Randy Moss was transcendent, with nine catches for 145 yards and a touchdown for the Pats.

There was more than the marquee could fit: A gripping fourth quarter, more than 100 yards rushing and receiving from Colts running back Joseph Addai, two spectacular interceptions of Brady in key moments.

Nobody asked for his money back.

"It was a heavyweight fight," said Donté Stallworth, whose 33-yard catch set up the go-ahead score. A Pats newcomer from the Eagles, Stallworth marveled at Brady's coolness in the clutch. "You know you're never out of the game with that guy at quarterback."

"It would've been fun to watch," said Pats wideout Wes Welker, who caught a 3-yard touchdown pass to cut the Colts' lead to three midway through the fourth. "It was even funner winning it."

Brady lived on the hands of Moss for most of the afternoon, but when he finally gave other receivers a chance, they produced, too.

In the penultimate touchdown drive, the Patriots borrowed Indy's no-huddle scheme with 9 minutes, 42 seconds to play.

"I think it may have tired them out a little bit," Brady said.

Brady fired to Moss on six straight plays, including a 55-yarder on which Moss drew a pass-interference penalty, to get the Pats to the Colts' 3.

"That was really the play of the game," said Colts coach Tony Dungy, whose game plan centered on stopping Moss.

They did at the end of the drive; two more forces to Moss, including an interference pentalty on Moss, and Brady went elsewhere.

He went to Welker - first, for 10 yards, then for the touchdown.

"We made some adjustments," said Welker, who set up the drive with a 26-yard kickoff return.

They stayed with the adjustments.

The Colts, nursing a 20-17 lead, imploded on their next possession – a possession on which they could have put the game away. With just under 8 minutes to play they converted one first down then gave up a holding penalty, a false start and a sack, forcing them to punt.

"You've got to clamp down and win it at that point," Dungy admitted.

You at least have to contain the punt. Welker returned it 23 yards, to the Patriots' 49.

From there, Brady hit Moss for 5, Stallworth for 33 and Kevin Faulk for the 13-yard winner, sucking from the RCA Dome 56 minutes of happiness.

"To come here, do this in a hostile environment against the Super Bowl champions . . . that says something," Stallworth said.

To do it despite committing 10 penalties for 146 yards; to do it despite having your quarterback's unparalleled first eight games (30 touchdowns, two interceptions) marred by a one-score, two-pick performance in the first 50 minutes; to do it despite giving up a gut-punch touchdown to end the first half says plenty.

It says the Patriots have "character and heart and all those good words," Stallworth said.

It says they have some pretty good talent, too.

Meanwhile, the Colts played without their best player, Harrison, for the third time in their last four games, and his knee injury might hinder him all season and beyond.

Harrison's absence glared most in the game's first minutes, when the Colts drove to the Pats' 32, 3 and 4 and came away with two field goals.

"Field goals don't do it, especially against championship-caliber teams, teams like New England," Colts center Jeff Saturday said.

With Reggie Wayne blanketed (five catches, 62 yards) Addai did all he could.

Addai made five Patriots miss on his 73-yard touchdown catch-and-run, a dump pass called with 28 seconds left in the second quarter. It was a play meant to do no more than help the Colts reach midfield to set up another play or two and perhaps facilitate a field-goal try.

Addai finished with 112 yards on 26 carries and got the bulk of his 114 receiving yards on that catch.

"I had some key blocks," said Addai, inaccurately.

His play helped fill the void Harrison left – a void lately filled by Dallas Clark, whom the Patriots neutralized: two catches, 15 yards and a big part of why Manning was 16-for-27 for 225 yards.

"I don't really want to get into the X's and O's," said Manning, who seldom speaks in any other language.

Rest assured, after logging an 83.1 passer rating, he'll absorb every X and O this game's film has to offer as the season progresses, hoping the Colts get another shot at the team it had beaten the last three times they met - including last year's AFC Championship. Manning's rating was 95 for those three wins.

Certainly, there is no guarantee either team makes it to the title game but, after yesterday, they appear to be the class of the league.

The Patriots' four-point win was 21 1/2 points shy of their average margin of victory, a pattern of poor sportsmanship that had the ethics police howling at Pats coach Bill Belichick - an arrogant, irritable sort whose cheating ways helped make the once-cuddly Patriots villainous, to a degree.

Even Dungy, the game's most elegant diplomat, shot barbs at the Pats coach during the league's investigation into Belichick being caught taping an opponent's defensive signals on the sideline. The pair exchanged a cursory, chilly handshake (hand-glance) after yesterday's game.

Ethics police be damned, said Belichick's players. Clearly, they said, he was preparing them for this sort of tilt: one in which the last 15 minutes mattered, one in which they needed to be well-conditioned – unlike, say, the Patriots of 2006, when they, not the Colts, faded down the stretch.

"Obviously, the situation last year, we ran out of gas," said Pats linebacker Rosevelt Colvin.

Not this time.

As they enter their bye week, the Pats won't speak of going undefeated, or of meeting the Colts again in the playoffs, or of anything, really, except how poorly they played for just over three quarters yesterday and how much "humble pie" – a catchphrase fostered the past month by Pats linebacker Adalius Thomas – they would eat at today's meetings.

That, and the win.

"Everybody in that stadium had written us off," said Pats left tackle Matt Light. "You play this game to win ones like that one."

And you watch the game to see games like that one played. *