Cover / Artwork » Adam Vinatieri sits at one end of the Indianapolis

Colts‘ locker room Trevon Wesco Jersey , his expanding white beard nearly a perfect match to his helmet and jersey.He doesn’t listen to the hip-hop music in the background, doesn’t pretend to understand the shiny, new electronic gadgets everyone else plays with and certainly doesn’t pay much attention to the trends outside these walls. Yet in Vinatieri’s mind, this is still the perfect spot.Here, in a league known for being traditionally unkind to “old” men, the 46-year-old kicker feels comfortable retelling playoff yarns, discussing union business, even offering informal personal advice to teammates who, in some cases literally come from a different generation.“He seems like he’s the same age he was when I first came in here and I guess that’s been eight years,” left tackle Anthony Castonzo said Thursday. “That’s pretty impressive, eight years, going through your early 40s that you don’t really seem any older. I’m always impressed with how he’s able to hang out with the young guys and be one of the guys despite being old enough to be one of our dads.”Sure there are increasing signs of Vinatieri’s advancing age.In addition to the graying hairs, his oldest son, A.J., served as a ball boy at training camp last summer. Vinatieri’s nephew, Chase, recently completed his junior season at South Dakota State, where the elder Vinatieri also played. The league’s oldest active player now co-owns an IndyCar developmental series race team with Dr. Jack Miller Shareef Miller Jersey , a neighbor and three-time Indianapolis 500 starter.Make no mistake: Vinatieri is not gearing up for life after football just yet.If given the chance, he says he’d like to play 10 more years and if he continues outperforming guys half his age, he just might continue a record-breaking career that doesn’t seem to be slowing down.In September, he passed Morten Andersen for the most career field goals in NFL history. A month later, he supplanted Andersen as the league’s career scoring leader. Last week he joined Andersen, the late George Blanda and John Carney as the only players to appear in an NFL game after turning 46.And if things go as planned in Saturday’s wild-card game at Houston (11-5), the NFL’s career postseason scoring leader would take the first step toward joining former teammate Tom Brady and Hall of Fame pass rusher Charles Haley as the only players to win five Super Bowl rings.“There’s nothing like having the opportunity and being one of those teams still fighting to get into the Super Bowl,” Vinatieri said earlier this week. “Every team starts the season with that goal and the ultimate goal is still out there in front of us.”It’s been a long slog back to the postseason for the greatest clutch kicker in league history.After making the playoffs in 11 of his first 15 pro seasons, Vinatieri’s Colts failed to qualify four times in the next seven years, including three straight following a loss to the dreaded New England Patriots, Vinatieri’s former team, in the 2014 AFC championship game.Twice during that span, the Colts changed general managers and coaches, and there were two major roster overhauls. Vinatieri survived both and is one of four active players left from Indy’s last playoff appearance.Things didn’t look any better when the Colts were 1-5. But Vinatieri helped spur a historic midseason turnaround as the Colts won nine of their last 10 to claim the AFC’s final playoff spot by beating Tennessee and coach Mike Vrabel, one of Vinatieri’s ex-teammates.Vinatieri celebrated by jogging off the field, pumping his fist like he had just made the postseason for the first time.Not surprisingly, first-year coach Frank Reich, who once played against Vinatieri Zach Brown Jersey , asked his most experienced player to give some insight to the playoff newbies.“He just said, I’ve been in a lot of playoff situations myself and you’ve had a few more than me,” Vinatieri said, describing the exchange. “Is there anything that you think needs to be shared? I think that’s pretty awesome.”He could have used his rings as props or punched in a highlight reel showing the two field goals he made in the snow to jump-start the Patriots’ dynasty; the two Super Bowl-winning kicks; or the five kicks he made in Baltimore to keep the Colts’ 2006 title hopes alive.Instead, Vinatieri delivered a simple message he learned long ago from Hall of Fame coaches Bill Parcells and Tony Dungy as well as Bill Belichick: If you try to do too much, your next loss could be your last.Especially at Vinatieri’s age.