TruthSeeker

I agree with you, my view was one-sided.

However, the arguments I advanced were all about changes in the independent referees. I made no assumptions about Patriots making better plays or Colts making worse plays. I made no assumptions about someone playing that was actually injured or vice versa. In that sense, I believe the argument had some balance.

The what-if game you are playing assumes that an injured Marvin Harrison is able to go 100% or nearly so. (If he had played, it is not unlikely that he would not have been much of a factor due to his injury.) You can always cherry pick certain statistics that were below average (in this case, 1 out of 4 in the red zone) and argue that they will likely resort to the norm. I could do that for the Patriots statistics as well very easily (e.g. how improbable was the Addai TD at the end of the half for multiple reasons that I could talk about for 3 paragraphs) - especially since this was their only game scoring under 30 points this year. But I don't think that's a fair argument either.

The basic point I was making stands. The Patriots were in a hostile environment, got absolutely no breaks on the field and yet still won the game playing convincingly well on both offense and defense in crunch time. Since that time, the Colts have had a very significant injury and have looked very beatable whereas the Patriots came back with a totally dominating performance. If they were to meet again, it would surely be in Foxboro in less than ideal weather conditions (certainly rather cold) which are conditions that have historically favored the Patriots and the Colts have historically performed poorly in.

That is why I feel confident about the Patriots beating the Colts; I just don't feel worried about them should we meet up in the playoffs.