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Sunday Night Football: where the elites meet to compete! Indeed, it’s a meeting of quarterbacks with perceived eliteness or whatever. Though Andrew Luck was ushered into the conversation of the best quarterbacks in the NFL as soon as he was drafted, the stats are finally there this season, as Luck comes into Week 11 leading the league in passing yards and touchdowns.
The Colts-Patriots rivalry gets marginally less hype now that it doesn’t involve Peyton Manning. It also doesn’t help that the Pats have won the previous four meetings between the teams. New England has still yet to win in Lucas Oil Stadium, however. That only counts for two meetings (one of them involved Bill Belichick’s memorable decision to try to convert a 4th and 2 late in the game), but Indy has to hang its hat on whatever it can in this rivalry.
For the Colts, there’s little threat of another team eclipsing them for the AFC South lead, so the main motivation for this evening is positioning themselves for a possible first-round bye. Oh, and avenging the 43-22 defeat they were dealt this past January in Gillette Stadium.
After having their defense ripped apart by Ben Roethlisberger, Indianapolis rebounded with a convincing victory two weeks ago before their bye. Since that lost to the Chiefs that made everyone briefly question whether the Patriots were on the decline, they’ve averaged 40 points a game. Both teams are coming off their bye.
Football Outsiders lets us know this is the rare instance when both teams come into a game with the same DVOA. That would suggest tonight’s contest will be closely contested and thrilling, but knowing Sunday Night Football this season, a few freaky bounces will have one team winning by three scores.