Wide receivers are supposed to be the least important component of a pro football team. That is, there are so many good ones around that the difference in performance between the best and the average isn’t usually that great. As Bill Walsh once said to me when I suggested that Jerry Rice might be the most important player on his 49ers team, “Wide receivers should make the difference in a big game only if all other things are equal.”

In an overhyped game that actually lived up to its hype, the Colts and Patriots couldn’t have been more evenly matched in every area except their wideouts. In the postgame stats, first downs, total yards, turnovers, yards rushing, time of possession, and kicking and punting were all virtually equal. The only difference in the Patriots’ 24–20 victory was that in key situations in the second half, and especially in the fourth quarter, Tom Brady got the ball to Randy Moss — whose nine catches were more than the Pats’ other wideouts combined — while Peyton Manning could not get the ball to Reggie Wayne.

Or rather, on two critical plays in the second half, Manning got the ball to Wayne, but Wayne couldn’t hold on. With Marvin Harrison still sidelined, Manning was forced to continually throw under coverage to running back Joseph Addai and tight end Dallas Clark, while Tom Brady was able to hit his wideouts Moss, Donté Stallworth, and Wes Welker for 225 of his 255 total passing yards. The Colts had hoped that Wayne would take up some of the slack from Harrison’s absence, but his bobble and then drop of a 40-yarder from Manning at the Patriots’ 22-yard line in the fourth quarter was a killer. Wayne had five catches for 62 yards otherwise, but wasn’t much of a factor in the game.

If anyone was disrespected before the game, it was the defensive players and coordinators of both teams. The 44 points scored in the game were 28 less than the overunder betting line. Neither defense stopped the other team’s offenses, but both defenses contained them. The difference between the Pats and Colts wasn’t their quarterbacks, either: Brady threw for 255 yards, averaging 8.0 yards a throw with three TDs and two interceptions, while Manning had 225 yards, averaged 8.3, with a TD pass, another on a sneak, and one interception. Jump ball.

The difference in the game was that in the second half, Randy Moss made the critical catches while Reggie Wayne and a mediocre substitute, Aaron Moorehead (two catches for 13 yards, two drops) did not. Marvin Harrison will probably be back in the lineup if the two teams play each other in New England for the AFC Championship, but that may not be enough to help the Colts.

Does this mean that the Patriots have a clear track to the Super Bowl? Definitely. After a bye next week, they have a soft schedule except for a December 9 meeting with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who actually have a slightly better defense than either the Colts or Patriots, and a season-ender with the Giants at the Meadowlands, which I really don’t think is going to be all that tough. The Patriots have essentially a two-game lead for the home field advantage in the playoffs. They may need it, because the Colts have an even softer schedule down the stretch and could easily sweep the board the rest of the way. Their toughest games of their last eight may be against 5–3 Jacksonville (whom they’ve already beaten) and the season closer against 6–2 Tennessee.

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A friend of mine used to run a pool where you looked at the NFL schedule before the season started and picked the biggest upset of the year. You were allowed to pick five games that, if the underdog won, would result in a huge upset. The theory was that if you had enough people picking five possible upsets, sooner or later somebody would get one.

The Detroit Lions’ 44–7 crushing of the Denver Broncos early yesterday afternoon wasn’t the biggest upset of the season — the Lions, playing at home, were favored by three. But I’m pretty sure that if you picked Detroit to win by the score before the season, it would have looked like the biggest upset of the season.

The Broncos were 9–7 last year while the Lions were 3–13, and you’d be hard-pressed to pick two teams whose fortunes have been so radically reversed. The loss pretty much spells the end of any serious postseason hopes for Denver; that issue, if it was still in doubt, was probably settled when quarterback Jay Cutler went out in the second quarter with a lower leg injury and running back Travis Henry left the game with similar damage in the fourth. Not that presence would have made much difference: Neither man plays defense. Jon Kitna, one of the most unjustly maligned quarterbacks in the game, getting phenomenal protection from his offensive line (just one sack allowed), passed for 252 yards on 31 throws with two TDs and no interceptions — and hit on four of five key third down passes on the Lions’ first four possessions.

It was the Lions’ fifth win in their last six games, and they now look like one of the four best teams in the NFC, behind the clear front-running Cowboys. Unfortunately for them, that seems an awful lot like being called one of the four best teams in the National League after the Colorado Rockies. It’s taken Detroit Lions’ fans more than four decades to reach such dizzying heights, but after watching the Indianapolis–New England game, you have to wonder if they really want their team to go to the Super Bowl.

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”