Deep down inside the players minds, I think there’s hate. They’re just better at hiding it these days. BTW- great pic. now I have a face to go with the voice.

How can anyone respect the cheatriots?

They would have had to of fired the Head Coach and GM back when it was revealed. No way will they ever be anything but cheating low lifes.

and I say it because…if any player on the Colts or Patriots became a free agent and had the chance to sign a large contract with the other team…you can be they would.

All this Hate talk is simply stupid!! They don’t hate each other. Too many people misconstrue a highly competitive environment between two teams as “they hate each other”.

Good example…down here on tobacco road we have Duke vs. UNC basketball. One of the most competitive and heated rivalries in the land. However, in the offseason, the players from each team play and practice together….sounds more like respect to me.

The funny thing is…I think there is probably a lot of hate between fans…but fans have no outcome on the game, and really get the least from the game. The players don’t hate the other team. Some fans need to grow up.

When I watch Rodney Harrison and Coach Dungy on TV…I see no hate, animosity…just mutual respect.

First of all, that’s a fan perspective to say it’s all about hate. There’s an old saying about enemy soldiers having more in common with each other than with the citizens of the nations they fight for, and I see that being true here.

Plus, there are documented cases of Pats and Colts players getting along well with each other:

Manning and Brady first hung out together in 2002 at the Quarterback Challenge, a skills competition in Hawaii, and over the course of that week in paradise discovered how much they had in common. After they teamed up in ’06 to successfully petition the NFL to allow visiting quarterbacks to use their own footballs in road games, Tom Brady Sr. told a reporter that his son and Manning were “like soul brothers.”

Theirs is a 21st-century friendship, sustained by text messages and occasional phone calls. During training camp this year they traded texts lamenting their injuries, Brady a bum foot and Manning a bad knee. Before the opener they wished each other luck. And on the morning after the season opener, when Manning knew that Brady was injured but not how severely, he sent wishes for a speedy recovery. By the afternoon, when it became obvious that a speedy recovery was out of the question, Manning recognized that a text message would not do.

“I called him and told him I was sorry,” Manning says. “He got back to me and said it must not have been in the cards for him to play this year.”

(Source)

And as stated above, they not only seem to like each other, they also worked together on that petition. Brady and Manning, at least, get along together quite fine. They may not be weekend hangout buddies, but the animosity is just plain missing.

Let’s also recall the NFL films piece on the 2006 season AFC Championship game in the Hoosier Dome. Specifically, recall Tedy Bruschi’s interview (done at least a year later, I think), where he actually came out and said he was proud of what Manning did that day, how he didn’t cave and just helped wrestle the victory away. That can sound like condescension (although I would argue against that interpretation), but it sure as heck doesn’t sound like hate to me.

There may be a few players on each side that cannot stand the other. And undoubtedly, each team gets worked up when the other one bests them. But calling it hate? Sorry, but I simply don’t see that here. I see it elsewhere; I grew up in Indiana and have been in scuffles after basketball games due to rivalries. I went to Indiana U and have seen how hot the IU-Purdue rivalry can be (although personally, I myself wouldn’t call that one hate, just intense at times). I know how intense the Colts-Patriots rivalry is. But I only really see hate amongst the fan bases. I’ve not seen any among the players, but to go further and argue against the rebuttal that they might be hiding it well, I point out what I did above: That there’s public record of them admiring and cooperating with each other. I don’t see any player hate here, people. At all. Maybe I’m missing something. But I doubt it. The evidence suggests otherwise.

A little respect. A lot of hate. 5%/85% ratio.

a finger? a leg? a stick? a head? maracas?

http://www.colts.com/sub.cfm?page=injuryreport