Thanks to the Colts upset of Peyton Manning's Broncos on Sunday afternoon in Denver, Indianapolis will travel to New England this coming Sunday night for the AFC Championship Game at 6:40 p.m. ET at Gillette Stadium.
It will mark the second consecutive postseason in which Bill Belichick's team has hosted Chuck Pagano's upstart Colts in Foxborough. Last January, New England blew out Andrew Luck and Indy in the Divisional Playoff, 43-22. That game was a breakout performance for linebacker Jamie Collins, who notched one of New England's four interceptions of Luck as well as one of the team's three sacks of the young Colts passer.
Tom Brady and the Patriots blew out the Colts again during the 2014 regular season, this time in Indy, with a decisive 42-20 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium. Jonas Gray led the way to victory with 201 yards rushing and four touchdowns. It marked New England's third straight win over the Colts since Luck took over as the No. 1 overall pick in Indy. New England has beaten the Colts in five straight games overall.
Now in his third season, Luck led a Colts offense that had the NFL's No. 1 passing attack during the 2014 regular season and No. 3 offensive overall. Indy also had the No. 11 overall defense. In terms of scoring, the Colts were No. 6 in scoring, No. 19 in points allowed and No. 7 in point differential.
For the season, Luck completed 61.7 percent of his passes for 4,761 yards with 40 touchdowns and 16 interceptions with a 96.5 rating. T.Y. Hilton was Luck's favorite target with 82 catches for 1,345 yards (16.4 avg.) with seven touchdowns.
But Luck spreads the ball all over the field to a variety of targets, with nine different Indy players catch 20 or more passes during the regular season and eight different guys catching two or more touchdowns.
The Patriots and Colts have met four times in the postseason dating back to the 2003 season, with New England having won three of the games, all of those victories in Foxborough. The only Indy win came in when Manning led a comeback in the AFC title game after the 2006 season, a Colts 38-34 win on the way to a Super Bowl title.
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