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Colts quarterback Peyton Manning celebrates a touchdown in the third quarter against the Patriots.

After Indy’s tying score, the Patriots answered with an 80-yard kickoff return by Ellis Hobbs, which set up a 6-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Jabar Gaffney. Officials awarded the score to Gaffney after ruling he was forced out of the back of the end zone by an Indy defender.

Manning came right back but his handoff to Dominic Rhodes misfired. The ball scooted forward and center Jeff Saturday got this touchdown to tie the score at 28.

After that drive, Manning could be seen on the sideline, nursing a sore thumb. But he wasn’t coming out.

“I was a little worried at first, but I went over, made a few warmup throws and it was fine,” he said. “I guess adrenaline pulled me through there a little, too.”

The teams traded field goals, and Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski put New England ahead 34-31 on a 43-yarder with 3:49 left.

After a touchback, it was time for Manning’s drive: 11 yards to Reggie Wayne, 32 yards to Bryan Fletcher, a scary completion to Wayne, who nearly lost the ball but snatched it back.

A roughing-the-passer call gave Indy the ball at the 11, then Manning handed off three straight times to Addai for the last 11 yards.

This 80-yard march came 20 years after John Elway made his first Super Bowl with The Drive.

“I watched the drive with Elway, you never get tired of seeing that,” Manning said. “I’m not comparing what we just did to that, but it sounds pretty good.”

It was Manning at his best.

He was 0-2 in the playoffs against New England, and saw another great chance for the Super Bowl disappear last year in a home loss to Pittsburgh. The storyline all week was what a break the Colts got in getting the Patriots at home, and what a sensational feeling it would be to finally knock off the team that bedeviled them most.

That story had a happy ending for the Colts, as Patriots coach Bill Belichick found himself uncharacteristically unable to shut down Manning and Co.

“We played the defenses we thought were best for our football team,” Belichick said. “That’s all we did.”

The Colts piled on 455 yards and scored on six of their final eight drives, not counting the one where Manning kneeled down. The mystique that seemed so prevalent last week in an upset win over San Diego seemed missing, and this looked like a tired, desperate, defeated team in the end. Maybe it was due in part to a flu bug that worked its way through its locker room during the week.

So while that dynasty is dead, it is now Manning’s turn to take a shot at starting a new one.

“Some of that stuff is a little deep for me,” Manning said. “I just wanted to do my job and do my job well. I didn’t think I needed to be super. I just needed to be good.”

On this defining day, it turns out he was both.

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