FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Patriots are going back to their home away from home.
New England is Super Bowl-bound for the sixth time under Bill Belichick and Tom Brady after blasting the overmatched Colts yet again Sunday night in a 45-7 rout in the AFC Championship Game at soggy Gillette Stadium.
Unlike the Packers just before them in the NFC title game, the Patriots knew what to do with a double-digit halftime lead. New England went for the jugular, outscoring Indianapolis 28-0 in the second half to coast into a Super Bowl XLIX showdown with the Seahawks in Glendale, Ariz.
Belichick will face his predecessor as Patriots coach in Pete Carroll with a chance to prevent a Seattle repeat after LeGarrette Blount ran for 148 yards and three touchdowns, Brady threw for three touchdowns and former Jet Darrelle Revis broke the game open with a interception in the third quarter.
Revis now heads to the Super Bowl for the first time in his magnificent career with the chance to give Belichick and Brady their fourth championship rings and tie them with Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw as the most successful coach-quarterback tandem in modern NFL history.
It will also be Belichick's third crack at winning a Super Bowl since the Patriots' massive cheating was uncovered and punished by the NFL eight years ago in the Spygate scandal.
And if that wasn't enough storylines, the Patriots will be returning to the scene of their David Tyree-induced nightmare at the hands of the Giants seven years ago at University of Phoenix Stadium.
New England had plenty of time to think ahead during the second half Sunday night while they dismantled Andrew Luck and the Colts for the fourth time in as many meetings since Luck took over as quarterback in 2012.
The Patriots won those four games by a combined 189-73, with the latest matchup being by far the most lopsided.
Indy had no chance because Luck was horrible, especially in the second half. Luck finished just 11-for-32 for 123 yards and was intercepted twice, both after intermission as the Patriots turned a 17-7 lead into a laugher.
The Colts also were helpless to stop the power running of Blount, a midseason castoff by the Steelers who has been reborn in his return to the team that let him walk away to Pittsburgh in the offseason.
Blount carried 30 times, and more than half of his 148 yards came after initial contact as the Colts' undersized defense wilted in the rain against Blount's punishing style.
And when Blount wasn't pounding the Colts into the ground, Brady was flustering them through the air. He completed 23 of 35 passes for 226 yards and the three TDs, two of them in the second half — including a 16-yarder to offensive tackle Nate Solder on another tackle-eligible play.
The Patriots jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and appeared to be on the verge of a runaway until an unexpected and ugly Brady interception let the Colts back in the game.
New England was marching for what likely would have been an insurmountable three-touchdown lead in the second quarter when Brady was picked off at the Indy 1-yard line by linebacker D'Qwell Jackson on a forced throw to Rob Gronkowski.
Key penalties on Patriots defenders Vince Wilfork and Jamie Collins combined with a clutch, 36-yard sideline catch by T.Y. Hilton enabled the Colts to convert Brady's miscue into a 1-yard Zurlon Tipton touchdown run that cut Indy's deficit to 14-7 with 4:58 left in the half.
That wouldn't be the only time the Colts defense stiffened in the second quarter, either.
After the Patriots rode Blount (68 first-half rushing yards) to a first-and-goal situation from the Indy 3 just before halftime, the Patriots inexplicably threw three straight times — all of them incomplete.
That forced New England to settle for a 21-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal with nine seconds left that left the Colts relieved and within striking distance going into the break.
That was a far cry from the predicament Indy put itself in during a disastrous first quarter in which the Colts set up New England's first score when Josh Cribbs muffed a punt deep in his own territory and the normally clutch Adam Vinatieri shanked a 51-yard field goal try.
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