Doug Flutie was playing quarterback again Sunday.

Flutie, the New England Patriots' third string quarterback, came off the bench in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game against the Indianapolis Colts and led the Patriots to a 21-17 victory.

Flutie scored the winning touchdown with 13 seconds left in the game. Flutie sent his team right and ran left. No one touched him.

Flutie was doing his job. A job Steve Grogan could not do the previous week. A job Tom Ramsey, who started the game, could not do Sunday.

Flutie was winning a football game. Not an easy task on a team that had won only once before, against three losses, this season.

But Sunday, Flutie was doing more than winning a football game. He was reaffirming the faith people in New England had put in him.

Doug Flutie had risen from the grave, which in this case took the form of a slab of wood beside the football field. He had conquered.

After the game, news casts rolled yards of Flutie footage. The Boston Globe threw a huge headline across its sports page: "It's Flutie to the rescue."

It was only a game--not much of a game at that. It wasn't the Super Bowl. It wasn't a playoff game. It was a game between teams with 1-3 records. Winner gets to be mediocre. Loser stinks.

This was a game not for the heart but for the nostrils. The losing team would have to smell itself for the next week.

Doug Flutie turned in a solid effort. He completed 12 of 16 passes for 132 yards. He threw a touchdown and an interception.

If Steve Grogan had done this, people would have said, "Fine, but your team is only 2-3. Win one next week, then we might say something nice about you."

If Tom Ramsey had done this, people would have said, "Good, but why did you play so poorly in the first three quarters?"

Doug Flutie led his team to two touchdowns. An everyday piece of work for pro quarterbacks.

But nothing Doug Flutie does is everyday. When he touches the ball, all of New England watches his fingers. When he throws the ball, all of New England follows its flight.

When Doug Flutie scores a touchdown, all of New England erupts. When Doug Fluties scores a game winning touchdown...

Doug Flutie is a made-for-New-England hero. His hero status would not survive elsewhere. People in other cities would have lost faith in him, no, even lost interest in him, long ago.

Doug Flutie spent last year on the bench. If he had been riding the pine in Los Angeles, would people have noticed him?

"Who's the small fellow on the bench?"

"Must be the second-string punter."

People elsewhere aren't as likely to invest their dreams in a player so likely to leave them unfulfilled. Flutie was a great college player at Boston College. He won the Heisman Trophy. In his senior year, he threw a 56-yd. touchdown pass to beat the University of Miami, still hailed as "The Miracle in Miami."

But as a pro, he has been a disappointment. Coaches and scouts everywhere said he would be a disappointment. He's not tall enough, they said. He's not big enough. He's not strong enough.

They were right. But New Englanders will never concede this.

With Magic Johnson, a miracle is commonplace. It is too easy to have faith in someone who nearly always delivers.

If you're a Doug Flutie fan, you have to wait. You have to ingore the devlish voice in the back of your brain that says the waiting is in vain. He'll never deliver, the voice says. He may never get the chance to deliver.

He sits. You sit. You both wait. This is faith.

Sunday, Doug Flutie delivered a victory in a game of teams encamped in trenches of mediocrity.

But New Englanders have waited so long, they'll take it. And, what the hell, they'll call it a miracle.