Ask yourself if Vince Lombardi, with his team leading by six points, would have gone for it on fourth and 2 from his own 28 with two minutes to play in the game? You think Don Shula would have made that call? Tom Landry. No, of course not.

Let's recap: Down six, on the road, you can force Peyton Manning go 70 yards for the win if you punt. If you go for it and fail on fourth down, Manning needs just 29 yards to win the game. It's a no-brainer right? Ask yourself if Chuck Noll would have gone for it in such a situation. Joe Gibbs? Bill Walsh. No, of course not.

But no great coach, no head coach with multiple Super Bowl victories, would have made that call -- except the most arrogant great coach of them all, Bill Belichick. And the decision to try and pick up those two yards in Indianapolis last night instead of punting, fittingly, is the most arrogant end-of-game decision I've ever seen in 40-plus years of watching pro football.

Not surprisingly, Tom Brady said he loved the call; would you really expect the Golden Boy QB to publicly second-guess his coach in the moments immediately following one of the most dramatic endings in modern NFL history? But you'll forgive me if I take my cue from one of Belichick's former players, Rodney Harrison now of NBC's "Football Night in America," who has the guts to talk it like he played it. Harrison was honest enough to tell the viewers that his old coach, a man he respects and loves, made a "the worst decision" he'd ever seen.

It was arrogant. It sounded logical enough when Belichick said later that he figured that one fourth-down conversion was going to win the game. The Patriots would make the fourth down, keep Manning on the bench, take a knee three times, then punt with 30 seconds left or whatever, and win the game.

See, the problem with that is fourth-and-anything is no gimme. Quarterbacks fumble snaps. Guards step on quarterbacks' feet. Backs miss blocks on blitzing linebackers. Receivers drop passes. Officials make bad spots. The other guy makes a great tackle. All the time. That's why coaches are so hesitant to go for it on fourth down even when they absolutely have to, even from the other side of mid-field when they're trailing. They're loathe to do it.

Belichick simply figured his play run by his guys was absolutely certain to pick up the necessary first-down yardage. Yeah, he wanted to keep Manning off the field, but I'd bet everything I own that was a secondary consideration. The Patriots D had already grabbed two interceptions off Manning in the game. And if you have that much respect for Manning, don't you want him to go 70 yards minimum to win the game?

Oh, this was Belichick having watched his team go up and down the turf in Indy, feeling like he did two years ago when the Patriots were undefeated going into the Super Bowl, saying to himself, "We control the events here. All of them." So he went for it.

If the play works, we're in awe of the Patriots again. They're 7-2, they knocked the Colts from the ranks of the undefeated again, they're looking like the best team in the AFC again, what with Brady healthy and firing rockets to Randy Moss. If that play works you could have cued the Gladiator music because the Patriots would have been on their invincible train once again.

Of course, we'd feel exactly the same way if the New England punter had kicked it, oh, 50 yards on fourth down. That would have put Manning 80 yards from glory, not less than 30. And as great as Manning is, going 80 on the Patriots is difficult stuff.

Even in the worst-case scenario -- a miraculous long TD drive -- Belichick would have demonstrated that he has some confidence in his defense after giving them the chance to do what they'd done so often during this thriller: stop Manning. The Colts hadn't punted so many times in the first half since the early '90s. The Patriots defense wasn't playing like a bunch of chumps. Their coach should have had more faith in them.

But Belichick wanted to steamroll the Colts. Other coaches know he doesn't respect their teams and, in many cases, dislike him intensely for it. Oh, Belichick says all the magnanimous things during mid-week and postgame news conferences so he'll have some cover when he goes out to hang 50 or 60 on somebody. This isn't wild conjecture. Every coach in the league, even the ones who used to work for Belichick, knows he wants to cut his opponent's heart out and step on it at the end of the game.

He's not satisfied with winning the game; he wants to rub the other guy's face in it. He's a great, great, great coach and also he wants to see the other guy squirm. So what better way to end the evening than put his foot on Indy's throat and remind the Colts what team is ready to reclaim the AFC?

Don't get me wrong, it made for wonderful theatre. Brady/Belichick/New England have for an entire decade. And I wasn't taken entirely by surprise that Belichick shoved all his chips to the middle of the table. The moment NBC went to commercial break and Brady was still on the field, having called time, I started dialing up friends because I knew Belichick was going for it. It's who he is at this point.

But if I wonder if anybody in the Patriots locker room is going to roll his eyes the next time Belichick starts talking about the advantages of playing field position football, and about playing smart football. I've had enough conversations with Belichick to know that while it sounds like a cliché, he's slavishly devoted to putting his players in the best possible position to win.

Except Sunday night, Belichick's actions said to hell with field position, with playing smart football. He put his defense in position to fail because they weren't about to stop Peyton Manning from moving the Colts those 29½ yards to win the game.

Is it going to hurt the Patriots in the end? Probably not. Nobody's taking away those three Super Bowl trophies. Belichick isn't going to be denied entry to the Hall of Fame. But for one night, Belichick killed own team, not the opponent. That, if nothing else, makes what happened Sunday night in Indy an affair worth remembering.