FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Bill Belichick is droll, despised, arrogant, aloof, a sore sport and the smartest guy in the modern era to watch football film.

Belichick is so smart, he often outsmarts Peyton Manning. That’s pretty smart.

It’s not fair to say Tom Brady has gotten the better of Manning in their head-to-head quarterback rivalry. Brady has the defensive-minded genius Belichick on his side.

It’s a 2-on-1 fight.

The record will show Brady leads Manning 11 games to five in the matchup of the league’s best quarterbacks of the past 20 years. And there’s no doubt, Brady usually is terrific against Manning’s teams.

In the Patriots’ 43-21 victory Sunday at windy, chilly Gillette Stadium, Brady completed 33-of-53 passes for 333 yards with four touchdowns and one interception.

“Brady’s better!” the Patriots crowd chanted in the fourth quarter.

Hold on, Patriot breath. Brady also has won games against Manning’s teams in which he threw for 168, 144 and 186 yards.

That would suggest a third guy in the rivalry.

“I’m sure there were a lot of different things that we did tonight with different players to try to keep them off-balance a little bit,” Belichick said. ” I thought our players did a good job of communicating those changeups and adjustments.

“Obviously, we had a few problems out there, but I think we got a few of them right and caused them problems somewhere along the line, at least I hope we did.”

PHOTOS: Best images from Broncos-Patriots

The play of the game was a second-quarter interception by New England defensive end Rob Ninkovich.

“That was a huge play,” Belichick said.

Again, that’s defensive end Rob Ninkovich. The Broncos were up 7-6 with a first down at their 35 when Manning tried to lead Demaryius Thomas on a medium-range pass down the right seam.

Manning never saw Ninkovich. That’s because defensive ends don’t ordinarily drop a good 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. Ninkovich’s interception and return set up a go-ahead Patriots touchdown — a Brady pass to Julian Edelman.

The Patriots never trailed again.

“It was a zone blitz,” Manning said. “He was in the right place at the right time. I give him credit. I can’t make that throw. It was bad, bad football by me.”

“You have to change up what you do against Peyton Manning,” Belichick said. “You just can’t do the same thing all day.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Manning has been stunningly brilliant the past two seasons. It seems no one has ever played the quarterback position better. In 15 regular-season games last season against non-Belichick opponents, Manning has averaged 355 yards and 3.6 passing touchdowns.

In the one game against Belichick’s Patriots here last season, Manning threw for 150 yards and two touchdowns.

Against the Patriots Sunday, Manning threw two interceptions that led to 14 points. Granted, the second interception was a flat drop by Broncos and former Patriots receiver Wes Welker.

Still, isn’t it strange how so much bizarre, rotten luck often happens against Belichick’s Patriots?

“You’ve got to do it every week,”Manning said. “I mean, I’ve been doing it pretty well every week. We’ve been executing on Sundays. Doing what we’re taught to do.But you’ve got to do it every week.”

In 16 games head-to-head against Manning — a regular season’s worth — Brady has thrown 31 touchdown passes against only 13 interceptions for 4,013 yards and 96.5 rating.

Give Brady his props. But in those same 16 games, Manning has 33 touchdown passes against 22 interceptions for an 87.4 rating.

Give credit there to Belichick.

The result for Manning Sunday was as predictable as two-on-one.

Mike Klis: mklis@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mikeklis