That's a good analysis of it, Drew. If I wanted to offer a counter-point to your argument, it's that the Patriots for the better (early) part of the decade, had a great defense with longevity. The Colts' have had a good defense off-and-on, but Peyton Manning runs that offense. You can say that having Wayne, Harrison, and Clark gives Manning better receiving options, and along with Edgerrin, a better balance, but just take a sampling from this year. Without Harrison, without Edge, but with a diminished ground game led by platoon back Addai (who is great with scoring TDs, but his longest run this year was 13 yards, up until that game against the Pats), Manning is doing more than Brady, but with less. He's turned two rookie receivers (Garcon, 2nd year, and Collie, 1st year) into viable downfield options.
Brady has the best "underrated" receiver in the game with Welker, a hybrid receiver that has a higher catch % than the best TEs out there. And Moss, arguably the best reciever of the 00's behind Marvin Harrison, and on equal-footing with vintage TO. They don't him "the Freak" for nothing.
AND, if you read the article from the previous page, Belichick and Brady apparently have the almighty cosmic force of
Voltron as a running game! Who can top that?! Well, as it is, enough 'legit' teams can, as the Patriots' have more losses this season right now than the Bengals', which would be a bet nobody other Ochocinco would have cashed in on. While their (now young) defense and offensive line have let them down more often than in prior seasons, The Pats have more to work with than the Colts (this season, though).
It's a subjective matter, of course, but just because it's a 3-to-1 difference in rings, that doesn't mean Brady is that many tiers higher than Manning. Two of those rings that Brady achieved was because he had a league defense ranked in the top-4 overall both times. The one time he had "elevated" receiving options and finally lived up to his hype by throwing 50 touchdowns in one season, he ultimately fell to Manning's kid brother.
One final point: Manning means everything to the Colts, moreso than Edgerrin, Dungy, Harrison, or a solid defense. Whenever you face Manning, you have to overcome a mountain. But when Tom Brady went down last season, they supplanted him with Matt Cassel, a quarterback "that hadn't started a football game since he was a senior in high school". They missed a beat early on, yet with McDaniels' offensive scheming, and Belichick's devios mind, the Pats still managed to accomplish an 11-5 record, very respectable, but even moreso with a relatively "unproven backup". This is to reinforce that the Pats success is more dependent on coach Belichick than A-#1 QB Tom Brady, while on the other hand, even though Manning lost a significant portion of his familiarity around him over the course of his past 3 seasons, he's still led his Colts to numerous consecutive postseason berths, and has already achieved the feat this season, when most preseason pundits thought he would struggle with rookie head coach, Caldwell.
The face (brains) of the Pats' oveall success is directly tied to Bill Belichick. The success of the Colts, however, resides, squarely on the shoulders of Peyton Manning. He is an all-world player, perhaps the best of this decade, bar-none, who had the misfortune of never having a dependable defense to help him, and never really having a solution on how to beat either the Steelers or the Chargers in the postseason.