SPORTS

Outrageous accusations spew from Colts, Patriots fans

You can't make this stuff up. Actually, you can. Because we're pretty sure they did make it up.

Dana Hunsinger Benbow
dana.benbow@indystar.com
Oh, the accusations fans will make for the love of their team.

This story contains loads of outlandish accusations from fans in the heated Colts-Patriots mutual loathing. Don't repeat them at the dinner table. Don't pass them on by the water cooler in the office. Actually, don't believe one word of them.

Illegal protein bars.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck has them in his locker. He eats them to play better and help his beard grow.

What's in them? The anonymous caller couldn't say for sure. But he was certain Luck eats some sort of granola-ey concoction in bar form that's illegal. Positive because a friend of a friend who knows a guy who knows a Colts guy told him.

A quick Google search found no such thing as an illegal protein bar.

Tom Brady — his actions are much worse and more overt than alleged deflating of footballs.

The New England Patriots quarterback keeps $100 bills stuffed in some crevice of a pad in his uniform. As he comes into contact with a referee on the field, he hands the money over. You know? To get better calls in the game.

A quick review of Brady in numerous games does not reveal money being exchanged with a ref.

You can't make this stuff up.

Well, actually, you can. Because, let's be real here, it is made up.

This is the content contained in the emails and phone calls that have poured in to me in the past month leading up to Sunday's game between the Colts and the Patriots.

Of course, angry fan messages had come before, but they had only come sporadically. A random email here. A late-night call there.

But when The Indianapolis Star ran a story last month about an ESPN report that said the Patriots' cheating against the Colts dated back to the Peyton Manning-era Colts, sporadic turned into routine. And reasonable accusations from fans on both sides turned unreasonable and, in many cases, morphed into pure fiction.

Yes. There was cussing involved. The attacks became personal. I was called "an ugly Midwestern pig" and a "whining #$%."

Colts coach Chuck Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012.

But, mostly, people wanted "the truth" to get out about the Colts — or the Patriots.

One Patriots fan who said he was a doctor claimed Colts coach Chuck Pagano "faked his cancer to get the sympathy calls for his team on the field." Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia in September 2012.

"Tell me. How is he suddenly cured? And so quickly? Tell me that," the man said in a voicemail.

One woman (presumably a Colts fan) left a message saying simply this: "Every single one of those Patriots players are going to hell. They do immoral things every night. They spit in God's face."

Some accusations went back to the days of the RCA Dome, before Lucas Oil Stadium (which was built so the Colts could use the retractable roof to "screw with" opposing teams via the weather, said another caller).

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How about an investigative piece on Colts pumping in crowd noise and raising the temp in the RCA Dome?" wrote an emailer. "What's that, it's just an allegation, there's no proof? See how that works? Eyes are on Indy. Crybabies."

And Brady, it seems, has a subtle scheme going on to get one-on-one time with the refs. An emailer had the details.

"I watched Brady last season in non-Colts games, watched him fall at times, watched his teammates watch him on the ground … until a referee came over and helped Brady get up. Over and over, game after game," she wrote. "I doubt the teammates were loathe to help their quarterback up, I just think they were supposed to wait for the referee to do that. These encounters usually ended in a bit of conversation, sometimes a handshake, sometimes a bit more. I think this process/social interaction works to soften the referee's attitude toward Brady. Look for it to reappear this season."

The Deflategate sting operation set up by the Colts was cited by callers in numerous forms. Most notably, the man who said the Colts deflated the balls themselves in the AFC championship game then "ratted out the Patriots."

Oil on the field? The Patriots do that. According to a Colts season ticket holder, "slick field conditions" are employed at Gillette Stadium when the Colts play the Patriots.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," the caller said on the voicemail.

There were more. Plenty more eccentric accusations. But all reeked of over-the-top fandom.

So, we end them here. We had to stop somewhere, right?

Accusers' names (those who left them) and emails were kept anonymous to protect them from being made fun of at the dinner table or by the water cooler.

Follow Star reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow.