INDIANAPOLIS — Denver lost. Again. For the third game in a row. This time, to the struggling Redskins, who improved to 3-6 while dropping the free-falling Broncos to 6-3.

The defending Super Bowl champion Steelers lost. To Cincinnati. Again. For the second time this season. And, this time, it was in Pittsburgh, 18-12. Which, in this case, was not a triumphant overture for Steelers fans, but a dirge.

The Jets lost. Again. For the fifth time in the last six games. This time to the Jaguars. At home, in the Meadowlands, no less.

The Dolphins managed to win. Barely. They slipped past the bumbling Bucs, 25-23, on a 25-yard field goal with 10 seconds left to play. But Miami still is under .500, at 4-5. Tampa Bay, which was trounced in England three weeks ago by the American footballers from New England, now is 1-8, so it’s not as if the Bucs should have posed a serious threat to the defending AFC East champions.

That’s a title which, it appears, the Patriots are in the driver’s seat to reclaim, given that they’re the only team in the division with a winning record.

With all that taking place Sunday afternoon, was there any doubt, as the Patriots kicked off to the Colts Sunday night in Lucas Oil Stadium, that New England and Indianapolis are the two best teams in the AFC?

The still-undefeated Saints — they slipped past the woeful (1-8) Rams, 28-23, in St. Louis on Sunday — can stake a legitimate claim to being as good a team as there is in the NFL. That claim will be tested in two weeks, when the Patriots head to the Big Easy for what promises to be a very big, very hard Monday night football game.

But in the AFC, with all due respect to Cincinnati — hard as it is to give respect to the Bengals, given what’s gone down in Cincy in recent seasons — the Pats and Colts are the class of the conference.

For the third time in the last five years, Indianapolis was 8-0 at the midway mark. Had the Colts not lost to New England in Week Eight in 2007, it would have been four times in five years.

Indy hasn’t had a losing season since 2001. Since 2003, the Colts have won at least 12 games every season — a streak that it appears safe to say will be extended this year.

Before finishing second last year in the AFC South to Tennessee, the Colts had won five straight division titles.

They won the Super Bowl in 2006, after overcoming an 18-point, first-half deficit in the AFC Championship Game with New England — the biggest comeback in a conference championship game in NFL history.

The Patriots, of course, have won three Super Bowls in this decade, and nearly won a fourth, except their defense allowed Peyton Manning’s little brother, Eli, to take the Giants 83 yards to the winning touchdown in the final minutes of Super Bowl XLII, spoiling what would have been a history-making, perfect season for the previously undefeated Pats.

Like the Colts, the Patriots had won five straight division titles before finishing second last year, when record-setting QB Tom Brady — he’d broken Peyton Manning’s record for TD passes in a season by throwing for 50 in 2007 — went down for the season with a knee injury in the first half of the first game.

New England’s last losing season was in coach Bill Belichick’s first year — 2000, when the Pats were 5-11. They won the Super Bowl the next season.

So it’s not as if it’s just this season that the Pats and Colts are the class of the conference. They’ve been two of the best teams in the league for years now, and have created a rivalry that many people — including last night’s play-by-play man for NBC, Al Michaels — consider to be the best in the NFL.

“This one is as good as anything I can remember,” Michaels said. “Without question, this is the rivalry of the decade.”

The expectation Sunday night was that this would be a “whichever team has the ball last” kind of game, with neither team able to consistently stop the other.

The Colts’ secondary has been decimated by injuries. Cornerback Marlin Jackson, a former first-round pick, is out for the year, along with hard-hitting veteran safety Bob Sanders. Cornerback Kelvin Hayden, listed as a starter on the depth chart, also was sidelined by injury. So there were two rookies starting at cornerback for Indy — Jerraud Powers, a third-round pick out of Auburn, and Jacob Lacey, an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma State.

That should have been easy pickings for Brady, who came in having thrown 16 touchdown passes and only five interceptions.

Which, coincidentally, were the same numbers put up by Manning, who also boasted a gaudy 70.6 completion percentage.

The Colts had won four of their five games with New England over the last four years, and the Pats this year hadn’t faced a QB of Manning’s caliber — the best they’ve seen being youngsters Matt Ryan of Atlanta and Joe Flacco of Baltimore.

So there were concerns, too, about whether the Patriots could contain Peyton and the Colts.

Those concerns quickly proved justified when the Colts cruised 90 yards in eight plays to the game’s first touchdown, Joseph Addai scoring on a 15-yard, screen pass.

As it turned out, though, it was the Colts who should have been worried.

The Patriots immediately responded, Brady connecting with Randy Moss on a 55-yard bomb to the Indianapolis 6. Two Laurence Maroney runs later, it was 7-7. The Patriots’ scoring drive covered 73 yards in just six plays.

That lead grew to 17-7 when, after a Stephen Gostkowski field goal early in the second quarter, the Patriots came right back on their next possession and stunned the Colts with a 63-yard TD bomb from Brady to Moss.

When Manning was unable to answer, Brady jump-started New England’s next scoring drive with a 36–yard pass to tight end Ben Watson, and finished it off by eluding a rusher and firing a 9-yard TD pass to rookie Julian Edelman, returning to action after breaking his right forearm against Tennessee.

While satisfying, a 17-point lead wasn’t exactly comforting to the Patriots, given that they’d let an 18-point advantage slip away in the ’06 conference championship game at Indy.

Which came quickly to mind when Manning cut the Colts’ deficit to 10 with a 20–yard TD toss to Reggie Wayne 4:17 before halftime, capping an 8-play, 80-yard drive.

But it was only to be expected from these two great rivals, the two best teams in the AFC.

jdonalds@projo.com