Technically, from Indy back to Baltimore, but still ... I'm sitting in the Indianapolis airport, where they're still opening fresh boxes of Colts AFC Champions gear and people are still lining up at the stores waiting for the boxes to be opened. A couple of thoughts before I board:

* There is a real tangible sense of relief emanating from a lot of people, outside of New England, that is, because someone other than the Patriots are in. Everybody knows the Brady-Belichick-Scott Pioli stories by heart from the previous five years. The Colts do bring something completely new, starting with the quarterback's big-game reputation.

* Remember last week when Brian Billick said he faced a lot of nights waking up at 2 and 3 in the morning replaying the mistakes from the Ravens' playoff loss? What do you think Belichick will be doing? He already looks like he doesn't sleep. What will jolt him out of his slumber most - Reche Caldwell's drop with no one within 10 yards of him? The too-many-men-in-the-huddle call? Not coming up with Reggie Wayne's bobble after the catch? Letting Dallas Clark get that wide open? Getting beaten not by Marvin Harrison, but Bryan Fletcher? Just for starters.

* I agonized all last night and most of today over not playing up the magnitude of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith getting into the Super Bowl in this morning's column. My consolation is that there are two weeks to explore every angle of it, that it's not a bad thing to just credit Dungy for being brilliant without segregating him by race, and that the moment (and the deadline) demanded that Manning get the attention. Remember, it was do-or-die until the final seconds whether Dungy would be joining Smith. Oh well, what can you do.

* Still, the sight of Dungy being completely hemmed in by family, friends and well-wishers of every color after the game last night, with several onlookers near tears, was powerful. There was a lot of "I never thought I'd live to see the day ...'' talk going around.

* Manning was so good in the final two and a half quarters, there's no way you can't ask yourself why in the world it took him this long to play this way in a playoff game. I wonder if even he could answer that. He chewed the Patriots up like he usually chews up the likes of Detroit on that Thanksgiving Day a few years ago, or some other regular-season bottom feeder.

* Fans here didn't run around the streets acting crazy and getting the cops involved. It was more like thousands of people wandering around dazed, occasionally yelling, "Go Colts, yeah, who-hoo!'' It had sank in, but in a different way. And, as always, it's great to see a city not burn itself down when its team wins, not to bring up cities that do, like College Park.

* Dungy held his usual Monday press conference at the team facility, and from the way he told it, it appeared that in the many past job interviews that went nowhere, he ran into as much resistance over his calm demeanor as over his skin color. Go figure. Owners apparently not only thought you had to be white to be an NFL coach, you had to be a raving, obsessed, fire-breathing lunatic. But guess whose calm demeanor kept his team in a game it trailed 21-3?

* The Colts are refurbishing their facility. Looks pretty functional, but aesthetically, it won't hold a candle to the Castle. So the Ravens won that, at least.