Pats are only looking at Sunday

Bruschi didn’t bite.

“Come on man,” he said. “I could entertain you for a bit but I’m going to pass on that. We’ll save that for the locker room.”

The response drew a chunk of laughter from the crowd, but the irony is that Bruschi is one of the most studious disciples of the Belichick way in the Patriots locker room, toeing the coach’s line of focusing on one game at a time, never looking ahead.

In fact, when asked about New England’s current 13-game winning streak, Bruschi replied, “We look at it as winning one in a row 13 times.”

Just one more of those wins, over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday’s AFC Championship game at Gillette Stadium, and the Patriots will be headed to their second Super Bowl in the last three seasons. Now, more than ever, Belichick’s clichéd, yet effective one game at a time mantra reams true.

Remember the Pittsburgh Steelers making reservations for New Orleans prior to their contest against the Patriots in the AFC Championship two years ago? That’s one reason why you won’t see any of the Patriots mention the city of Houston unless they take care of business against the Colts this weekend. No easy task for sure, considering the way quarterback Peyton Manning and Co. have plowed through their first two opponents, Denver and Kansas City, in the playoffs. Manning has been nearly perfect, and, in an amazing feat, the Colts have not had to punt the ball once. Not once.

“It’s certainly a big load on the plate,” Belichick said once he arrived at the Hyatt. “They’re plowing through these playoff games like nobody I’ve ever seen before.”

And we don’t have to remind you he’s seen his share of playoff teams first-hand. He took the Patriots all the way as their head coach two years ago and in 1996, he was the defensive coordinator of the squad that lost to Brett Favre and the Packers in the Super Bowl. With Bill Parcells in New York, he helped lead the Giants to a pair of titles, and it was one of those penultimate games that the coach believes might foreshadow what the Patriots will see from Indy Sunday.

It was in the weeks leading up to the 1991 Super Bowl when the defensive-minded Giants weren’t given a shot against the high-powered attack of the Buffalo Bills, led by Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas. The Giants won the game when Scott Norwood’s kick missed right, but Belichick said that he sees a lot of similarity between the Bills of more than a decade ago and the Colts of today. And get this, the mild-mannered coach got downright excited when he talked about it.

“In terms of their offensive system, yes, but with the Bills, they were such a fast-paced offense that there was a much higher urgency to get the call in,” he said. “I would put them somewhere in the middle.”

For those with short-term memories, you might just look back to the Patriots’ opponent in their last Super Bowl, the St. Louis Rams, a.k.a. the Greatest Show on Turf. Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and the Rams’ offense were mentioned in the same breath with some of the greatest units of all time.The Patriots shut them down, 20-17. Bruschi was asked if he would stack the Colts’ attack up with that of St. Louis’ two years ago.

“I think the Colts are even hotter than the Rams were back then,” he said.

The numbers are there to back up such a claim. The Colts have scored 79 points in their last two playoff games, a 41-10 rout of the Broncos and a 38-31 seesaw affair with the Chiefs. Manning has tossed for 681 yards, eight touchdowns and has an off the charts 156.9 quarterback rating in those two contests. Running back Edgerrin James has rushed for 203 yards.

The last time these two teams faced, on Thanksgiving weekend in the RCA Dome, New England escaped with a 38-34 victory, which got close after the Patriots turned the ball over a couple times late in the game. That allowed Manning to do his thing and lead the Colts within one yard of the win, with 10 seconds left, and fourth down. That’s when Willie McGinest stuffed James on the one-yard yard to seal the win.

If the DVD of the Patriots season does hit stores within the next few weeks, it’s a highlight that will make the cut amongst the most important of the season. But it was a subject McGinest didn’t want to dredge up when he met with the media today, preferring instead to look ahead to Sunday. Remember, one game at a time. Focus only on the game at hand.

“It was just a tackle that happened to be at the end of the game near the end zone. I just had a good read on the play, a lot of us did,” he said. “That was a while ago. We’re not really focusing on that. That could have gone either way.”

And if you think that sounds like McGinest’s coach, you’re right on the money.

“We’re a week-to-week team. We don’t really worry too much about what happened in the past,” Belichick said. “Whether it be one week, three weeks, or 20 weeks ago. We’re more concerned about what the upcoming challenges are and how we’re going to meet them.”

The challenge of Boston traffic on a Friday afternoon was met with adequate results. The Colts aren’t much easier. But at least that’s a challenge Belichick has his players well prepared to meet on Sunday.