Ever since Indianapolis head coach Jim Caldwell decided winning the Super Bowl was more important than a perfect record, the pressure on the Colts has continued to mount.

INDIANAPOLIS — Dwight Freeney doesn't need a calendar to tell him its playoff time.

He just walks into the Colts locker room and hears all those old questions about early playoff exits, the failures after first-round byes, and the only goal that is supposed to matter to the Colts: winning a Super Bowl.

It must be January, even if this year's questions come with a new caveat.

Since Indianapolis tossed away its chance at perfection to focus on another Lombardi Trophy, the pressure has been mounting steadily from adamant fans and analysts who now contend anything less than a Super Bowl victory will be a total failure.

"On a scale of one to 10, we've put a 10 on this," Freeney said, referring to winning it all.

Sure, the Super Bowl-or-bust attitude is an annual rallying cry in locker rooms around the league, including here, but it's never been this cut and dry publicly in Indianapolis.

This season, Indy (14-2) has broken NFL records for consecutive regular-season wins (23), most wins in a decade (115) and extended its own record of consecutive 12-win seasons to seven. It still owns those shiny rings from the 2006 season, had six players make the Pro Bowl and Peyton Manning leading the show.

Yet most fans will tell you only there's only way to make things right: Win.

"The ultimate goal is to get to the Super Bowl and win," defensive linemen Raheem Brock said. "Sixteen and oh sounds great, but I don't really care what the record is because no one remembers that. Unless, of course, you're 16-0."

What Indy has done, even it brings home another world championship, is provide critics with a lifetime supply of ammunition to question the pass on perfection.

Two weeks ago, with unbeaten Indianapolis holding a 15-10 lead and less than six quarters away from a perfect regular season, coach Jim Caldwell pulled his starters against the New York Jets. Indy lost 29-15, setting off a national controversy.

Fans lashed out on radio talk shows and some criticized team president Bill Polian, architect of the Colts, on his own weekly show. Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday, a fan favorite, said he understood the fans' ire, and Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne joked that the Colts may have been the first 14-1 team to get booed at home. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell weighed in, too, saying the league may consider adding incentives for teams to play their stars in late-season games.

Why did the Colts do it?

"Sixteen and oh was inconsequential to us," Polian told his radio audience Dec. 28. "No. 1, it's something that no football person thinks is realistic. No. 2, it's been done before by the Miami Dolphins, who won the Super Bowl, and by the New England Patriots, who didn't win the Super Bowl. Coach Caldwell and myself repeated over and over and over again that it was not something we felt was important, it was not something we owed anyone, including our fans. We felt that the best thing we could do to reward our fans was with the milestones and give ourselves the best chance in the playoffs."

Since then, fans have tempered their responses and everyone from team owner Jim Irsay to Manning to Polian has engaged in damage control. After Sunday's 30-7 loss in a Buffalo snowstorm, a game Indy likely would have pulled its starters even if it was 15-0 and may have lost anyway, Manning said he hoped fans would "forgive" the Colts for what transpired against the Jets.