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FOXBORO -- Granted, Tom Brady won't be lining up in Richard Seymour's spot Sunday, so his ``battle'' with Peyton Manning won't be conducted personally.

Playing against the highly productive quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday's AFC divisional playoff game (4:30 p.m.; Ch. 4, 12) is more a matter of comparison, the Patriots' two-time Super Bowl MVP said.

``Individual matchups between quarterbacks never play out,'' Brady said Tuesday at Gillette Stadium. ``When you play in playoff games, the quarterback who plays better usually does win the game.''

In six playoff games -- or 5 1/2, depending upon how you look at his abbreviated-by-injury performance against Pittsburgh in the 2001 AFC Championship Game -- Brady has been the better quarterback, besting the likes of Manning, Rich Gannon, Kordell Stewart, Kurt Warner, Steve McNair and Jake Delhomme in their de facto showdowns.

But the truth of the matter is that Brady needs not concern himself with the fellow in his role on the other team unless, in the course of performing his own duties, he surrenders the ball to his opponent and gives his opposite number a chance to perform with it. ``When you play very good teams and you're making mistakes, they just get multiplied,'' Brady said. ``You throw an interception against the Colts, it's like throwing three or four against some of the worst teams in the league. That's what playoff football is, The other teams are just so much more ready to pounce on your errors.

``When you play a guy like Peyton, you don't want to give him the ball too much ... any more than he should have it,'' he said.