumbled handoff between Brady and Laurence Maroney that squirted into the Indy end zone midway through the first quarter.
It got worse from there for Manning, who telegraphed a throw to the sideline that Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel snatched and took 39 yards into the end zone for a 21-3 lead.
From there, the gameplan changed because it had to, and the game morphed from another Manning meltdown into something much more than that.

And this from Channel 13
shows one of the many reasons Indy loves Coach Dungy...

"I think the Lord just set this up. He's been testing us all year. We've had to hang in there and hang together and stay and keep the faith and this was the biggest test today but we did it."

The Houston Chronicle says
...

The Colts are the early favorites to beat the NFC champion Bears in the Super Bowl, by a touchdown.
Sunday's game was a show for the ages, and Manning was the star. He threw for 349 yards and one touchdown and brought his team back from a 21-3 deficit, the biggest comeback in conference title-game history.

It was a great and momentous (that word is appropriate in Indianapolis!) football game. My hardiest congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts!!