In one of the best games of the season, the Patriots visited the Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium for the first time, and they came out from Minneapolis carrying one more defeat that is leaving them closer to the Jets and Bills at the AFC East, as the three teams are 5-3.
The game ended 18-15 favoring the Colts, whom are now 4-4 and second at the AFC south just after the undefeated Titans.
The game meant the 69th regular season meeting between both teams, with the Patriots leading in victories with 42 to 27. Payton Manning is now 5-9 to the Pats since 1998, but has now won 3 of their last four meetings.
New England lost this match, but there is some good news: they have found a quarterback on Matt Cassel, who has now started 8 regular season games and has leaded the Patriots to a 5-3 record with his team leading the division.
Cassel hadn’t start a regular season game before Tom Brady got injured, in fact, he hadn’t start a game since his high school years, and seeing the kind of skilled quarterback he is becoming is just remarkable.
The way Cassel is handling the chance he’s given by the brady-less Patriots is much different than what Brad Johnson had done with the Cowboys as the 40 year-old veteran hasn’t delivered much football when he’d been asked to replace Tony Romo.
On week 10 we will see the Patriots facing the Bills on a game that can truly dictate which the commanding team of their division is. Both teams lost their week 9 scheduled matches as the Buffalo fell to the Jets 26-17.
Losers on one side, Colts at Steelers on the other as Indianapolis will face Pittsburgh, which is the team with the top defense on the league, so Payton Manning should raise his level to the one we all are used to see in order to help his team to improve their record, and he has enough talent to do it, after all he’s one of the Manning clan.
