Some highlights from the fourth quarter:
 Brady's on pace to break Dan Marino's single season passing record. (FILE:Icon/SMI) |
The Colts finally got their first touchdown of the afternoon at 10:24 in the fourth quarter thanks to a 5 yard touchdown run by Donald Brown to cut the lead to 31-10. Brown's touchdown finished a 15 play 86 yard drive that lasted 8:49 by Indianapolis.
Unfortunately New England couldn't answer on their ensuing drive, going three and out and being forced to punt the ball back to Indianapolis.
But Jerod Mayo got the ball back after creating a huge turnover, picking off Dan Orlovski's pass intended for Austin Collie on Indianapolis' 4th play of their ensuing drive, giving New England the ball at their own 44 yard line.
To the surprise of quite a few fans, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady came back out for the next drive and went three and out, with Brady taking a shot on third down before Zoltan Mesko came out and punted 52 yards to the Colts 7.
But despite the poor field position, the Colts managed to put together a scoring drive. They came out and marched them 93 yards on 11 plays, with Pierre Garcon scoring a touchdown from 33 yards out to cut New England's lead to 31-17 with 2:12 to go in the game.
Niko Koutouvides recovered the ensuing onside kick, but Gary Guyton was called for being offsides and the Colts were able to re-kick the football. Rob Gronkowski recovered the next one, giving the Patriots the ball at their own 47.
From there Brian Hoyer entered the game in place of Tom Brady, and the Patriots ran three times with Stevan Ridley to run the clock down before the Colts ended up making it a little more interesting.
On their fourth play from scrimmage Pierre Garcon made a huge catch against Devin McCourty for 40 yards, and they went right back to him again for a 12-yard touchdown reception to cut the lead to 31-24 with :36 to go in the game.
The Colts kicked an onside kick, but Deion Branch recovered and New England brought Tom Brady back in to kneel on it to end the game.
Some final notes from this one:
- Tom Brady finished the day 29-of-38 for 293 yards which moves his season total to 3,920, putting him ahead of Dan Marino's historic season. Marino had 3,678 through 12 games during his incredible 5,084 performance back in 1984.
- That final touchdown for Indianapolis gave them 21 in the fourth quarter, which was highest total given up in that quarter by the Patriots this season. They gave up 17 in the fourth in a week 3 loss to the Bills.
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