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INDIANAPOLIS -- You expect the Colts to throw, and throw a lot, but even for Peyton Manning and his band of merry, pass-happy men this was a little bit nuts. Indy ran nine plays -- eight of them passes -- in the first two minutes of the game, averaging one every 14 seconds, completely disregarding the play clock and leaving their star offensive players more than a little bit tuckered out.

"I wouldn't call it fun," said tight end Dallas Clark, who caught 11 passes in the first half and 14 -- for 119 yards -- in the game. "When you run 60 plays in the first half, you're going to feel that on Wednesday and Thursday. But the win makes it feel a lot better."

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For all you chumps who enjoyed a Tom Brady-less 2008 New England Patriots team, I got some bad news for you: Dreamboat is back. And to hear Peter King write it (in between uncontrollable sobs of joy, surely), Tommy Terrific is better, faster, stronger, so on and so forth.

Last September, Brady's season ended after just 15 plays. The Chiefs' Bernard Pollard tackled him low and blew up his ACL in the process. Following knee surgery (and a couple subsequent procedures to deal with a staph infection), Brady spent the last seven months planning a marriage and plotting his comeback.

Doug Flutie and Vinny Testaverde ain't walkin' through that door. Not yet, anyway. It's May, the first round of minicamps are over, and the Patriots are still without a veteran backup quarterback.

Just like the previous two years when Matt Cassel served as Tom Brady's understudy. And last fall when Cassel started 15 games after Bernard Pollard blew up Brady's knee 15 minutes into the 2008 season. But this summer is different; New England traded Cassel to Kansas City and despite a glut of available veteran free-agent quarterbacks, the Patriots decided to keep it in-house.

The NFL seems determined to continue its downward spiral toward becoming a two-hand touch league, as it has adopted a clarification on the rules for hitting quarterbacks.

This comes after New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady missed almost all of the 2008 season -- he played one quarter of the opening game -- following a hit from Kansas City Chiefs defensive back Bernard Pollard. If the same play were to take place during the 2009 season, Pollard would be flagged.

Matt Cassel is now the Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback, thanks in large part to new teammate Bernard Pollard, the man responsible for ending Tom Brady's 2008 season 15 minutes after it began and paving the way for Cassel's emergence.

The talk of Cassel's offseason value began sometime around Thanksgiving, shortly after he had put together back-to-back 400-yard passing performances. He would finish out the season with a quarterback rating of more than 100 in five of the final seven games, and before the Patriots franchised him in early February, the consensus was that Cassel was the best available free-agent quarterback -- by a wide margin.

The New England Patriots didn't waste any time placing the non-exclusive franchise tag on free agent quarterback Matt Cassel, doing so they first day they were allowed. Cassel, it would seem, has also wasted no time in accepting the offer, according Chris (scoop!) Mortensen of ESPN.

Cassel is now guaranteed a salary of $14.65 million in 2009, which is the average salary of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL.

During the opening week of the season, when Kansas City's Bernard Pollard rolled into the knee of Tom Brady, I, like many, just assumed that the Patriots' season was pretty much finished before it even started. I mean, they were going to be turning the keys of their high-powered offense over to Matt Cassel, a seemingly anonymous guy that had to struggle to make the team out of training camp, after spending the first three years of his NFL career -- and his entire college career -- riding the bench.

Yet, 16 weeks later, here we are and the Patriots not only have a chance to finish the season with an 11-5 record, they have a chance to make the playoffs and/or win the AFC East. Granted, they have to win, and they need some help, but it's been a season that even the most vocal Patriots haters have to be surprised by. Especially when you consider the other injuries the team suffered throughout the season. I'm talking about Rodney Harrison, Laurence Maroney and Adalius Thomas, just to name a few.

Frankly, this might be the best coaching job of Bill Belichick's career, assuming, of course, he didn't cheat. Kidding! I think.

The Patriots close out the regular season at 1 PM ET on Sunday in Buffalo, where they will be taking on a struggling Bills team that is currently on a 2-7 slide after starting the season 5-1. For the Bills, it's all about playing spoiler because misery loves company, or something.

New England gets in with:

1) A win and a Jets win (Gives New England the division)
or
2) A Jaguars win (Gives New England the wild card)

Nope, understudy quarterback Matt Cassel wasn't able to carry New England to victory on Thursday night. The Patriots dropped to the Jets last night in a thriller of a football game, mainly because they had to play catch up and couldn't stop the Jets offense when it mattered most.

None of that matters, however, when talking about Matt Cassel. This was his breakout game, and what a performance it was.

All the unknown players have one of these before they become household names. Tony Romo had his game against the Buccaneers in 2006, throwing five touchdowns and no interceptions in just his fifth start as a Cowboy. Tom Brady had his in 2001, a three touchdown performance against his soon-to-be foe Peyton Manning as the Patriots took down the Colts at Indianapolis and set us up for years of Brady-Manning showdowns.

Thursday night was Cassel's birth, a 30 of 51 performance with three touchdowns and 400 total passing yards. The numbers can 't exactly explain that final drive though.

If composure was a verb, it would have been Cassel at the end of regulation. Cassel to Ben Watson for nine yards. Cassel to Watson for 11 yards. Cassel to Wes Welker for 17 yards, every time making sure to get his team to the line and spike the ball a split second after they were set.

One month after Kansas City Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard ended the season of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the superstar underwent surgery this week to repair the inner workings of his left knee. Early reports are that the operation was a success, which is good news for Boston area football fans.

From Patriots beat writer Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe:

Brady's surgery took place 29 days after he was injured in the Patriots' 17-10 season-opening win over the Chiefs. Multiple sources told the Globe that Brady tore the anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in his knee when hit by Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard. In cases similar to Brady's, doctors often wait for the MCL to heal before reconstructing the ACL. That is typically a four- to six-week window, so Brady is closer to the early side.

You see folks, that's how good Tom Brady is. Even his knee heals faster than the typical knee. Or something. The Patriots offense clearly hasn't been the same without him, even though the team is 3-1 and tied for the top spot in the AFC East.

In a sort of unrelated question, does the knee injury prevent him from getting down on one knee to propose? Yes? No? Get off the stage?