The team that loses with the ball in its hand is different from the team that loses on defense. It's a horrible truth — the failure of a team's defense to keep the other guys out of the goal (whatever that goal might be) — but nothing like the buzz-killing dead weight of the truth of failing to score when it mattered, when in control.

So I knew, with a minute remaining and the RCA Dome still shaking from the screaming, that this last drive by the Patriots was going to be in some way historic. It would mean either that they are still just as good as they have ever been, and that the Bears are doomed, or that they have fallen more than one place-kicker from the pinnacle of today's NFL parity era.

Until that 1:00 remaining, Peyton Manning and the Colts were demonstrating that kind of arrogant, reckless patience that brings up in my soul the memory of so many bad writers. But then the Colts' special teams finally stopped the return man. One first down, Tom Brady and one of his receivers had a miscommunication. A 19-yard pass later and still with two timeouts, then another good middle-of-the-field pass later, we had 24 seconds for Brady and Bill Belicheck to prove the true situation one way or the other.

And then the interception. Marlon Jackson with the quick pick of that rocket up the middle of the field, and Manning has finally done it. And it was historic — hey — the largest NFL final-round comeback (from 21-3), two black head coaches in the big dance, Manning, now at this moment, for the first time, the sure first-ballot Hall of Famer.

At halftime it was 21-6. Manning and his thumb. Sanders and his knee, both still moving on to the end, but the images of them at the time were the kind of familiar pain that makes you close your eyes instead of hit the brakes when you know it's too late. I was becoming familiarly annoyed at watching Manning and Tony Dungy make their slow, deliberate, almost cocky comeback, having to keep catching up to tie it. Hoping that the Patriots magic never seals the deal.

Tempting fate, at its best, now I see. The Colts were begging themselves to lose the game, begging the Patriots to simply do what they do. Begging for a kind of normal to sneak its way into the heat of the field-level air in the dome. Instead, they won and Manning is, by default, three years closer at any given moment to getting into the Hall of Fame than he was before kick-off tonight.