E-Mail This Article to a Friend Putting any doubts to rest BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

"Unbelievable! I don’t believe . . . what I just saw."

— TV announcer Jack Buck, calling Kirk Gibson’s bottom-of-the-ninth game-winning home run off Oakland A’s closer Dennis Eckersley to win game one of the 1988 World Series for the LA Dodgers

I saw it. You saw it. Many of us still can’t make sense of it. The New England Patriots’ 20-3 demolition of the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday’s AFC semifinal contest is in the books — but not filed in the fiction section at your local library. The record-setting Indy offense was timid, and was beaten soundly into submission, and the Patriots used several time-consuming scoring drives in the second half to eliminate any chance for the heretofore-potent Colts offense to mount a comeback.

In the snowy, frigid weather that was the setting for this clash of offensive juggernauts, it was the Patriots who once again silenced the doubters and made believers out of anyone who bore witness to the mismatch in the mud.

Now that the lighthouse has dimmed for the final time in the 2004-’05 Gillette Stadium NFL campaign, local fans can rightly look to Boston Globe columnist Ron Borges’s prediction in assessing the enormity of the Patriots’ accomplishment. Borges wrote presciently in his weekly column on Sunday that "if the Patriots win this game — by outscoring the Colts with their offense or by controlling the clock with Corey Dillon or by a tremendous rising up of an undermanned defense — it may be the greatest victory in what has become one of the greatest runs in football history."

Borges has long been a critic of New England head coach Bill Belichick, and even picked against the Pats in the game (by a 28-24 score), but in that closing paragraph, he was right on the money. Though there have been numerous clutch games in which the Patriots emerged victorious against all odds, never has the team submitted such a dominating and improbable performance as it did on Sunday against the supposedly invincible Colts.

Oh, sure, there was the 1985 AFC title-game victory in Miami that exorcised many Dolphin demons of years past (and catapulted New England to its first Super Bowl appearance), and certainly the 2002 Super Bowl victory over the Rams was a delightful surprise (even though anyone who had witnessed the Patriots’ magical late-season run would have known they could adequately compete with the high-powered Rams).

But Sunday’s game had a completely different aura about it. Most of the so-called experts were picking the Colts, and the Vegas line dropped so precipitously in the days leading up to the contest that the game was almost a toss-up in most bettors’ eyes — despite the Patriots’ recent history of coming up big when common sense dictated otherwise.

What was so stupefying about New England’s victory was not that the Pats shut down the Colts’ running game, or implemented ball control to perfection, or used the elements and the Indy brain trust’s lack of imagination to its advantage. No, it was how the Pats threw a frosty blanket over the two-time league MVP and reduced him to characteristic hands-thrown-in-the-air whining. Peyton Manning had set an NFL standard for TD passes thrown in a season (49), and his offense had put up 49 points in a playoff game against a pretty good Denver defense a week ago. On Sunday, his numbers were still reasonably strong — 27-for-42 for 238 yards and one late-game INT — but seven first-half drives and (a mere) four more in the second resulted in just one field goal for an offense that hadn’t been kept to single digits since week one of the 2003-’04 season (a 9-6 win in Cleveland). Even more impressive for New England was that of Manning’s 238 yards passing on Sunday, all but 96 were accumulated on the final drives of each half. Other than those prevent-defense situations, Indy’s golden boy was amazingly held to less than 100 yards passing — stats he used to put up in a standard quarter of play against anyone else.

But Romeo Crennel’s defense couldn’t focus exclusively on the pass, and it was more than efficient in containing the Colts’ running game as well: Edgerrin James — who galloped for 142 yards in the NFL season opener at Gillette back in September — didn’t even reach 40 on Sunday, as he was bottled up to the tune of 14 carries for 39 measly yards.

A week earlier, Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt was condemned for predicting the Patriots were "ripe for the picking" and "not as good as the beginning of the year," but despite his comments’ being inflammatory and ill-advised, he was in fact correct. Without cornerbacks Ty Law and Tyrone Poole, and also missing All-Pro defensive lineman Richard Seymour to injury, the Patriots were indeed vulnerable and perhaps not as strong (on paper) as they were in week one.

And that’s why the experts leapt into the Colts’ embrace, and why even a good number of Pats fans held their breath when the teams took the field on Sunday. By the time the mist had cleared three hours later, though, order had been restored: the Patriots had won their 20th straight at home (and 30th of their last 32 overall), and the world-champion Red Sox were kept off the sports pages for another day. Now it’s on to Pittsburgh, where one last piece of business needs to be addressed before the trip south to Jacksonville.

The bandwagon is full again, and there’s no reason to ever doubt this Patriots team again. A road team being a three-point favorite in a conference title game?

After Sunday’s feat, you can believe your eyes, and kick yourself for ever imagining otherwise.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com