The New England Patriots didn't need snow to ruin Peyton Manning's perfect postseason. Their defense did it all.
Ty Law had three interceptions, Rodney Harrison added another and forced a fumble, and the Patriots beat the Colts 24-14 to advance to their second Super Bowl in three seasons. Jarvis Green had three of the team's four sacks as the constant pressure made the NFL's co-MVP look very average.
Manning had thrown eight touchdowns and no interceptions, and the Colts had scored 79 points in wins over Denver and Kansas City.
PHOTO: EPA
But Indianapolis could never get going on Sunday. Things were so bad that when the Colts finally had to punt for the first time in the playoffs, the snap went over the punter's head and resulted in a safety.
"They did a good job defending us but we did things we haven't done. We turned the ball over, we snapped a poor snap on the punt," Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "We made some miscues and New England is a good enough team to take advantage of that."
Tom Brady, meanwhile, was almost as good in the cold weather as Manning had been in his first two games. He finished 22-of-36 for 227 yards and a 7-yard TD pass to David Givens on the first drive of the game. He did, however, throw his first interception in 10 home games early in the fourth quarter.
But it didn't bother the Patriots, who have won big games before in foul weather. They are now 16-2 and have won 14 straight games.
"The home-field advantage we have here at Foxboro is unlike anywhere else in the league," Brady said. "This team hasn't finished its job yet. We plan to go down there and bring back the Lombardi trophy because we earned it."
With the victory, coach Bill Belichick is 5-0 in the postseason with the Patriots, who won the NFL championship two years ago by beating St. Louis.
The Pats took the opening kickoff right down the field for a touchdown on the pass from Brady to Givens. It was 15-0 at the half on two of Adam Vinatieri's five field goals plus the safety on the botched punt.
The Colts (14-5) cut it 15-7 on Edgerrin James' 2-yard TD run at the start of the third quarter. But Brady led New England to two more short field goals and the defense took it from there. Indianapolis scored with 2:27 left on a 7-yard TD pass to Marcus Pollard, making it 21-14.
But Christian Fauria recovered the ensuing onside kick for the Patriots. The Colts got the ball back on downs, but the Patriots defense held them.
Vinatieri ended up kicking his fifth field goal from 34 yards with 50 seconds left.
Manning finished 23-of-47 for 237 yards, with one touchdown and four interceptions.
The Patriots dominated the first half, forcing three early turnovers. Two of them stopped potential scores by the Colts and the third led to a field goal. Still, 15-0 wasn't much of a lead against a team known for coming back from big deficits.
New England went 65 yards in 13 plays for a touchdown on the opening drive of the game, with Brady finding a wide-open Givens from 7 yards out for the score. Brady threw for 49 yards on the drive and Givens had four catches. But the key play was a 2-yard sneak by the New England quarterback on fourth-and-1 from his own 44.
Manning seemed ready to counter, driving the Colts 68 yards to the New England 5. But on third down, Harrison stepped in front of Pollard and picked off the ball, the first interception for Manning in three postseason games.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier