The New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts are facing off in the NFL divisional playoffs in the AFC conference and the matchup on Saturday has the two teams facing off at Gillette Stadium and the matchup will be streaming online on the radio and on TV from CBS starting up at 8:15 pm and comes before the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers play on Sunday before the championship games next week.
The Colts come into the game ranked 17th in passing yards per game and 21st in rushing and now they face one of the top offensive units in the Patriots despite the fact that the team dealt with numerous injuries and lost their top four receivers from the roster last season. The Colts opened the season losing only once over the first five weeks and they were the team that knocked the Seahawks from being undefeated and they did the same for the Denver Broncos just two weeks after that. The Colts have had a number of impressive wins this season and two baffling defeats -- a 38-8 loss to the Rams and a 40-11 loss to the Bengals -- as they have defeated the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49rs and Kansas City Chiefs during the regular season and all those teams are in the playoffs. The team also played and lost to the Chargers and if San Diego beats Denver and Indy wins against the Pats, the Colts will host Philip Rivers in the championship game.
The matchups in the AFC have the narratives mapped out already based on the teams that are left in the conference and now all that is needed are the results, as the Broncos and Chargers are playing for the third time this season and the matchups for the Broncos with the other two teams has plenty of intrigue. If Denver wins, Manning will be playing against either his rival Tom Brady, who he has faced off with many times, including this season in a game the team lost, or Andrew Luck and his former team in the Colts. For many critics, Manning can only prove that he is better than Brady by winning in the playoffs no matter what the stats say and while he does have a Super Bowl, some still hang that argument that he doesn't play well in the playoffs. The Colts added Trent Richardson this season and they need him to be on top of his game with Donald Brown to get things done on Saturday night.
Check here for the Colts and Patriots live coverage.
Luck set a record for the most passing yards in his first two seasons in the NFL and now he will go up against one of the most successful QBs ever and the Patriots come into the matchup ranked in the top 10 in both passing and rushing yards per game and they went 9-3 against the AFC this season and won 12 games and despite losing players like Gronk and Vince Wilfork, the team won the AFC East once again. The matchup is the two seed against the four after the Colts won the AFC South and on the other side is the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers after Rivers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals. The NFC on Sunday has the San Francisco 49ers and the Carolina Panthers playing and that will be on the east coast after Cam Newton led the team to a win in the Bay Area during the regular season and that makes it three of the divisional round games rematches apart from the Colts and Patriots.
