Indianapolis ? Tony Dungy calls it “the Patriots Mystique” and acknowledges it’s something he and the Indianapolis Colts have to overcome to get to their first Super Bowl.

That has to be something Bill Belichick loves. One reason New England has won three NFL titles in the past five seasons is because it gets into the heads of opponents – none more so than Peyton Manning and the Colts.

Thus the theme for today’s AFC championship game at the RCA Dome – the Patriots, a bit undermanned compared to previous years, against the talented but frustrated Colts, who twice have been knocked out of the playoffs by Belichick’s team en route to the Super Bowl.

“You have to play them and not their mystique, and that’s hard to do,” says Dungy, the Colts coach who has reached this point twice before without making it to the NFL’s marquee game despite a regular-season record of 114-62, a winning percentage of .648.

Most of the pressure seems to be on Manning, who holds myriad passing records, including 49 touchdown passes in the 2004 season, but never has gotten to the Super Bowl and is 5-6 in playoff games.

That’s in stark contrast to Tom Brady of the Patriots, who has less gaudy passing stats but is 12-1 in the postseason. He owns three Super Bowl rings and two Super Bowl MVP awards for twice driving New England to the winning score on the final drive. Each time, the winning field goal was kicked by Adam Vinatieri, now a Colt.

The party line on Manning was best expressed this week by Colts center Jeff Saturday – largely because the Colts quarterback was kept away from the media by the team for most of the week.

“Peyton is a great quarterback in regular season and postseason,” Saturday said. “When he plays well, he gets a great amount of credit. When he doesn’t play well, he gets slaughtered. That shouldn’t be. It’s our team that wins or loses.”

Neither Manning nor Brady has played especially well this postseason, in which their teams entered the playoffs as the third- and fourth-seeded teams in the AFC with regular-season records of 12-4.

Manning has thrown five interceptions and has just one touchdown pass in wins over Kansas City and Baltimore and his passer rating is 58.9, a figure that gets quarterbacks benched under normal circumstances.

But the Colts’ defense has allowed just one touchdown and a total of 127 yards rushing in the two games combined.