The Indianapolis Colts play the New England Patriots this week in their biggest matchup of the season.
The Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots had one of the biggest rivalries in the NFL over the last two decades. Headlined by the dominance of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, both teams frequently competed for AFC supremacy.
With Manning now retired, and Brady on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the rivalry will look a bit different, but the upcoming Week 15 matchup has a chance to renew the bad blood between the two franchises.
Indianapolis just recently moved into playoff seeding and will need a win to stay there, while the Patriots are the top team in the AFC and have the longest active winning streak in the NFL at seven games.
The Saturday night game will be Nationally televised as the teams start a new chapter of this storied rivalry. With everyone watching, Indianapolis will try to do something they haven’t done in a while, beat the Patriots.
Colts have historically struggled to beat the Patriots
Indianapolis hasn’t beaten New England since 2009, winning 35-34 in a game mostly remembered for a controversial fourth-and-two. Indy went on to the Super Bowl that season and lost to the New Orleans Saints.
The Colts have lost 8 straight games to the Patriots. The last win came in November of 2009. Jonathan Taylor was 10.
— Nathan (Curious Colt) (@Curious_Colt) December 13, 2021
The Colts went to the Super Bowl that season.
Since 2009, the Colts are 0-8 against the Patriots with an average margin of defeat at just over 18 points. Six of those matchups were in the regular season and the other two were in the playoffs. The most memorable was the 2014 AFC Championship, remembered for the Deflategate controversy.
The dominance by New England over the last decade left many saying that the rivalry was dead, but Indianapolis has the perfect opportunity to revive it on Saturday.
Week 15 start of new chapter in Colts – Patriots rivalry
The last time these two franchises played each other was in 2018 when Tom Brady and Andrew Luck were the quarterbacks. Players who will be key factors in Saturday’s game, Jonathan Taylor and Mac Jones, were still in college.
These are two entirely new teams and this is the start of a new chapter. The stakes will already be high considering postseason implications, but this is also a good opportunity for one franchise to establish dominance in a new era of the rivalry.
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