FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Patriots lead over the Colts was slipping away, just as it was last year. Peyton Manning was about to do it again.

Then James Sanders made the big defensive stop.

The safety’s leaping interception at the New England 6-yard line with 31 seconds left secured a 31-28 win Sunday. The comeback ended. There was no repeat of history.

“For a minute, I was thinking deja vu,” Sanders said. “As a defense, we knew if we didn’t make a play, we were going to lose the game. (Manning) wasn’t just going to give it to us.”

With Tom Brady outplaying Manning in the latest revival of the matchup between the NFL’s star quarterbacks, the Patriots led this game 31-14 in the fourth quarter, just as they did last November.

Indianapolis ended up winning that one 35-34 after New England gambled on a fourth-and-2 at their 28 and fell a yard short. The Colts took over at the 29 and Manning hit Reggie Wayne with a 1-yard scoring pass with 13 seconds left.

On Sunday, Manning quickly turned a runaway into a chance for another come-from-behind win. The Colts cut the lead to 31-28 after his second touchdown pass to Blair White in just over four minutes with 4:46 remaining. After a punt, Manning got the ball back at his 20 and drove the Colts to a first-and-10 at the Patriots 24 with 37 seconds to go.

“Certainly (it) felt like last year,” Manning said.

He hurried to the line without a huddle, took a snap in the shotgun formation and threw down the right side. Pierre Garcon turned to the outside, but the pass sailed toward the middle where Sanders snared the ball.

“We had some time, had some timeouts and felt like we had a good play call,” said Manning, whose three intercepted passes overshadowed his four touchdown throws. “(It was) just a poor throw and it’s really sickening.”

Still, the Patriots had confidence they could come through.

“Peyton had been making a lot of plays,” New England cornerback Kyle Arrington said, “and at the end it just came down to us making a play ourselves.”

In the beginning, the Patriots (8-2 and tied for the AFC East lead with the New York Jets) dominated. The Colts (6-4 and leading the AFC South) couldn’t stop them, especially with starting linebackers Clint Session and Gary Brackett sidelined. Running backs Joseph Addai and Mike Hart also missed the game with injuries.

New England scored on its first three possessions on passes from Brady of 22 yards to Wes Welker and 8 yards to Aaron Hernandez and a 5-yard run by BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Manning threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Gijon Robinson midway through the second quarter and 11-yards to Wayne with 4 seconds left in the half as the Colts made it 21-14.

“You can’t keep starting off slow, especially against a team like this,” Wayne said.

The Patriots extended their lead to 31-14 on a 36-yard run by Danny Woodhead with 1:11 left in the third and a 25-yard field goal by Shayne Graham with 10:23 to go in the game.

Then New England punted on its next two possessions.

“It would have been a lot sweeter if we had done something there in the fourth quarter to help our defense,” Brady said. “When we play these guys, we know it’s going to come down to the end.”

The teams met for the eighth straight season even though they’re in different divisions, and the 13th time since Brady started his first game as a pro — against the Colts — in 2001. New England won the first six of those meetings then lost five of six before winning Sunday.

“There were a lot of great things in the game,” said Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who moved into an 11th-place tie with Joe Gibbs with 171 wins, one more than Paul Brown. “Unfortunately, the fourth quarter, offensively, wasn’t part of it.”

The win was Brady’s 25th straight as a starter in the regular season, matching the NFL record that Brett Favre set with Green Bay. He can break that against the Jets on Dec. 6 in a Monday night game, 11 days after the Patriots game at the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving.

Brady led a balanced offense, completing 19 of 25 passes for 186 yards and two touchdowns.