It was Nov. 4, 2007, and the Patriots were in Indianapolis for what was billed as the biggest regular-season game evah.

The Pats were 8-0 and coming off a 52-7 dismantling of the Washington Redskins. The Colts were 7-0 and coming off a 31-7 beatdown of the Carolina Panthers.

The Pats were still smarting from their second-half collapse against the Colts in the previous year’s AFC Championship Game, with then-Herald football writer Michael Felger noting that “… the lingering bad taste from that loss should make for an interesting mix in that the Patriots are on a mission to annihilate everything in their path.”

Setting the scene for the Florida Times Union, grizzled NFL reporter Vito Stellino wrote of “superlatives being tossed around like confetti.”

And our main man Bob Kravitz, weighing in for the Indianapolis Star, referred to the Patriots as the “least lovable former champs since Sonny Liston,” and that they “… have positioned themselves as the New Age Oakland Raiders. The difference being that the Raiders were dirty on the field, and the Patriots dirty off it.”

Great stuff, especially the Sonny Liston line. Then as now, the Patriots were frowned upon as “dirty,” with the tsk-tsking in those days being over hidden cameras, not deflated footballs. Toss in then-Colts coach Tony Dungy making an off-hand comparison between Pats coach Bill Belichick and baseball’s preeminent suspected steroid cheat Barry Bonds, and, well, you get the idea: This one was going to be memorably, cataclysmically personal.

Ha.

Folks, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

It wasn’t until early Sunday evening, exactly one second after the Patriots had run their record to 4-0 via a 30-6 victory over the offense-challenged Dallas Cowboys, that it became appropriate for anyone around here to officially start talking up this weekend’s Sunday Night Football offering between the Pats and Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium. Never mind superlatives being tossed around like confetti; it’s going to be more like revenge being tossed around like tire irons.

The Colts, as we all know, are the victims of Tom Brady’s nefarious plot to spirit deflated footballs into last season’s AFC title game. It was for that reason alone that the Pats rolled to a 45-7 victory over the Colts, who apparently got a look and a feel at/of one of the tarnished footballs and dialed 1-800-TACTLESS. (Leaving off the last ‘S’ for savings.)

Hey, kidding. But if Patriots fans were of a mind to go Big Picture on this topic, they’d aim most of their wrath to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. It is, after all, beyond comprehension that the commish is continuing his obsession with Brady while simultaneously taking a classic head-in-the-sand approach to Greg Hardy’s comments about Mrs. Brady and “guns blazing.”

If the Colts felt compelled to drop a dime or two after their Gillette Stadium annihilation in the AFC title game, so be it. All’s fair in love, war, television ratings and, especially, football. But it makes no difference to Pats fans: Sunday’s game is going to be personal in a way that the 2007 Battle of the Undefeateds, which the Pats won 24-20, was not.

Roll back the tape all the way to the aftermath of the 2006 AFC title game, in which the Colts roared back for a 38-34 victory, and you’ll note that there was a decent amount of mutual respect going on. Look even closer and you’ll see the Pats’ Tedy Bruschi seeking out Peyton Manning and speaking directly into the Indianapolis quarterback’s ear; when I later asked Tedy what he said to Manning, he told me that in addition to your standard-issue congratulations he added this: “Now go win your Super Bowl.” Which Manning and the Colts did.

And this past May, two days after the Wells Report was released, Manning didn’t take the bait when quizzed about Brady. Returning to Indianapolis for a charity event, the Denver Broncos quarterback told reporters, “I’ll speak it as clearly and slowly as I can. He’s my friend, he’ll always be my friend. I don’t know what happened, I don’t have much more than that for you.”

But Manning is gone from Indy, and so, too, is even the facade of civility between the two teams.

True, Brady isn’t personally vowing revenge. He gave it the ol’ we’ll-prepare-for-this-like-we-do-any-other-game during his weekly appearance yesterday on WEEI’s “Dennis & Callahan” program.

Brady did speak his mind on Coca-Cola — guaranteeing he’ll never be asked to star in a reboot of the legendary Mean Joe Greene commercial — calling the soft drink “poison for kids.”

Common sense tells us the Indianapolis Colts are also on Tom Brady’s personal list of toxins. But he’ll be saving it for the football field, as he always does.

Everyone else around here will be going crazy.

Break out the tire irons.