“There are no guarantees for any of us that there’s a next day, a next year, anything. I’ve kind of always prepared myself thinking that way,” he said. “There are no guarantees, and when you get to my age, you’re absolutely right, your days are numbered.”NOTES: Reich said receiver Ryan Grant (toe) and defensive lineman Tyquan Lewis (knee) would not play Saturday. He does expect T.Y. Hilton (ankle), a four-time Pro Bowl receiver, and center Ryan Kelly (stinger) to start. … Indy re-signed cornerback Jalen Collins to the practice squad and released defensive end Anthony Winbush on Thursday. In viewing areas across America, from sports bars to living rooms, explosive cheers rang out.Throughout New England, shocked silence.Whether the way the Patriots-Dolphins game ended is worthy of being dubbed the South Beach Stunner or South Beach Bummer depends on your perspective.Maybe stick with “Boise,” which is what coach Adam Gase called this bit of razzle dazzle.Or Stick with “The Drake Escape” if you will Devin Bush Jersey , as Miami’s Kenyan Drake finished off a 69-yard reception-and-lateral marvel to lift the Dolphins past the Patriots 34-33. It’s the latest in the line of unforgettable plays that not only draw nicknames, but live in both celebration and infamy — again, depending on your perspective.Drake’s view was simple: a miracle.“Until I got in the end zone . I mean honestly, I’m sitting before you all and I still don’t believe it,” he said during interviews after the improbable conclusion sent New England to its fifth loss in the last six visits to South Florida.“I just saw it was Gronk (Rob Gronkowski) in front of me and I was just like ‘Look, I’ve got somewhere to be.’ So I had to get in the end zone.”The fact that the Patriots’ superb tight end was playing safety on the desperation play was about as bizarre as the play itself — the longest to win a game with no time remaining since the NFL-AFL merger was finalized in 1970. Sure, it made sense for the 6-foot-7 Gronk, with his long reach, powerful body and sticky hands, to be in for a “Hail Mary” pass into the end zone. But Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill wasn’t likely to throw the ball 70 yards.So the hulking Gronk was no match for the speedy Drake, not even after the Dolphins running back had sped most of the 52 yards he carried the ball after receiving a lateral from DeVante Parker. Who had taken a lateral from Kenny Still after Tannehill’s short completion.Guess Bill Belichick got outsmarted by Gase on this one. One of the Patriots coach’s former star safeties, Rodney Harrison, questioned the strategy on NBC’s halftime show Sunday night, astonished that Devin McCourty — nearly as good a player as Harrison was — stood on the sideline.“Every time we practice it, it’s for the Hail Mary,” said Gronkowski who admitted he tripped chasing Drake. “You’ve got to be ready for anything. It’s football. Just the way it ended, I mean, it sucked. I mean Diontae Johnson Jersey , I’ve never really been a part of anything like that.“I feel like it’s going to test our character big time, how we bounce back from something like that. I’ve just got to make that tackle.”Such odd situations tend to always be part of unfathomable plays. Jack Tatum deflecting Terry Bradshaw’s pass directly to a spot where Franco Harris can make a shoestring grab and turn the Immaculate Reception into perhaps the most memorable play in pro football history.Or the Giants‘ coaching staff opting to skip a kneel-down and have Joe Pisarcik attempt a handoff to Larry Csonka with the clock running down. Voila: the Miracle at the Meadowlands for Herm Edwards and the Eagles.Or the Music City Miracle in which the Buffalo Bills left the entire left sideline open for Kevin Dyson to take a cross-field lateral and speed to a playoff victory for the Tennessee Titans.Whether this play reaches that level of significance and remembrance remains to be determined. Suffice to say that, for now, it is the play of 2018 — particularly when it happens to and not for the Patriots.Fans just about everywhere outside of the New England region rejoice when the dynasty from Foxborough loses so dramatically and spectacularly. It happened when the Patriots were unbeaten in 2007 and the Giants slayed the AFC giant in the Super Bowl. Same thing four years later. Same thing when the Eagles turned the trick last February.And this was built basically on one improbable play.“They kicked the field goal,” Tannehill explained, “and we have one play, so you know it’s a long shot. Just the emotion of that, and then obviously the elation of seeing KD get in the end zone, it’s pretty much as drastic of emotions as you can get right there, of knowing you don’t have much of a shot to winning the game.”And yet you win.How lasting the impact will be, who knows? As Stills said: “The Miami miracle? I like that, but it means nothing if we don’t finish the season strong and find our way into the playoffs.”As for New England, which was denied clinching its 10th consecutive AFC East crown Sunday, that will come soon enough. This could become a motivator for a team that doesn’t compare on defense to many if not all of the eight Super Bowl qualifiers since Tom Brady became quarterback. Or opponents will look more at what happened before the Drake Escape and see how leaky that D is and find more ways to attack it.“It’s going to test our mental toughness,” Gronkowski said. “I feel like I’ve been going through that all year, and now to get to this point now. We’ve just got to keep working hard. We’ve just got to keep grinding. We’ve got to keep focusing and just come together as a team more. It’s definitely, definitely going to test our mental toughness.”