INDIANAPOLIS — Coming back from an 18-point deficit against three-time Super Bowl champion New England to win an AFC championship Sunday night was old hat for the Indianapolis Colts.

While the conference crown was the first for the franchise since the then-Baltimore Colts won the 1970 AFC crown and moved on to play in Super Bowl V (which was in Miami coincidentally), rallying after being behind by a large margin has become just another day at the office for Peyton Manning and Co.

Perhaps the great Colts comeback for a victory occurred during the 2003 season when Indianapolis battled back to defeat Tampa Bay 38-35 in overtime in a game that has since been dubbed the “Monday Night Miracle.”

Indianapolis trailed the Buccaneers 35-14 with 3:43 remaining. A Tampa Bay kickoff was returned 90 yards, setting up a Colts’ score. Indianapolis recovered the onside kick and scored to narrow the margin to seven. They forced a Tampa Bay punt and with under two minutes remaining, Manning led an 87-yard scoring drive, and the Colts scored the game-tying touchdown with 35 seconds left.

Placekicker Mike Vanderjagt missed a 40-yard field goal in overtime but Tampa Bay’s Simeon Rice was called for a leaping penalty, a rarely seen infraction that penalizes a player for running and jumping to block a kick and landing on other players. Vanderjagt’s subsequent kick was batted and hit the upright, and glanced in for the win.

Last year, the St. Louis Rams led 17-0 after the first quarter and 20-14 at halftime before the Colts rallied for a 45-28 victory at the RCA Dome.

“That’s obviously not easy to do, the way we did it, falling behind a team like New England that has so many veterans and is so experienced. To get down three scores is difficult, but we hung in there. I thought we kept our composure in the past when we have gotten down,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said Monday.

“That’s kind of how the two [previous] playoff games [at New England] had went. We got behind and we tried to make things happen a little too fast. [Sunday] we just really continued to play our game and we were fortunate. We were the beneficiaries of a couple of critical penalties by [the Patriots] that kept the score close. And as long as we were close, once we got back to the one score in the third quarter, then we were able to play.”

Despite trailing the 21-6 at halftime, Dungy remained confident that his team could forge a comeback — even against the vaunted Patriots.

“My level of confidence was very high at that point because we had some guys open. We were moving the football. We had a couple of good drives. It wasn’t like the two games up there where we were really struggling moving the ball. We knew we could move it. And i just wanted our guys to not feel like we had to go out there and hit home runs every play in the second half,” he said.

“And that was my message to them. Be methodical. I said we were 21 points down to these guys when we played the last time here and we had the ball with the last play with a chance to win. If we score on this first drive [of the second half], we’re going to be one score down and we really don’t need to change what we’re going to do. And I thought Peyton did a great job of that, of sticking with the check-downs, the running game. Doing what we had talked about doing at the beginning of the game even though we were down a couple of scores.”



• Taking it easy — In the hours after the Colts victory, Dungy and his family were able to get away for a few hours at a downtown restaurant to celebrate in private.

“I kind of hung around the stadium for a long time and tried to soak up the atmosphere. And then had a bunch of relatives and friends in and we actually went to Palomino’s [which is located near the RCA Dome]. They kept it open for us and we left there about 4 o’clock in the morning,” the Colts coach said.

• Talking to Lovie — It didn’t take long for Dungy and Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith to get together by phone and offer congratulations to one another. Chicago defeated the New Orleans Saints 39-14 for the NFC championship earlier on Sunday.

“I have talked to Lovie [Monday] morning. He left me a message [Sunday] night. He watched the end of our game after theirs was over. I talked to him this morning and, obviously, we’re both very excited about what our teams were able to do. And we’re looking forward to next week,” Dungy said, looking ahead to the Colts’ Super Bowl XLI matchup with the Bears on February 4.

• Prepared for the playoffs — After a sluggish last month of the regular season, the Colts finished up the year with a home game against Miami. Indianapolis won the game 27-22 and Dungy credits lessons learned in helping his team to be battle-tested for the postseason.

“I think the Lord really prepared us for this playoff stretch. We started off with Miami in the last [regular season] game and they have an outstanding defense and had great cover guys and could rush the passer. Kansas City was a different style of defense, very energetic and very athletic. And then you came to Baltimore with all the blitzing and then another 3-4 defense that we supposedly couldn’t handle in New England,” Dungy said.

“And now we’re facing a defense [Chicago] very much like ours that has some super players. They’re very well disciplined and they take the ball away. That’s going to be our biggest thing that we’re going to have to do and that’s protect the football because they’re excellent at stripping it, they’re excellent at coming up with tipped balls and that’s going to be a big challenge for us.”

• Injury updates — Manning is expected to undergo X-rays on his right thumb sometime in the next day or so. He banged his thumb off the helmet of offensive tackle Glenn in the fourth quarter of Sunday night’s AFC championship game with New England. He has experienced some bruising of the thumb but is expected to start the Super Bowl matchup with Chicago in two weeks.

Cornerback Nick Harper suffered a sprained left ankle. It has yet to be determined if the sprain is a high ankle sprain or not. His availability for Chicago won’t be determined for a few days. Tight end Ben Utecht, meanwhile, incurred a sprained right knee against the Patriots. Utecht is expected to be able to play against the Bears.

Defensive tackle Darrell Reid was bothered by leg cramps during the Patriots game Sunday night. Reid was able to play with the problem and should be fine for the Bears game in two weeks.

Safety Bob Sanders was sidelined briefly after tweaking his right knee. He was able to return to the game and should be fine for the Super Bowl game with Chicago.

• No Super Bowl tickets available — The Colts have announced that the team will receive an allotment of tickets for Super Bowl XLI from the NFL. The allotment, however, is not nearly enough to meet the demand of the majority of season-ticket holders.

Per league guidelines, most of Indianapolis’ allotment has already been assigned to season-ticket holders. The Colts have conducted a random drawing from that pool that was weighted by seniority and number of seats.

Those who will receive tickets have already been notified.

• Colts-Patriots a ratings hit — CBS’ coverage of the AFC Championship Game Sunday night earned an average overnight household rating/share of 28.1/40, up 14 percent from a 24.6/44, in 2006 for (Pittsburgh-Denver; 3:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.), and up four percent from 2005’s 27.0/38 (New England-Pittsburgh; 6:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.).

The AFC Championship scored the highest rating for a television program to date for the 2006-07 season, beating the two primetime debut telecasts of American Idol on FOX by 29 percent. It was the highest-rated program since Super Bowl programming on ABC on 2/5/06- 42.1/62 for the game between Pittsburgh and Seattle, the Super Bowl post-game (10 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.- 36.0/52) and the Super Bowl kickoff show (32.0/53 from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.).

Sunday evening’s game beat last year’s Academy Awards by two percent (28.1/40 vs. 27.6/40). The 28.1/40 represents the highest-rated AFC Championship Game since CBS reacquired the NFL in 1998 and overall, the highest-rated AFC Championship game since Jacksonville-Indianapolis in 1997 (28.3/46).