David Garrard’s disastrous fourth quarter – three and out, pick six, eats a sack in the red zone and the clock ran out – coupled with Peyton’s nearly-perfect night (29-of-34, 364 yards) propelled the Colts into the playoffs.

And this is the portion of the blog post where we must eat crow. Back in July, we thought this would finally be the year the Colts took a step back. Through the first two months of the season, it looked like a prescient pick – Indy was reeling at 3-4 and hosting the arch rival Patriots.

(Indy would have been 2-5 if not for the idiotic helicopter antics of Sage Rosenfels who we really hope to bump into at the mall one day. Here’s how the conversation will go: “Oct. 5, 2008, at home, vs. the Colts, and you decide to choke away a massive fourth quarter lead. What the bleepity bleep bleep were you thinking with the heli?” After we pick ourselves up the ground, dazed and bruised from Sage’s right hook, we’ll probably hug it out over an Aunt Annie’s pretzel – no salt. Those things are money.)

In that pivotal NE-Indy game, the Patriots were driving for the go-ahead score when TE David Thomas committed an insanely dumb personal foul penalty that pushed them out of field goal range. On fourth and forever, Cassel was intercepted. Ballgame. (Here’s an awesome stat we just noticed: Thomas, up through the Indy game, had caught a modest nine passes for 93 yards. Since his epic screw-up, he has not caught a pass. Fear the Belichick doghouse.)

The next week, in Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger was in the a giving mood, and threw a pick late in the first half that led to an Indy touchdown, and then he did the same in the final seven minutes of the game, and Indy rallied to win. Both picks handed Manning the ball inside the Pittsburgh 35.

After those two lucky escapes, the Colts hammered lots of inferior competition (none of their last six opponents have had a winning record) and now they’ll be the fifth seed in the playoffs, traveling to New York, Miami, New England or Denver in the first round.